The Family Of Doctors Crosses Cultural And National Borders Poem by Oscar Mireles

Juanita was from a small town in southern California
traveled a long distance to find an education
in the Midwest on her way to become a family practitioner
the only one in her medical school class
who didn’t have their sights on bigger things

Hiding out in Minnesota, she’s playing doctor
to the migrant farm workers, who bring a truckload full
of children and relatives to her office which is located in a tent
these migrants pick cherries, potatoes and onions
stand in the middle of pesticide infested crops
with no shelter from the august sun

It is set in her mind that a doctor can do special things…miracles
with people’s lives, touch them, give them dignity
she remembers when she was young
how they treated the migrants in rural California
at the Hospitals, forcing them to be ashamed to be sick
refusing to provide health care because they were only ‘migrants’

At age thirteen she made a promise
not to her parents, who were always at her side
nor to a childhood friend, who’s now just a mom to three children
but to an old man named Gonzalo
who used to sit on a green porch with two steps missing
across the street from her parents’ house
and who would tell her stories of his life
as a curandero, a folk healer
and how the neighbors were so proud
that he was a part of the community