by KATE DANIELS KURZ
Indigenous Oaxacan and Michoacan people may speak languages including Mixtec, Kanjobal, Acateco, Chuj, Nahuatl, Purepecha and Tlapanec. Photograph courtesy of Indigenous Interpreting+, a service of Natividad Medical Foundation.
Natividad Medical Center, located in Salinas, California – the heart of California’s “Salad Bowl” – is one of the state’s 19 public safety net hospitals. Providing healthcare services to patients regardless of their ability to pay, Natividad primarily serves Latinos in Monterey County, specifically farmworkers and their families who have migrated north in search of work from Central and South America.
When I think of farmworkers and their families, I think of women wearing homemade face masks of various colored bandannas to shield their faces from the sun and the sometimes leering eyes of male coworkers. I think of white buses with port-a-potties trailing rear doors parked alongside highways that line lettuce fields. And I think about Spanish – the Spanish language, the songs playing from the radio and out car doors, or heard at local Mexican restaurants and spoken in line at the grocery store.
Yet one day, while shopping at the Super Max in Castroville, I was surprised to hear a couple in line speaking an indigenous language, not Spanish. This Super Max, a small town grocery store that offers many Mexican food items at a discount, is located in the artichoke capital of the world. Nearby artichokes grow alongside strawberries that fuel the economy with which this young woman and man were most likely connected.
It quickly became clear that the checker, alternating between Spanish and English, was unable to communicate with the couple. They were likely two of the over 685,000 Latinos of indigenous origin residing in the United States.
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