2020 Jose Tito Siguenza Award for Service to Hispanic Youth

Each year, the Jose Tito Siguenza Award is given to a senior who has studied Spanish at Notre Dame and contributed outstanding service to Hispanic youth. In 2020, the award recipients were Trevor Canty and Morgan Peck. Read their reflection below.

Trevor Canty

One morning at the Montana Migrant Clinic, I was interpreting for a patient who was confused as to why she had to take her blood pressure medication if her blood pressure was normal that day. After some conversation between her and the nurse practitioner. I became increasingly concerned that the patient did not understand that she had to take them every day regardless of her most recent blood pressure. 

A medical interpreter’s duty is to not interfere with the communication between patient and healthcare professional—something we heavily covered in my translation class with Professor Mangione-Lora. While I was faithfully interpreting the patient’s words, it seemed as if the nurse did not share my concerns. Also, the patient seemed to think the nurse was fine with her taking the medication only when her blood pressure was high. Hesitantly, I intervened. I informed the nurse practitioner of my concerns; I then informed the patient. After more careful discussion, the nurse suggested we write down a schedule for taking the medicine. Thankfully, that seemed to work more effectively. 

While the nurse thanked me afterwards, I was worried what the reaction of my boss would be. She said that while it may have been technically unprofessional, she would have done the same. It may not have been as big of a risk as I had imagined, but it taught me that interpretation is not just linguistic—it is also intensely human, requiring an empathy that transcends the rules we set for ourselves. 

I never expected that medical ethics and my Spanish studies would overlap, but my professors made that possible. Thanks to language abilities gained after a year abroad volunteering in Spain, I was not only able to provide a service to my hometown of Billings, Montana, but also serve communities in a way that makes me realize that Spanish is not limited to the classroom—it will permeate everything I do as a future bilingual physician in a rural community.

Morgan Peck

While studying abroad in Toledo, Spain, I took a service-learning course about the country’s history of immigration. I saw the class as the perfect opportunity to not only engage with my host city, but also to learn more about an issue about which I am passionate in the context of a different country. After strategizing with my professor about the best unique way to engage with the community of immigrants in Toledo, my activity partner and I developed a storytelling project to capture the stories of migrants involved with the local Red Cross office. With the project, we wanted to present the migrants’ perspectives based on their experiences before and after migrating to Spain.  

The project required patience since the interviews were conducted in Spanish, a second language for me, my partner and most of the interviewees. Without my language skills, I would have missed out on the minute details of the information shared with me through the different levels of Spanish spoken by each person interviewed. The project also required trust between complete strangers, considering the deeply personal nature intrinsic to their reasons and lived experiences of migration. Some of the people interviewed gave us only brief comments on their current lives in Spain and avoided any concrete details about their previous lives in their home countries. Each individual interview contributed to the overall narrative another piece that provoked thought and emotion, but their impact lay in the interwoven fragments rather than stand-alone stories. 

On our last day at the Red Cross, as we prepared for the last interview, I began to feel nervous. I was undeniably grateful for the stories we had already collected, but I still hoped for one person who felt comfortable enough to share the complete arc of their migration story. A last-minute change rattled my nerves even more: instead of interviewing one Venezuelan whom we had befriended during our visits to the office, we would now be meeting with another Venezuelan whom we did not know at all. Nonetheless, our supervisor promised us that the conversation would be the perfect way to end the project. 

When the older gentleman entered the room with a warm smile and greeting, I could not expect the traumatic journey that brought him to the seat across from me. His wife, a distinguished doctor in their home country, had spoken out at a conference against the government for the lack of medical supplies and funding needed to keep citizens healthy and safe. The many death threats that followed from men presumably working for the Maduro government forced them to leave their well-established, self-made life for a completely new start in their 60s. While I had studied Venezuela’s political history and the current abuses of power, I still found myself speechless as the man recounted the lived experience of political persecution and repression for simply speaking the truth.  

Despite the upsetting twists in his story, he insisted on sticking to a positive outlook on life, touting it as the key to integrating into his host country. He also greatly emphasized the importance of his church in settling into his new life. I felt especially touched by this because of the role my own faith community has played in helping me overcome difficult obstacles. As I sat absolutely captured by this man’s story, I realized that I deeply wanted to spend my life bearing witness to the stories of those living in marginalized or threatened situations. This desire has only grown stronger through my other community-based learning experiences and my internships working with Latinx folks building their own narratives in the broader story of the United States. Since that first discussion in my professor’s office about creating a migrant storytelling project, I have developed a greater appreciation of the power of narrative. After hearing the stories of the migrants who graciously agreed to participate in the project, I feel especially called to build my life’s work around protecting the narratives of others.