Edwin Mejia

Oral History of Yudelquis Soto

by Edwin Mejia

Yudelquis Soto is a 43 year old dominican mother with 2 kids. It was a tired full Wednesday at 10:00pm when my Yudelquis soto came home from work and she took her food and she started eating. Then we started our interview.

I think that people in the same ethnic groups live together because that’s how communities are made. Hispanics are going to want to live in a Hispanic community so that we can maintain our culture and ways. I know a family member that used to live in a community of all Americans. He was the only Hispanic there. So they would talk bad things about him and put him to a side and they would never even look at him when he said hi to them, and because of that he would feel very isolated and lonely even though he was in a community.

I think that segregation [and discrimination] comes from when people are educated the wrong way because they make them think that they are better than other people in life. Its not like that if I educate you telling you that white, black, yellow or any color/race that influences you on how you think about that person then that isn’t right. Instead you need to think that everyone is a human. We eat and sleep the same way so like that you will treat everyone with respect just like you want to be treated with respect. Then there are people that don’t teach you how top respect others. They think that they are superior to other people and that’s where segregation comes from.

Race is one of the main causes of segregation [discrimination] because in the year 2000 my brother went to the hospital and just because he was Hispanic they didn’t want to treat him. My brother would lose his mind for a long time and not know anyone, and they didn’t want to help him. I had to go fight for him and try to get them to help him. Then a doctor came and said “These Hispanics think that they can have whatever they want”, and that was or is segregation because we were Hispanic they wanted to throw us to the side, and my brother needed a MRI so I had to talk to the supervisor and beg him to do a MRI on my brother. Then the doctor was ashamed because it happened to be that my brother had a tumor in his head. So then they didn’t know how to say sorry to us and to take back what they said about Hispanics, because they had us like a minority.

If I could stop segregation[discrimination] I would do it because all the races and every human being must have the same rights as another person. It doesn’t matter if your white, black or yellow all that matters is that matters is that your all human beings and that you can realize yourselves like that.