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Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and

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Speaker 1: Kurturre Latino USA.

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Speaker 2: Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa.

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Speaker 1: We bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered

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Speaker 1: to you, overlooked by the rest of the media, and

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Speaker 1: while the country is struggling to deal with these, we

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Speaker 1: listen to the stories of Black and Latino Studios United,

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Speaker 1: Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of

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Speaker 1: the movement. I'm Maria Inojosa, ge Paso Latino USA. Listener Gostas.

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Speaker 1: Today we continue our look at thirty years of impactful

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Speaker 1: journalism made right here on Latino USA. This time it's

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Speaker 1: an award winning episode from our archives. Here's Alzheimer's in color.

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Speaker 2: Hello, So this is my life. Every week I have

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Speaker 2: a skype call into my mom's nursing home in the Bronx. Hi, Mommy,

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Speaker 2: it's Yvonne ybond Eha. Each call starts more or less

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Speaker 2: the same. I reintroduced myself to my mother and remind

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Speaker 2: her that this is her daughter, Yvonne speaking. How are

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Speaker 2: you feeling? This is Margo.

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Speaker 3: Margita Dunieta, my younger daughter Margot is on this call

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Speaker 3: and we are trying to get my mom to recognize us.

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Speaker 2: She's got Alzheimer's disease and it's been hell, and COVID

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Speaker 2: nineteen has made it worse. The last time I saw

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Speaker 2: her in person was in March. She knew who I was.

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Speaker 2: Then it was a week before the coronavirus shut down

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Speaker 2: in New York City, where she lives.

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Speaker 4: We wants to inform you that we have the senior

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Speaker 4: confirmation that an individual at Best Abraham's Center has been

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Speaker 4: diagnosed with COVID nineteen.

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Speaker 2: And now I get endless robo calls telling me that

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Speaker 2: the virus is in her nursing home. People are dying there.

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Speaker 2: I know I am losing her every second of every

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Speaker 2: day if COVID doesn't take her Alzheimer's will.

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Speaker 5: While we understand the inconvenience this may cause, it is

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Speaker 5: crucial that we restrict visitations to reduce the spread of

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Speaker 5: this virus.

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Speaker 2: And it sucks, and the sky calls her hard. She

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Speaker 2: is distant, unfocused. She can barely speak a few words

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Speaker 2: and they rarely make sense. I was told to use

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Speaker 2: music to reach her, Mama. She loves Latin music, she

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Speaker 2: loves to dance, and so I try my Mom's name

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Speaker 2: is Ramona Laddie or Ramanita Mota Laddie or Ramona Novelli

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Speaker 2: Amota Haemo send Laddie if I want to tease.

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Speaker 5: Her, noamnt.

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Speaker 2: Nova Nova Nova Oi Oi, Novelia Oi a very ugly name.

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Speaker 2: You used to tell me when I was a kid.

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Speaker 2: You hated your middle name. She's eighty seven and it's

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Speaker 2: been four years now since she was diagnosed. Four years

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Speaker 2: of the lonely journey, which in the end, I walk

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Speaker 2: alone because my mom has no idea what day it is,

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Speaker 2: what year it is, how old she is, or where

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Speaker 2: she is.

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Speaker 5: You don't know who I am.

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Speaker 2: You promised me you were never gonna forget me, and

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Speaker 2: look at you not forgetting me. Thanks a lot.

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Speaker 1: From Fudro Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria

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Speaker 1: Nojosa Today. An intimate an intergenerational portrait of one woman's

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Speaker 1: journey with Alzheimer's and her family's commitment to remembering her life.

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Speaker 1: For many aging Latinos, Latinas and African Americans, Alzheimer's disease

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Speaker 1: has become one of the leading health crises. Access to healthcare,

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Speaker 1: pre existing conditions, the quality of institutions that help aging

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Speaker 1: people of color. All of these disparities become amplified by

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Speaker 1: a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. As more people live longer, the

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Speaker 1: challenges around Alzheimer's keep growing. Experts predict that by twenty

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Speaker 1: sixty there could be an over eight hundred percent growth

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Speaker 1: of Latinos with this incurable degenerative form of dementia. For

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Speaker 1: journalist Ivon Latin, this story is personal. Her mother, Ramona Latti,

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Speaker 1: was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in twenty sixteen. Yvonne has been

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Speaker 1: documenting her mother's illness and brings us this intimate portrait

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Speaker 1: of her mom's life before and after Alzheimer's.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Ola, I love my mom, I really really do.

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Speaker 2: I can't say I have understood her or the decisions

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Speaker 2: she's made. I can't say she understood me either. I

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Speaker 2: can't say we belong on a latinx American experienced Hallmark card,

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Speaker 2: or that our mother daughter bond is unique. She pissed

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Speaker 2: me off and could be a pain in the ass.

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Speaker 2: I know she would say that about me too. You know,

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Speaker 2: the teen that likes to wear black and locks herself

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Speaker 2: in her messy room with her headphones on. All the

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Speaker 2: time that was me. We had some epic battles, for sure.

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Speaker 2: In some ways, I think we were the same person,

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Speaker 2: living different extremes, each wanting so much more than what

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Speaker 2: is expected of women like us. My mom faced dirt,

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Speaker 2: poor poverty in the Dominican Republic where she was born.

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Speaker 2: She joined a wave of immigration to the US at nineteen,

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Speaker 2: and she surpassed every challenge thrown her way. I'm not

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Speaker 2: ashamed to say I am desperate to connect with her,

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Speaker 2: to understand her story and make it mine. Until the

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Speaker 2: world Ramona Laddie, my mom matters. My name is, said

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Speaker 2: Ramona Latti. That was just four years ago, whilst going happens,

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Speaker 2: going to happen. I'm mad. I watch you though, might

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Speaker 2: sort of thing any see, don't worry, don't march. This

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Speaker 2: was right after her diagnosis, when we could still talk

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Speaker 2: to each other, and we were going on endless doctors

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Speaker 2: visits looking for some hope, a treatment, way to slow

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Speaker 2: the disease down. Some before scared of bit, but you're

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Speaker 2: not scared now.

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Speaker 3: I'm how scared of that I've Paiduto's society.

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Speaker 2: Since my mother said those words, her life went on

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Speaker 2: a rapid decline. The threat that holds us together gets thinner,

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Speaker 2: The conversation's more difficult, and my profound sadness over losing

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Speaker 2: her harder to manage.

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Speaker 6: My first impressions were that she she was able to

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Speaker 6: propel her wheelchair with her feet, not her hands.

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Speaker 2: These days, my lifeline is the staff at the Beth

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Speaker 2: Abraham Nursing Home in the Bronx where my mom lives.

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Speaker 2: This is her nurse practitioner, Iris Nagan. She has supported

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Speaker 2: me on countless occasions. Iris started working with my mom

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Speaker 2: in January of twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 6: She seemed to communicate a little better in Spanish than

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Speaker 6: in English. The impoverishment of speech and often the inability

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Speaker 6: to walk are connected to having had dementia for a while.

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Speaker 5: Theever that's a song that I wrote that don't.

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Speaker 2: Alzheimer's is a brain disease. It slowly destroys your memories,

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Speaker 2: Your ability to think, speak, walk, talk, Even the simplest

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Speaker 2: tasks become impossible. It's a wicked form of dementia and

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Speaker 2: it will slowly kill you. The type of Alzheimer's my

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Speaker 2: mom has is not genetic, but my odds of getting

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Speaker 2: the disease are slightly higher because she has it. Visiting

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Speaker 2: my mom is always hard, and when I don't see her,

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Speaker 2: I worry and feel guilty, and I don't even know

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Speaker 2: if my skype calls help her at all.

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Speaker 6: At this point, I guess really is one of the

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Speaker 6: things that happens with dementia is the world gets very,

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Speaker 6: very small.

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Speaker 2: And always tells me that these visits and calls are

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Speaker 2: hard on my mother as well.

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Speaker 6: Hi, and I think when people come from the outside world,

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Speaker 6: they bring with them expectations, and I think the expectations

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Speaker 6: can be hard.

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Speaker 2: On someone who has advanced dementia. But that has been

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Speaker 2: the challenge of the disease, understanding it and holding on

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Speaker 2: to Ramona Laddie. I find myself thinking about where she

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Speaker 2: came from, who she was, her story pre Alzheimer's, because

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Speaker 2: Alzheimer's is not who she is. It's not her story,

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Speaker 2: It's just how her story ends. My mom dropped out

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Speaker 2: of school in the eighth grade to take care of

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Speaker 2: her little brother so her mom could work. Her father

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Speaker 2: died when she was twelve. She barely knew him. In

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Speaker 2: the late nineteen forties, her mother and aunt came to

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Speaker 2: New York City. It was the first wave of Dominican immigration,

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Speaker 2: and although many were fleeing the brutal dictator Raphael Ruhedro.

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Speaker 7: Picturesque Trujlio City, capital of the Dominican Republic, turns out

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Speaker 7: for the inauguration of a president, for whom the city

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Speaker 7: is named. General Trugulio is the strong man of the Republic.

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Speaker 2: Many were just looking for work and an escape from poverty.

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Speaker 2: My then teen mom was left to take care of

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Speaker 2: everything at home, which now included her aunt's children.

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Speaker 8: But then immigration has brought in many people from the

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Speaker 8: Caribbean area. Most of the immigrants went into the factories

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Speaker 8: and found their homes in the tenements of America's growing city.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty, she got a chance to come to

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Speaker 2: New York City. She was nineteen, and she got a

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Speaker 2: job in a pocketbook factory and went to beauty school.

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Speaker 2: It's such a New York City story. She met Albert,

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Speaker 2: my dad, in a beauty parlor in Spanish Harlem run

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Speaker 2: by a Cuban woman who was married to a Jamaican

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Speaker 2: man and as a result, had Jamaican customers, which included

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Speaker 2: my grandmother. My dad went to pick her up one day,

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Speaker 2: saw my mom in the beauty parlor and it was

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Speaker 2: love at first sight, even though she spoke no English

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Speaker 2: and he spoke no Spanish.

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Speaker 9: Hello, Hello, Hi on Grace, aw you Okay, hold on

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Speaker 9: a minute. Social distancing needs creating more crystal place.

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Speaker 4: Between yourself and others.

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Speaker 2: So I wanted to start a few years into my

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Speaker 2: mom's journey in New York City, and to do that,

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Speaker 2: I reached out to Grace Lawrence, or Aunt Grace, who

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Speaker 2: has been very close to my mom for over sixty.

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Speaker 9: Years, and we became fast friends.

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Speaker 2: On Grace's ninety four lives in Queen's and her memory,

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Speaker 2: unlike my mom's, is sharp as attack.

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Speaker 9: Okay, I might as well say, okay, when my age

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Speaker 9: things happened up and down, but I'm okay, so.

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Speaker 4: To sleave it at that.

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Speaker 2: And Grace told me that she met my mom in

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Speaker 2: the late nineteen fifties through my dad.

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Speaker 9: Well, I know that he became very close and he

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Speaker 9: wanted to meet his girlfriend. His girlfriend at that time

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Speaker 9: it was grand Mama, So he didn't say that much

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Speaker 9: about her except that she was Spanish.

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Speaker 2: That's what they called latinos back then, Spanish.

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Speaker 9: And of course that didn't bother me at all.

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Speaker 5: When you first met my mother, what did you what

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Speaker 5: did you think of about her?

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Speaker 9: Like your mother up to dance.

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Speaker 4: She was so pretty and vivacious, and.

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Speaker 2: That's how I remember her dancing with us in the

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Speaker 2: kitchen to disco, salsa, meringe. Everything was hips, hips, hips,

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Speaker 2: didn't matter the music.

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Speaker 9: She really was a beautiful young lady. And of course

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Speaker 9: you know your mama was very stylish. She was always stylish.

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Speaker 2: Greece's parents were from Barbados and immigrants, so and Grace

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Speaker 2: knew about the prejudice that existed between some Caribbean blacks

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Speaker 2: towards Latino's, which my mom walked right into by loving

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Speaker 2: my dad.

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Speaker 9: Albert's mother was Jamaican and she was a very strict lady,

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Speaker 9: very flapa, and unfortunately she did not want to come

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Speaker 9: to the wedding because her mona was Spanish.

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Speaker 2: So what was happening was this My grandmother was raised

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Speaker 2: by a well off family in Jamaica, and although she

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Speaker 2: was a maid in New York, she felt her son

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Speaker 2: was too good for my mom.

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Speaker 9: She was very disappointed she didn't come to the wedding,

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Speaker 9: but that did not stop the wedding.

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Speaker 2: Unt Grace was the matron of honor.

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Speaker 4: The wind went on and.

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Speaker 9: Your father kissed his wife. She was so proud of her.

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Speaker 2: But my grandmother, Nana did not accept the marriage. Nana

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Speaker 2: was a dark skinned woman who would not accept the

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Speaker 2: light skinned Latina in her family. My mom came from

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Speaker 2: the Dominican Republic, a country with extremely negative attitudes towards

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Speaker 2: black skin, but she didn't care that my father was black.

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Speaker 2: The story on my father's side of the family was different.

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Speaker 2: My mom was Spanish and that was enough to be rejected.

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Speaker 9: Ramona really worked established a relationship with her mother in.

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Speaker 2: Law, and this is something I really admire about my mother.

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Speaker 2: She did not give up picture this. My mom lived

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Speaker 2: on one hundred and h Street near Central Park West,

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Speaker 2: and my grandmother was just about six blocks away. My

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Speaker 2: father would visit Nana every week without my mom. So

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Speaker 2: she worked on being the best version of herself to

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Speaker 2: figure this out. She worked on her English, she worked

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Speaker 2: on being a good wife, and she had hope no

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Speaker 2: matter how much she was ignored and rejected. But it

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Speaker 2: took the birth of my older sister, Margie in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty to finally warm my grandmother's heart. On my next

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Speaker 2: Skype call to my mother, I try to bring up

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Speaker 2: our old address fifteen was one hundred and h Street.

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Speaker 2: Remember one hundred and h Street. Maybe that a dress

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Speaker 2: the names of her family would trigger a memory Margie.

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Speaker 2: Remember Margie?

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Speaker 5: Do iha Margie?

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Speaker 2: But I came up empty. My talk with Aunt Grace

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Speaker 2: and April left me wanting more. The mom I have

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Speaker 2: had for years now is a shadow of who she was,

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Speaker 2: and I want that mother back so badly. Coming up

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Speaker 2: on Latino, USA, she.

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Speaker 10: Was seeing this boy in her apartment, this like evil boy,

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Speaker 10: and at one point it got so bad that she

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Speaker 10: was hiding knives so that she could stab the boy.

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Speaker 1: Stay with us, Yes, hey, we're back. And before the break,

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Speaker 1: journalist yvon Latti had introduced us to her mother's world

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Speaker 1: and what it's like to have advanced Alzheimer's disease in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a COVID nineteen crisis. We return now

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Speaker 1: to Yvonne's intimate portrait of her life with Ramona, and

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Speaker 1: just a warning, there's some offensive language in.

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Speaker 2: This part of the story. In mid April, about a

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Speaker 2: month after the COVID lockdown started in New York, I

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Speaker 2: recruited Nola, my oldest daughter, to help me dig through

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Speaker 2: some old photos I keep in a big plastic bin

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Speaker 2: in our home in Philadelphia. I took these photos out

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Speaker 2: of my mom's photo albums when I cleaned out her

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Speaker 2: apartment after she was placed in the nursing home. The

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Speaker 2: day I packed them three years ago, I was crying, confused,

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Speaker 2: and disappointed in myself for not being able to slow

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Speaker 2: down the inevitable. I have not looked at the photos since. Nola,

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Speaker 2: this is my mom's wedding picture.

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Speaker 5: I've seen this one. It's really pretty.

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Speaker 2: Nola is twenty one and studies acting and directing at NYU.

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Speaker 2: We're sitting on an old yellow sofa in the basement

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Speaker 2: and the first photo we pull out is an eleven

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Speaker 2: x fourteen black and white wedding picture. What do you

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Speaker 2: think of her dress?

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Speaker 5: I love her dress.

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Speaker 2: I love all the lace in the photo. My mom

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Speaker 2: is where a beautiful white lace dress and in her

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Speaker 2: arms a bouquet of white flowers. My dad is in

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Speaker 2: a dark suit behind her, holding her. She has a

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Speaker 2: slight smile on her face. She's twenty six, and she

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Speaker 2: looks almost regal and ready for what's next. She looks

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Speaker 2: like you, Yeah, do you see yourself in her?

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Speaker 7: M H?

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Speaker 5: I think you've.

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Speaker 2: Always Nola looking like my mom has always given me comfort.

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Speaker 2: Nola and my mom were always close. She was her Nolita,

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Speaker 2: her oldest grandchild, and she loved to cook Dominican food

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Speaker 2: for her and buy her clothes. But these photos reveal

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Speaker 2: an Albuerlita Nola had never seen.

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Speaker 5: Waita wait, what's this one?

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Speaker 2: Nola pulls out a black and white photo booth image

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Speaker 2: of my mom taken in the early nineteen fifties, that's

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Speaker 2: when she first came to this country. She looks so

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Speaker 2: good in this picture. She's looking away from the camera

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Speaker 2: in a playful way. She's wearing hoop earrings and dark lipstick.

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Speaker 2: The photo seems timeless. She's like working it. Can I

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Speaker 2: have this?

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Speaker 8: Yeah?

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Speaker 5: I really like this picture. She looks like you and

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Speaker 5: this really yeah, she looks like you.

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Speaker 2: When people tell me I look like my mom, I

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Speaker 2: don't believe it. Oh my god, what a compliment. She

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Speaker 2: looks so pretty. We are different colors. She's light skinned

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Speaker 2: and I am dark skinned. I think she's way prettier

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Speaker 2: than me. She's petite while I'm five eight. And when

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Speaker 2: I was growing up, there was this idea that the

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Speaker 2: lighter skins you are, the prettier I tried to explain

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Speaker 2: this to Nola, and I was in light skin that

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Speaker 2: I wasn't even my mother's complexion or Margie's complexion. I

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Speaker 2: was darker than my dad, and my darker skin led

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Speaker 2: to bullying. I was called ugly and mocked. The first

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Speaker 2: time I was called a nigger, I was in third

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Speaker 2: grade and it was by light skinned Latino classmates. We were,

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Speaker 2: you know, the ugly ones, and there was nothing I

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Speaker 2: could do to change the color of my skin. My

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00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 2: mom indirectly reinforced in negativity by constantly commenting on my

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Speaker 2: hair and forcing me into painful, smaller shoes because she

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Speaker 2: didn't want me to have big feet. Although she was

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Speaker 2: rejected by my grandmother for being Spanish, she held some

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Speaker 2: form of internalized racism which was directed in me and

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Speaker 2: my hair. Black hair is bad. Straight hair is good,

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Speaker 2: you know, like the hair had to be relaxed, it

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Speaker 2: had to be pressed. I couldn't sweat. Everything had to

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Speaker 2: be about my appearance, and I was a tomboy. I

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Speaker 2: wanted to play sports and wanted to run around. My

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Speaker 2: hair didn't really go natural until you were born. And

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Speaker 2: when you were born and she saw you, one of

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Speaker 2: the first things she said to me, was how old

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Speaker 2: does she have to be before we can strain her hair?

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Speaker 2: That was the game changer. I never relaxed my hair again,

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Speaker 2: and my mom had to live with both my daughter's curls.

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Speaker 2: Growing up with my mom could be frustrating. There were

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Speaker 2: a lot of extremes. I grew up on one hundred

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Speaker 2: and h Street between Manhattan Avenue and Central Park West.

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Speaker 2: It was rough back then, and my mom would not

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Speaker 2: let us out of the house. My outside space was

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Speaker 2: the fire escape. I wanted to share what that was

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Speaker 2: like with my daughter Nola. There were murders and people

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Speaker 2: got raped, and it's a lot of robberies. One of

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Speaker 2: my early memories is one afternoon when my mom went

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Speaker 2: shopping and came home with a red welt across her face.

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Speaker 2: She had been robbed. She had a man's handprint on

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Speaker 2: her face because he slapped her so hard when he

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Speaker 2: robbed her, and she was crying and she was really upset,

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Speaker 2: and she called my dad. This was not a one off.

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Speaker 2: My mom was robbed a lot. But the next week

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Speaker 2: my mother got a shopping cart out again and she

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Speaker 2: went right back to the grocery store. I admired her

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Speaker 2: for it, but it made me angry. The neighborhood was

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Speaker 2: filled with abandoned buildings and so much neglect. Our building

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Speaker 2: was abandoned by the landlord when I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: and the city took it over. Fires were set aimed

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Speaker 2: at forcing us to move. Most winters, we went weeks

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Speaker 2: without heat or hot water. Sometimes it was so cold

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Speaker 2: we all had to sleep in the living room with

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Speaker 2: a space heater and close off the rest of the apartment.

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Speaker 2: But my mom was happy. I think she would say

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Speaker 2: those were the best years of her life. We were

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Speaker 2: all together.

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Speaker 10: I feel there's a lot of her that I know,

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Speaker 10: you know, and that I've experienced, and a lot of

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Speaker 10: her that I don't like. I can see a lot

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Speaker 10: of vibrants in her.

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Speaker 2: My mother's world was the pocketbook factory, the beauty parlor,

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Speaker 2: and then finally the insurance company she worked for in

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Speaker 2: their mailroom. She felt like a big success coming to

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Speaker 2: this country, and she always raised me to believe how

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Speaker 2: lucky I was to be here. But that wasn't how

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Speaker 2: I felt. So like my mom in the Dominican Republic,

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00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 2: I dreamed of a way out, and that was something

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Speaker 2: that really drove me in my life was figuring out

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Speaker 2: how to get the heck out of there.

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Speaker 11: I mean, I think they were both driven, you know,

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Speaker 11: like you talk about wanting to leave one hundred and

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Speaker 11: h Street, but like they were there because I believe

365
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Speaker 11: to leftr like, so there's definitely like just a wanting

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Speaker 11: to move up and out. I mean, did you guys

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Speaker 11: not get along?

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Speaker 2: I really didn't understand her. By the time I was sixteen,

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00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 2: I felt that had grown past her in so many ways.

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00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 2: I struggled to understand the lucky sprays, the candle lighting

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Speaker 2: for saints, the hoarding, the confusion. The next photo we

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Speaker 2: pull out of the bin is of my dad, my mom,

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Speaker 2: and my sister. And this is a photo of their

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Speaker 2: first Christmas with my sister Margie. It's an eight x

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Speaker 2: ten black and white photo. There in front of the tree,

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Speaker 2: all dressed up. My sister is sitting on my dad's

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Speaker 2: lap and my mom is crouched behind them smiling. Margie

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Speaker 2: has a smirk on her face.

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Speaker 10: Oh, Margie's such a smash.

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Speaker 2: Mommy, do you remember it was Margie's birthday last week? Mommy, Mommy,

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Speaker 2: My big sister, Marjorie was killed in a car accident

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Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eight, when she was twenty seven. She

383
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 2: was engaged and on her way back from respeech in

384
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,360
Speaker 2: Brooklyn when a driver high on pill struck the car

385
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,959
Speaker 2: her fiance was driving. Margie and my mom were real close.

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Speaker 2: She spent endless hours in the kitchen cooking with her,

387
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 2: talking to her. They looked so much alike and seemed

388
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Speaker 2: to have so much in common. I fell close to

389
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: Margie too. She was my playmate, my friend, and always

390
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 2: looked out for me. This is a really hard picture

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Speaker 2: for me, Nola, because when Margie died, this was the

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00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 2: photo that my mother was holding and running up and

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00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 2: down the house screaming. If there was anything that changed

394
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 2: my relationship with my mom, it was Margie's death. A

395
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 2: few months after Margie died, I booked my mom and

396
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Speaker 2: I a flight to Paris with a stop in Rome.

397
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 2: I did it on a whim. It was a magical trip.

398
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 2: We scratched Margie's name on every surface we could, saw

399
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 2: every tourist site, walk too much, ate too much, and

400
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 2: drank too much. At one point, we were climbing to

401
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 2: the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and she just

402
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 2: zoomed by me with this huge smile. In her face,

403
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 2: and when we got to the top there was a

404
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 2: gorgeous view of Paris. I looked over at her and

405
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 2: at that moment, there was so much joy in her eyes,

406
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,880
Speaker 2: so much hope. Despite her pain. My mom was alive

407
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 2: and living her life to the fullest. And I learned

408
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 2: so much about strength just watching her survive the unthinkable,

409
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 2: And for the first time in my life, I saw

410
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 2: what we had in.

411
00:27:52,200 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 3: Common, Mommy. I was thinking about our trip. Remember the

412
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 3: trip we took the Dominican Republic. Remember that trip we took,

413
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Speaker 3: all the fun we had.

414
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: Do you remember? Twenty four years later, I took another

415
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 2: life changing trip with my mom. It was twenty twelve,

416
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 2: her eightieth birthday, and I decided to take her and

417
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 2: my daughters Nola was fourteen and Margo eleven, to the

418
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 2: Dominican Republic. I wanted them to experience where my mother

419
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 2: had come from.

420
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was fun.

421
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 11: That was a trip for me.

422
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 2: That trip was the first red flag that something was

423
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 2: seriously wrong.

424
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Speaker 5: I think that.

425
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 10: Going to dr it was really clear because we saw

426
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 10: Obbliet in the place that wasn't her house, and so

427
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 10: like seeing her in comparison with like other hotel guests

428
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 10: and like in an airport, Like I think it's a

429
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 10: lot easier to be like, oh.

430
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 5: She doesn't understand how to do things that she should

431
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 5: know how to do.

432
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 2: The trip started out uneventful. When we exited the plane,

433
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 2: I grabbed Margo's hand and Nola held.

434
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 10: My mom's, and she had some kind of like idea

435
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 10: that we had to go down some like secret corner

436
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 10: that was like not where anybody else was going.

437
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 2: I heard you say we're Elita no, Ablita no, and

438
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 2: then I was like, you know, Mommy.

439
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 10: Yeah, I realized that like me, as the older sibling too,

440
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,719
Speaker 10: you know, would have to like kind of keep an

441
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 10: eye on her, you know, and take care of her,

442
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 10: make sure that she didn't run off.

443
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: As we finally made it to the hotel, my mom

444
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 2: morphed into a different person. I mean we all turned

445
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 2: to her like, okay, Mommy, go for her. Check us in.

446
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 10: We were just kind of expecting that, I'll believe it

447
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 10: would be like our resident Spanish speaker, like we tell

448
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 10: her what to say in the Englishman, you'd say it

449
00:29:58,640 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 10: in Spanish.

450
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: She spoke sis time.

451
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 5: All the time.

452
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 2: It was primarily oh.

453
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 5: Spanish, you know, and if it was English.

454
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 10: It was like English with like Spanish words kind of

455
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 10: mixed in there.

456
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 2: And this was like this still makes me laugh.

457
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 10: I know it's not funny, besca. She turned to us

458
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 10: like stone faced, and she.

459
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 2: Was like, I do not speak Spanish. My husband's American

460
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 2: husband is American.

461
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 11: I do not speak Spanish.

462
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 2: And we were like what I was in shock. I

463
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 2: had no idea what my mother was doing. My dad

464
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 2: had died in nineteen ninety seven, fifteen years before, and

465
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 2: my mom's first language had always been Spanish, and suddenly

466
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 2: she was refusing to speak it. It didn't make any sense.

467
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 5: She was so distant in.

468
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 10: A place that we really thought she was going to

469
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 10: like come alive and be really excited.

470
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 2: A few months after the trip to the Dominican Republic,

471
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 2: we were joined by on Grace and her husband Paul

472
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 2: for Thanksgiving, and Grace had noticed my mom had seemed

473
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 2: off lately and confronted us both. My mother said everything

474
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: was fine, and I chose to believe my mom.

475
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 9: Your mother did not want to get old.

476
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 4: That's another place she liked to stay the way she loved.

477
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 9: She wanted to be young, she did not want to

478
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 9: get old.

479
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 2: But my mother was not okay.

480
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 5: She stopped liking people.

481
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 10: You know, she have friends, and then she didn't like

482
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 10: them anymore. She got really reclusive, she got angrier.

483
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: In December of twenty fifteen, I decided to go with

484
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 2: my mom to see her doctor. He suggested cognitive testing

485
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 2: and gave us a referral. Three months later, after a

486
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 2: series of tests, we ended up in a neurologious, packed

487
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 2: bronx waiting room filled with black and brown people. When

488
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: it was finally our turn, we were told my mom

489
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 2: had out Gheimer's disease. The doctor wrote down a few

490
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 2: URLs and told me to google it. A life altering,

491
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 2: life ending diagnosis was given to her in the same

492
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 2: manner I was told. I was nearsighted. I grabbed my

493
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 2: mother's hand as she stared blankly at the doctor. It

494
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 2: was clear she was just a number to him, part

495
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 2: of the statistic that shows a growing number of Latinos

496
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 2: and African Americans stricken by this disease. I soon learned

497
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 2: that African Americans are two times more likely and Latinos

498
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 2: one and a half times more likely to develop Alzheimer's

499
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 2: disease than white Americans. And so here is where my

500
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 2: mom and I clashed again. She struggled to believe the

501
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: diagnosis while I was researching the hell out of it

502
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 2: and trying to form a fight plan.

503
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 9: But your mother said to me, you know how Ivana,

504
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 9: she's always torn. I said, your daughter talks a lot

505
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 9: of stuff, but a lot of stuff is true because she.

506
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 2: I was lost in my research and disgusted by what

507
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 2: I found. All the issues that play communities of color

508
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 2: converge in making Alzheimer's disease the last chapter of too

509
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: many of our lives. Low socioeconomic status, high rates of

510
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: cardiovascular disease, and a higher incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity,

511
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:29,959
Speaker 2: and depression are aggravating factors, even education factors. In Latinos

512
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 2: also may develop symptoms at a younger age than non

513
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 2: Latino whites, and the community is under resourced. Income, retirement

514
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 2: and pension benefits are far too thin to get too

515
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 2: many members of my community the help the resources it needs.

516
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 2: I thought about my future. We it's going to be

517
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 2: my end too, and I search for answers, anything to help.

518
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: A few weeks after my mother received her dietnosis, hallucinations

519
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 2: began to take over her world.

520
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 10: She was seeing this boy like in her apartment. This

521
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 10: like evil boy to me felt like big demon energy.

522
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 2: By the summer of twenty sixteen, things spiraled out of control.

523
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 2: My mother's behavior became more erratic, even dangerous, and at.

524
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 10: One point it got so bad that she was hiding

525
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 10: knives so that she could stab the boy. She needed

526
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 10: an aid all the time because it just wasn't safe

527
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 10: for her to be alone.

528
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 2: Six months after getting her original diagnosis, I scrambled to

529
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 2: get her into a clinical trial. Latinos make up just

530
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 2: seven point five percent of research participants, and I read

531
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 2: that clinical trials are key to finding ways to help

532
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 2: not only my mom, but other Latinos caught in the

533
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 2: web of this disease. Since my mother was presenting with

534
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 2: psychotic tendencies, her new doctor suggests that this could help.

535
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 2: Time demands were horrific. The driving her back and forth

536
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 2: from the Bronx where she lived, to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital

537
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 2: in Upper Manhattan, the waiting in the office, interviews with

538
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,919
Speaker 2: several doctors, the administration of the drug which she could

539
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: not do herself. It was about six weeks of stress,

540
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: and in the end she got the placebo. I was

541
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: wrecked and like.

542
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 10: Things just got harder, like we couldn't do Christmas the

543
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 10: same way.

544
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 2: I also discovered my mom had given away all her

545
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 2: money to mail order psychics who promised her riches. She

546
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 2: was always binge buying from catalogs, and.

547
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 10: I feel like and it's because you like love her

548
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 10: and like see the best in her and want her

549
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 10: to be okay. But you always hope that it's going

550
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 10: to get better, and instead it gets worse.

551
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 2: And it did. The hallucinations of the boy and her

552
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 2: apartment were joined by Ice agents, who she believed were

553
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 2: coming to deport her, despite the fact that she was

554
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: an American citizen. She would call me frantic that they

555
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 2: were coming for her, begging me to help her. Things

556
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 2: kept spiraling out of control until she ended up in

557
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 2: the nursing home, the last thing I wanted to happen.

558
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: And now my mom, who worked all her life, learned English,

559
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 2: raised two daughters, and gave me the tools to succeed,

560
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 2: her life has deteriorated.

561
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: To this Mommy Ramona Ramonita Abita.

562
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 4: Long deal.

563
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 2: My mom's nursing home is big. It's residents are mostly

564
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 2: black and Latino. Some strap boomboxes to their wheelchair so

565
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 2: you often hear music like salsa or hip hop. The

566
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 2: elevators are very slow and it's a bit run down.

567
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 2: Before COVID they had started renovations, but it's a sad place,

568
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: not a lot of smiles. Hello, Hi, Hi. When COVID

569
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 2: first struck her nursing home, I took advantage of the

570
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 2: skype calls they offered, Hi, Mommy, Hi, how are you.

571
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 2: The first two or three I made, she seemed to

572
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 2: know who I was by the end of the call,

573
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 2: but the last few I had she had absolutely no

574
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 2: idea patients, they have no recreational activity. They're isolated a lot. Iris,

575
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 2: the nurse we heard from earlier, told me about the

576
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: extreme lockdown measures in my mother's nursing home after the

577
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 2: first case of COVID nineteen was discovered back in March.

578
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 6: The little bit of stimulus they were able to absorb

579
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:46,359
Speaker 6: has disappeared.

580
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 2: My mom did have a group of friends. She did

581
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 2: art classes, played bingo, went to church and loved the

582
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 2: music group where they would play Celia Cruz, Mark Anthony

583
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 2: and Beyonce to the residents who would dance in their wheelchair.

584
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 2: Now she's wheeled into the hallway and placed six feet

585
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 2: away from her friends so they can look at each other.

586
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of patients experience a tremendous decline.

587
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,399
Speaker 2: That's my mom. I last saw her five months ago

588
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 2: and have no idea if or when I will see

589
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 2: her again. I know there has been a lot of

590
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 2: death in the nursing home, but I can't get a

591
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 2: straight answer to how many residents have died. Sometimes I

592
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 2: obsess over what's next, what will happen to her? What

593
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 2: is the timeline? But there is none.

594
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 6: It's a hard answer. I mean usually loss of functional status,

595
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:44,959
Speaker 6: the loss of the ability to speak, weight loss, loss

596
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 6: of ability to feed yourself, more apathy. All of that

597
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 6: points to worsening dementia, and dementia is a fatal illness.

598
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 2: I have at this point on memories to get me through,

599
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 2: like the last time she sang me Happy Birthday last

600
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 2: year before she truly lost the ability to speak.

601
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 5: The virus they told you stay they are evil, A

602
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 5: pre virals stay, and.

603
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:27,760
Speaker 2: A little bit of Nola's wisdom.

604
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 10: I don't expect anything from her. I can always just

605
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,879
Speaker 10: see that face value and be happy that they get

606
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 10: to see her at all.

607
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 2: Nola is so my mom's grandchild.

608
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 11: I don't care.

609
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 10: I don't care if she remembers me or not. If

610
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 10: she knows my name like okay, And if she doesn't like,

611
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 10: that's okay too.

612
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 2: And so I asked her she could reach her just

613
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 2: one more time. What she would want to talk to

614
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 2: her about?

615
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 10: Her hair is getting so long, and it's really solid,

616
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 10: and it's really gorgeous. And I wish you could tell,

617
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,720
Speaker 10: like completely lucid Aqualita that her hair looks.

618
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 2: Really nice and my mom's hair, for the first time

619
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 2: in her life, is natural. I wish I could tell

620
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,280
Speaker 2: her about my daughter Margot's high school parking lot graduation.

621
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 2: And I wish I could tell her that Nolah's doing

622
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 2: great in college and in love. And I wish I

623
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 2: could fill her in on all the gossip, tell her

624
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 2: stories about my hectic job. And I wish that she

625
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 2: would remember me, always remember me, her daughter, her only

626
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 2: living daughter. Hi, Mommy, it's Yvonne Ybonne. Do eat her?

627
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 2: It is, but she doesn't remember me anymore. So in

628
00:40:55,800 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: the end, COVID nineteen did take my mom, not physically,

629
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 2: but it took what was left of her essence. I

630
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: love her, and I choose to hold her memories until

631
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 2: I too Am just a memory.

632
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,280
Speaker 1: Our thanks to Yvonne Lattie for bringing us that story.

633
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: Yvonne is a journalist who also teaches journalism at New

634
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: York University. Alzheimer's In Color is a collaboration with Black

635
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: Public Media with funding provided by.

636
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 2: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

637
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: We want to thank Denise Green from BPM, Jason Risendez,

638
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: the organization Latinos Against Alzheimer's, and Janelle Pifer. If you

639
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: need help or supportavocating Alzheimer's disease, contact the Alzheimer's Association

640
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 1: at alz dot org. This episode was edited by Luis

641
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 1: Trees and mixed by Stephane Lebou. The Latino USA team

642
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: also includes Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Daisy Condreds,

643
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 1: Victoria Strada, Brinando Leanos Junior, Patrisa Subran, and Elizabeth Loenthal Torres.

644
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: Our editorial director is Fernandes Santos. Our senior engineer is

645
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso. Our associate engineers are Gabriel Levayez and jj Carubin.

646
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was

647
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: composed by Sea Rubinos, I'm your host and executive producer

648
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: Mariango Hosa join us again on our next episode. In

649
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: the meantime, remember not te Vayas e astor Approxima Cchoo.

650
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 10: Funding for Latino USA is coverage of a culture of

651
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 10: health is made possible in part by a grant from

652
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 10: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible

653
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 10: in part by New York Women's Foundation, The New York

654
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 10: Women's Foundation funding women leaders that build solutions in their

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Speaker 10: communities and celebrating thirty years of radical generosity, and the

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Speaker 10: Heising Simons Foundation Unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities.

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Speaker 2: More at hsfoundation dot org