Latino health

LOS ANGELES – A coalition of civil rights advocates Tuesday called for a federal investigation of California’s Medicaid program, alleging that it discriminates against millions of low-income Latinos by denying them equal access to health care.

This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit national health policy news service. 

Celia Aguilar wears a long, loosely fitted white dress with touches of red embroidery and red bandanas tied around her head and waist. The 29-year-old Chicana dances alongside men wearing large, feathered headdresses, the seashells on their ankles rattling. Here in El Paso, Texas, they gather in a ritual of Danza Azteca, an Aztec dance preserved in Mexican culture. 

Luis and Miriam Sierra are originally from Colombia, but they’ve lived in New York City for decades. About ten years ago, Miriam began to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

“It’s necessary to help her with everything: bathing her, dressing her, feeding her,” said her husband,  Luis Sierra. “It’s very hard.”

LOS ANGELES – Late on a Friday night at The New Jalisco Bar downtown, a drag show featuring dancers dressed in sequined leotards and feathered headdresses had drawn a crowd — most of them gay Latino men.

Inside the bar and out, three health workers chatted with customers, casually asking questions: Do you know about the HIV prevention pill? Would you consider taking it? A few men said they had never heard of it. Others simply said it wasn’t for them.