news

Nuestra Salud

Published on October 17, 2001

A Healthy Choice for Latina Lesbians

Getting routine gynecological check-ups was not a priority for thirtysomething Isobel -- until she started bleeding from her vagina. To Nilda, age 45, her partner's physical and verbal abuse was an expression of love -- until a friend suggested otherwise.

Both women are Latina lesbians, and members of a sisterhood that persistently falls through the cracks of the American health and mental health care system. Apprehension about revealing their bodies and their sexuality to a strange doctor, particularly one who doesn't speak Spanish, is one reason. Misinformation and lack of education also play a part. Isobel, for one, long believed what her mother had always told her: if she wasn't having sex with a man, she didn't need to see a gynecologist.

Fortunately, their stories ended happily. Isobel's fibroid tumors were detected and removed. Nilda ended her destructive relationship with the help of counseling and the support of her friends. Now both women talk candidly about their experiences in NUESTRA SALUD/OUR HEALTH, a video series intended for use by providers of preventive care outreach, education, and service to lesbian Latinas.

Varying in length from 13-18 minutes, the six videotapes that make up NUESTRA SALUD [SEE BELOW] sensitively and powerfully touch upon many aspects of women's health, from drug use, mental health, and domestic violence to preventive care, safe sex, and breast exams. Through dramatic vignettes, comments by professional caregivers, and interviews with Spanish-speaking lesbians -- immigrants and American-born -- the tapes also reveal the cultural and psychological barriers that keep Latina lesbians from tending to their bodies and themselves.

Producers Teresa Cuadra, a family physician in residency at a New York City hospital, and Suzanne Newman, a videographer and lesbian activist, aim to motivate their target audience to make preventive care a priority. They also want to educate health care providers who are unfamiliar with the needs and culture of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. The long-term goal of NUESTRA SALUD, as Cuadra describes it, is "to empower Latina lesbians to take charge of their physical and emotional well-being, to be proud of who they are, and to demand the quality, enlightened health care that each of us deserves."

Why aren't many Latina lesbians already in charge of their physical and mental health? The answer seems to be largely one of culture. "Many Latinas believe that you only go to the OB-GYN when you're sick or dying," Newman explains. "And that when you do go, you always get bad news." Even doing simple, at-home screening procedures like a breast self-exam is often resisted: according to Newman, many Latinas have been raised to think it's sinful to touch themselves. "Through NUESTRA SALUD, we're teaching that a breast self-exam is not sexual, it's about taking care of yourself. At the same time, we're teaching health care providers to be sensitive to the particular culture of Latina lesbians. For a doctor to say, hey, here's how to examine your breast, and leave it at that, just won't work with these women."

Originally, Cuadra and Newman intended to make a single, 20-minute videotape on the subject. But the more research they did, the more ambitious the project became. "We discovered that there are not many resources for lesbians on health, and even fewer resources for Latinas," the producers recall. "That's when we realized that this should be a short form series that was usable in a classroom or workshop setting."

Cuadra and Newman also realized they needed an unconventional distribution approach to get the tapes into the hands, the families, and the communities of the people who need them most. In short order, they formed an alliance with LLEGÓ -- Latina/o lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Organization -- a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group with a network of 172 affiliates across the country that tackles social, health, and political issues affecting the LGBT community. Through LLEGÓ 's national infrastructure, a health promotion initiative centered around the series was launched.

The linchpin of this initiative involves developing teams of promotoras (peer health educators) to organize screenings at house parties, community centers, and schools, and to lead discussions and workshops about the health issues raised. To date, with assistance from the New York State Department of Health, the NUESTRA SALUD producers have recruited and trained twelve promotoras -- lesbian and bisexual Latinas ranging in age from 22 to 56 -- in the New York area. Armed with the tapes, discussion guides, and an ever-expanding resource handbook, the counselors, in pairs, will run at least two workshops in their communities in the upcoming year. The next goal, according to the producers, is to raise enough money to replicate the promotora model in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and to fine-tune their training curriculum.

Simultaneously, from LLEGÓ headquarters in D.C., Marta Alvarado, the organization's South Regional Field Manager and in-house coordinator of the NUESTRA SALUD outreach program, conducts monthly platicas (workshops). In addition to seeing and talking about the tapes, participants get informational handouts and are referred to local, Spanish-speaking health care providers. "When we take these tapes out into the community, we get a lot of thank-you's," Alvarado reports. LLEGÓ has also secured an in-kind contribution of free tapes for workshop participants to take home and share with friends and partners.

A second key strategy of the outreach plan is to make the series and the workshop materials known to health care professionals and social service providers, as well as to distribute the tapes to medical schools, patient care libraries, and health care institutions. Cuadra, Newman, and Alvarado have already conducted presentations at various medical conferences around the country, particularly those that focus on health issues in the gay and lesbian community. To continue reaching health care providers, the producers are hunting for new sources of funding. (Members of the Mediarights.org community who can point them in the right direction are encouraged to get in touch.)

Conventional distribution methods have been tapped as well. The Domestic Violence video, number 4 in the series, has been particularly well-received at gay and lesbian festivals in Europe, Canada, and other parts of the U.S. To the producers' astonishment and delight, a variety of grassroots organizations that work on women's issues -- in the United States and Latin America -- are now using the tapes. Cuadra and Newman, who labored four years to complete them, are gratified. "We are stunned," Suzanne Newman says, "by the immensity of the need for spaces for women to come together - especially lesbian Latinas - to feel supported and talk about their common concerns."