Lupe Cores and Cristian Ramon

Lupe remembered reading Angels in Pink by Lurlene McDaniel, the story of high school friends who volunteer in the oncology unit of a hospital. Lupe convinced Cristian that they should do the same. They walked into their local hospital and caused some confusion at the front desk. The woman who greeted them thought they must be attempting to fill school-required community service hours. When Cristian and Lupe told her they had already completed their school’s required hours and were simply interested in volunteering, she seemed perplexed and said they would have to fill out an application and run a background check. Cristian and Lupe left dejected, but luckily, their high school counselor introduced them to Mary Jo Ybarra-Vega at Quincy Community Health Center.

Now, Cristian and Lupe are Community Health Promoters with Quincy, helping to educate farm workers about their health options, rights, and needs. Topics range from pesticide protection, alleviating headaches, safety ladders and more. This work hits home for Cristian and Lupe, whose parents immigrated to Washington from Mexico. Cristian and Lupe have both worked picking fruit with their parents. Lupe says she only lasted five minutes in the field and remembers that experience as motivation to keep studying. Not only have the girls been invaluable contributors at Quincy because of their experience and knowledge of farm life, but they have also been able to bring the health education they’ve acquired at Quincy home to share with their family.

Recently, Cristian and Lupe traveled to Seattle to accept a Heroes in Health award on behalf of all Health Promoters at Quincy Community Health Center. At a star-studded event, they admitted feeling like they didn’t belong. “Coming from my background, I felt like we should’ve been serving instead of the one in the pretty dress getting the award,” said Cristian. Thankfully, a friend reminded them that day after day, they did the same hard work as everyone else and were just as deserving of the award.

Having just graduated high school, Cristian and Lupe are determined to continue forward together, helping each other through college, grad school, medical school, and maybe even starting their own clinic one day. While other teenagers may be home worrying about clothes and dates, Lupe and Cristian are strengthening the health of their families and their community. They said they feel lucky to be here in the United States, where they can fulfill their dreams to help others.

Santiago left Mexico and traveled to the United States, as he said, “para buscar una cosa diferente,” to find something different. While working on the farms of the Yakima Valley in Washington state, Santiago saved his money and brought his family to start a new life.

Many years later Ricardo asked his father how it felt to watch each of his eleven children graduate from high school and go onto too college.  Santiago responded, “Me emociono tanto ver como las cosas pueden mejorar con esfuerzo,” I am so excited to see how things can improve with effort. “Eso para mi era como un milagro, haberme yo con tan poquita escuela, tan poquita oportunidad. Me han negado mucho por la falta de la escuela, pero a mis hijos no.” That for me was like a miracle, having so little school, so little opportunity. I have been denied many things for my lack of education, but my children will not be.

Santiago strongly believes that, “La mejor herencia es la escuela.” The best inheritance is school.

This week Liz Forrer interviewed her friend Marie Magnuson in Wenatchee to learn a little bit more about her friend, and her timing couldn’t have been better. It turns out that Marie’s Aunt Nora was the founder of Father’s Day! Marie’s father’s father, William Jackson Smart, and his wife lived in Eastern Washington with their 11 children. When his wife died suddenly, William was left to care for his children alone. Marie remembers him as a doting grandfather, who even gifted her a horse. Marie’s Aunt Nora was so grateful for her father who had raised her and her siblings so tirelessly, she thought that he deserved a day as much as mothers. And so she fought and advocated to honor all father’s with a day.

Pictured above are the festivities just outside the MobileBooth, at the Wenatchee Performing Arts Center,  which Northwest Public Radio organized to greet StoryCorps to the city. The opening day shindig was complete with baskets of apples on every table. NWPR has also put together a slide-show with an audio clip from the first interview with Harriet Bullitt and Wilfred Woods. The Woods family shares a three-generation legacy of running the Wenatchee World, one of the few remaining family-owned newspapers in the country. Wilfred Woods’ father played an instrumental role in making Wenatchee the apple capital by advocating for the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, which irrigates much of the region, as well as providing hydroelectric power.

Today Facilitator Carl Scott and I talked about StoryCorps with two other local radio stations, La Super Z, , and Apple FM. We are looking forward to hearing more stories from the folks that live and work in the Wenatchee Valley.