Community Based Programming and Narratives of Resistance

Community Programing

• Community Programing
• Fieldwork notes
• Strategies

Community Programing

• increase demand for community programing
• community placed vs based
• community models in medical anthropology
• Puerto Rican Chicago

“…you’re giving them a service …which is basic-- basic blood pressure--but it was still something that they didn’t know and we were giving it to them for a free cost..."
“…the community seems to lack …education on how diabetes affects blood pressure, (and) cholesterol--they don’t associate these three”

Yo estoy, ya siete años en diálisis; por la diabetes me llevaron los riñones”
‘I am 7 years now on dialysis, the diabetes took my kidneys’

"…esto es como un cáncer..un dia me llegue a comer comida China, cunado me dio (la diabetes), que esa cosa fue como… que me quería morir. Que era una exageración que yo decía, yo me voy a caer!"
'...this is like a cancer...on day I went to eat Chinese food when it (the diabetes) hit me, and that was like...I wanted to die. It was like an exaggeration that I would say I'm going to fall!'

"A mi la diabetes no me ha afectado. Por echo la diabetes me ayudo para ser mas saludable"
‘Having diabetes has not affected me, actually it has helped me to be more healthy’

“Tengo mas o menos controllada la diabetes, o ella me controlla a mi.”
‘I have more or less controlled my diabetes or she controls me’
“… yo la tengo bien, bien controlada; 115, 108, 109”
‘I have it very, very controlled, 115, 108, 109’

“Yo coji la diabetes mas por la mal alimentación…Yo no me desayunaba nunca… venia a comer a las dos y a las tres de la tarde. Todo el dia sin comer, tomando mucha agua, pero no. Y aquí es, cuando fue que encontraro la mal alimentación”
‘I got diabetes more because of bad nourishment…I would never eat breakfast…I’d eat at 2 or 3 in the afternoon…all day without eating, drinking lots of water…and that is when they found bad nourishment’

“…hacen pa’ cinco años que me descubrieron la diabetes, yo pienso que fue por los nervios. Porque a veces la diabetes sale a lo emocional”
‘It’s been 5 years since they found diabetes in me, I think it was because of nerves. Because sometimes diabetes comes through emotions’ .

Diabetes Specific Strategies

• moringa
• juicing
• excercising
• cutting pills
• food trade

Beyond Diabetes Management

• volunteering
• dominos
• bingo
• music instrument

“la diabetes te cambia la vida completamente. Eso es mandatorio. Porque te mata”
‘Diabetes changes your life completely. It is mandatory. Because it can kill you,’

Concluding Thoughts

THANK YOU!!
Lilian Milanes
Department of Anthropology
University of Kentucky