About Us: History

The Death of one Baby; the Birth of a Movement

Above,L-R: Maria Borrero, founding director of the Hispanic Health Council, 1978-1987, Jeannette B. DeJesus, president and CEO of the Hispanic Health Council, 2002-present, Candida Flores, executive director of the Hispanic Health Council 1988-1993. Not pictured, Rolando Martinez, executive director, 1994-2002.

Over two agonizing days in January 1973 a mother visited two Hartford emergency rooms begging doctors in Spanish to treat her 8-month-old baby who she feared was critically sick with vomiting and diarrhea.

Before she could return a third time, the baby was dead.

Rosa Maria Rivera died at 3 a.m. in a police cruiser on the way back to a hospital that had earlier sent the family home with instructions for the baby's care in English. The cause of death: dehydration.

The baby's mother, Ana Aldorondo, later said she was convinced that mistakes in the child's care occurred because the family could not speak English.

At the time, Hartford’s Puerto Rican population was growing rapidly as migrant farm workers drawn to rural Connecticut to pick shade tobacco began settling in the city where low-skill jobs in factories and office buildings offered better wages and opportunities.

By 1970, almost half of the Puerto Ricans in Hartford were under 18 years old. Yet classes in the city’s public schools were conducted only in English. Bringing Spanish-speaking teachers and bi-lingual education into the schools, ending discriminatory rules that kept Puerto Ricans out of the police and fire departments and bringing Puerto Rican representation into the city government consumed activists in those early days.

While Puerto Ricans faced indignities in the city’s hospitals and clinics every day, the magnitude of the health care gap did not come to the surface until Baby Rosa Maria died.

“It was an awakening,’’ said Maria Borrero, the first director of the Hispanic Health Council. “It’s one thing to die of disease, it’s another to die of dehydration.’’

Borrero was a young professional and chairwoman of La Casa De Puerto Rico, an organization that at the time was the catalyst for much of the community activism and organizing on behalf of Hartford’s Puerto Ricans. In response to the death, La Casa formed the Puerto Rican Health Committee to push city hospitals to address the cultural and linguistic barriers that alienated Puerto Ricans from the health care system. Only a few small steps were taken, however, before concerns about education and jobs again overshadowed the effort.

Rats, big ones

Making Hartford’s health care system more responsive to Puerto Ricans got renewed attention in 1976 when Stephen Schensul, an anthropologist from the University Of Connecticut School of Medicine, proposed using research to document the community’s needs and design interventions.

Led by Borrero, Schensul and a small, but energetic group of activists, students, and UConn faculty, the Puerto Rican Health Committee won a $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to study Puerto Rican health beliefs and how the community accessed health care in Hartford. Two years later, the group secured a grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to hire a full-time program director and the Hispanic Health Council was born.

The council’s first office was a rundown storefront not far from the present location at the gateway to Hartford’s heavily Latino Park Street neighborhood. “We had rats, big ones, and roaches,’’ recalled Borrero, who became the council’s first director.

While the offices were far from plush, the organization grew quickly, strengthened by research findings that illuminated alarming health inequities.

In October, 1980, the council released the first findings from its NIMH-funded research – a shocking study of two poor Hartford neighborhoods where half of the Puerto Rican women surveyed had been surgically sterilized.

The rate, which was much higher than expected, received widespread media attention and prompted changes in state laws requiring informed consent in the patient’s native language, as well as counseling and a waiting period before surgical sterilization could be performed. The findings and subsequent work on behalf of the oppressed residents of Hartford solidified the Hispanic Health Council’s reputation not only as a respected voice in community-based public health research, but as a leader in the cause of social justice.

“This galvanized the community; we would devote our lives to ensure that our community would never have to suffer these indignities again,’’ said Jeannette B. DeJesús, who became president and CEO of the Hispanic Health Council in 2002 _ the council’s fourth leader since it’s founding.

“This is what provides the rationale for this being a social justice organization, not just a health organization,’’ DeJesus said.

A champion of progressive causes

Over the next 20 years, the counsel’s focus evolved, guided by research results and issues of the times. But even after the council stopped leading street protests, its commitment to eliminating health disparities never wavered.

The identification of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, for example, led to research and services that made the council a leader in HIV and AIDS knowledge, prevention, and care and a pioneer in the concept of clean needle exchange as a strategy for preventing HIV/AIDS in intravenous drug abusers.

Since its inception, the council also has conducted groundbreaking work in areas including: alcohol abuse and smoking among Puerto Rican teenagers; child-abuse prevention; hunger, food insecurity and nutrition practices and beliefs; substance abuse during pregnancy; and many others. Through research of its own community, the council has been able to match its programs to the community's needs, thereby building trust and respect among the people it serves.

The ability to work cooperatively with partners at all levels from low-income neighborhoods to academic research centers was pivotal in 2005, when the Hispanic Health Council initiated a partnership with The University of Connecticut to establish the  Center for Eliminating Health Disparities Among Latinos.

The National Institutes of Health National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities launched the center in October 2005 with an $8.25 million, five-year grant to Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, UConn associate professor of nutritional sciences, The Hispanic Health Council and Hartford Hospital. Since its inception, the NIH-Export Center for Eliminating Health Disparities Among Latinos  has conducted research and published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals. One important activity is a randomized community longitudinal trial at Hartford Hospital examining the impact of home-based peer counseling on behavioral, metabolic, and health outcomes among inner-city Latinos with Type 2 diabetes. In addition to its scientific contribution toward reducing health disparities, this study serves as a prime mechanism for CEHDL’s training and outreach activities. Hispanic Health Council employees provide the peer support. In 2006, HHC formalized its advocacy efforts with the addition of the Latino Policy Institute (LPI) to press for systems change, the elimination of health disparities, and the guarantee of high-quality health care for everybody. In November, 2008, the LPI hosted Connecticut’s first Latino Health Summit and subsequently led a statewide coalition that successfully pushed the Connecticut General Assembly to pass legislation that requires reimbursement for medical interpreters for low-income patients through Medicaid. Although the victory came 26 years too late for Baby Rosa Maria and her family, and there are still no guarantees that the state will come up with enough money to provide meaningful medical interpretation for everybody who needs it, the Hispanic Council is proud of its efforts to make sure not one more baby ever dies because his or her parents cannot navigate the health care system.

Our Logo: The Coqui

Like most everything at The Hispanic Health Council, our logo dates back to the early 1970s, when Puerto Rican migrants were changing the face of Hartford. The city's complexion has since evolved, with immigrants from Mexico and Latin America joining Puerto Ricans in large numbers. Our doors are open to everybody and our mission to improve the health and well-being of Latinos and other diverse communities encompasses all. Still, the coqui, the unofficial mascot of Puerto Rico and a symbol of fertility in Taino Indian mythology, endures as our salute to resilience, tradition and our roots. The coqui gets its name from the shrill sound it makes at night, "ko-kee, ko-kee." The name and the sound are virtually synonymous with the little frog. Actually, the name coqui describes not one type of amphibian, but more than 600 species of tiny tree frog, sixteen of which can be found in Puerto Rico. So much like the people we serve, the coqui varies widely in color, its diversity contributing to its survival. And although it is small, some measuring less than an inch from snout to toe, its voice is strong. On warm evenings in Puerto Rico, the symphony of a million coqui fills the air. It is a sound Puerto Ricans carry in their hearts wherever they go.

The Hispanic Health Council Milestones 1978 - 1999

Milestones 1978 - 1999

Written by Merrill Singer with assistance from Rolando Martinez, Laura Victoria-Barrera, Grace Damio, Maria Serrano and Carmen Dosal