Conozca A Las Mujeres De Chicago Que Están En Primera Línea Ayudando A Los Inmigrantes A Acceder Atención Médica En El Suroeste De La Ciudad

When Sahida Martinez immigrated to the United States from Mexico more than 25 years ago, she thought her job prospects would be limited.

The former high school teacher was concerned that the language barrier and her bachelor’s degree from a foreign country would make it challenging to find work.

At the time, her husband encouraged her to stay home and care for their children as they acclimated to life in Chicago. So, she did for 16 years, but she longed to return to work.

That’s when she found Enlace Chicago and became its first promotora de salud, or community health worker.

This year marks 10 years of her working as a promotora de salud at Enlace, a neighborhood organization that provides wraparound support to Little Village residents on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

“We learned, not only do kids need access to health care,” Martinez recalled about the early days. “It’s very important that parents also… have access to health care.”

For the last decade, Enlace’s Promotoras de Salud, or Community Health Workers, have been knocking on doors, hosting workshops and tabling at events around the neighborhood to educate the community on ways to improve health inequities. These women have become liaisons of critical health resources in the neighborhood — a role, they say, is vital after undocumented immigrants lost access to the end of Illinois’ health care program and Trump’s heightened immigration enforcement.

“Our job is to give power to the community.’

Local organizations like Enlace Chicago have relied on promotoras to build trust with Latino communities, deliver health care resources and raise awareness of available resources. These community health workers are typically immigrants and mothers, with some having professional experience in healthcare in their home countries.

“A promotora is a person who speaks the same language as others in the community,” Martinez said. “Because we live in the community, we have similar needs.”

In the 1960s, the promotoras model emerged in Latin America to train women on health needs. In the ensuing years, the model has spread across borders.

In 2024, researchers encontrado that community health workers helped improve the health of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, citing close relationships with local communities and general knowledge of health care resources.

“CHWs offer culturally informed health services that are healing and transformative, and their work promotes health practice reforms that motivate equity through incremental and steady change,” according to a 2022 study published in the AMA Journal of Ethics.

Elizabeth Oviedo became a full-time promotora at Enlace in 2020. She was a pediatric nurse for 18 years in Mexico before immigrating to the U.S. and obtaining her Community Health Worker certificate through Enlace.

Now, she says, she’s enjoyed working on preventing illnesses in the community rather than caring for people once they’re sick.

“What motivates me is helping people,” she said. “It’s motivating for me to help people find resources and let them know that they don’t have to be scared if some resources go away, and letting them know that there are other places they can look.”

Within Enlace, Oviedo started a mental health support group for women that focuses on anxiety and depression.

Alongside health-related resources, Enlace’s Promotoras support new families navigating life in the United States.

“Our job is to give power to the community, not only by doing this work but also by showing people their rights,” Martinez said. “We need to have the resources to give people.”

Over the last decade, Enlace’s Promotoras de Salud program has evolved and advocated for creating a health worker certification program for Spanish-speakers. Martinez said several dozen have since graduated from the Spanish certification program.

Across Chicago’s South and West Sides, community health workers have played an essential role in understanding neighbors’ needs.

About 12 years ago, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC)’s Promotoras de Salud (Health Promoters) Program began with a group of moms involved in their children’s schools. BPNC currently has six promotoras de salud who work year-round, attending community resource events and schools and canvassing the neighborhood.

Carmen Barragan, BPNC’s lead organizer who manages the community health workers program, calls promotoras in training “diamonds that haven’t been polished yet.”

The program guides residents obtaining their Community Health Worker certification to become promotoras. It also provides education on health issues and monthly training.

“With all of our health promoters, they are growing as leaders, and we are supporting them all the way,” said Maricela Bautista, deputy director for organizing and youth services at BPNC.

“We have been more intentional with the relationships we build in the community,” she said. We’re meeting community members where they are.”

Connecting residents to health care services

The COVID-19 pandemic presented an immense need for health workers in a community that continuously showed some of the highest numbers of contracted individuals and deaths.

In its first week of testing, Project Vida, a community health organization based in Little Village, found that 80% of people tested for COVID-19 were uninsured.

Según health data compiled by the city, neighborhoods on the Southwest and Northwest sides with high immigrant populations have the highest uninsured rates — some almost double the city average.

Following community efforts and the state’s implementation of the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program in 2021, the community’s insured adult rate went from 35 to 82%. However, more people might be uninsured now that 30,000 undocumented immigrants across the state lost health coverage in July.

During the pandemic, community health workers were a major part of the health care ecosystem. In Brighton Park, the neighborhood saw lower positive cases of COVID-19 than the city average, según datos de la ciudad.

“Health promoters played such a vital role in helping the community get vaccinated,” Bautista said.

In Little Village and Pilsen, community health workers’ longstanding presence in their communities has made them known faces to families and community groups in the area, said Martinez.

Barragan echoed this sentiment.

“Our community members see themselves in us,” she said.

To support their mission, promotoras at local organizations like Enlace often partner with CommunityHealth, a free health clinic that serves low-income and underinsured people in Chicago.

Alongside connecting residents to health care services as community messengers, promotoras de salud also play a significant role in helping people navigate complicated health care systems and update them on essential policies, said Paola Seguil, director of operations at CommunityHealth.

“They also regularly attend events, proactively spread the word to eligible individuals, and stay engaged with ongoing changes in healthcare policy,” Seguil said.

In recent months, Enlace and BPNC have modified their strategies amid new Medicaid cuts, the end of the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program (HBIA), and Trump’s sweeping changes to immigration policy.

Martinez said Enlace has experienced a decrease in calls because of fears centered around residents’ legal statuses.

“They no longer want to apply for any type of program,” she said. “In our community, people have told us they prefer not to go out and stay home to avoid encountering ICE.”

Both organizations continue organizing and hosting weekly community resource fairs.

BPNC community health workers have been canvassing the neighborhood to provide information on health care and SNAP benefits. The organization has also been training its promotoras to react to potential ICE raids at events to ensure their safety and that of community members.

Promotoras de salud have not wavered in their efforts to help their communities, Martinez said. As frontline workers, they make sure Southwest Side residents discover available resources, she said.

“You forget that you have a power,” Martinez said. “And this is one of my powers — to help my community.”

This report was supported in part by the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University and the Alliance Matters campaign, an initiative of Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) and the Field Foundation.

Tara Mobasher es becaria de Northwestern Medill en Borderless Magazine. Puede ponerse en contacto con ella en [email protected].

Aydali Campa es miembro de 'Report for America Corps' y cubre temas de justicia medioambiental y comunidades inmigrantes para Borderless Magazine. Envíale un correo electrónico a [email protected].