VIIDAI--Viaje de Integración, Interinstitucional, Docente, Asistencial y de Investigación

VIIDAI Spring 2007 Report

Introduction

Viaje de Integración, Interinstitucional, Docente,Asistencial y de Investigación (VIIDAI) is a bi-national collaboration between the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC) medical school, San Diego State University (SDSU) and the University of California San Diego (UCSD) medical school.  VIIDAI’s mission is to create an opportunity for students and faculty from these three universities to work together to provide medical services and public health education to colonias in Baja California, Mexico, as well as to increase cultural competency and provide international outreach experience for the students.  VIIDAI has been making collaborative trips to various migrant colonias in Baja California since 1998.   For the past 5 years the colonia of Lomas de San Ramon in San Quintín, Baja California, Mexico has been the destination of the VIIDAI project. 

Lomas de San Ramon is a migrant worker community with a population originating from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.  The state of Oaxaca is located in southern Mexico, and is the poorest state in the country.  Families in Lomas de San Ramon have made the long trip from southern Mexico to San Quentin in order to obtain work in the abundant agricultural industry that surrounds the region.  Previous VIIDAI trips have determined that the population in Lomas de San Ramon is suffering from malnourishment and anemia that can be correlated to a high level of exposure to lead.  Door to door interviews throughout the colonia have found that the main source of lead exposure in the population seems to come from the use of lead glaze ceramics used for cooking and storing food but their place of origin within the state of Oaxaca indicates that exposure preceded their current environment.  This combination of poor nutrition, anemia and lead exposure can be extremely detrimental to the health of children and adults in Lomas de San Ramon.
A previous project conducted in the summer of 2006 in Oaxaca, Mexico, with Dr. Ramona Pérez (Anthropology), Dr. Karen Coleman (PH) and Kim McDougall (PH) in a community suffering from similar health maladies, served as the model for this project.  This model consisted of collecting local recipes and fortifying these recipes with locally found ingredients high in Iron, Calcium and Vitamin C, three minerals proven to help combat lead poisoning.  Recipes were tested by a group of 6 women in the community then presented to the community through a food fair.  During the food fair, recipes and samples of the fortified dishes were provided for taste testing.  This model of using pre-existing recipes, fortifying their nutritional content and taste testing them amongst the community was very successful in Oaxaca and thus was used as a model for developing a recipe collection project in San Quintín for Spring 2007.

Goals

The primary goals for the spring 2007 VIIDAI project are two fold and come forth as part of larger investigations taking place in Oaxaca, Mexico, Lomas de San Ramon, Baja California, and San Diego, California.  Our first goal in Lomas de San Ramon was the collection of food recipes from migrant Oaxacan women.  Our hope was to collect two recipes from each individual, one breakfast and one comida or favorite.  The second goal was to recruit women from the recipe collection to participate in a focus group centered on culture change.  The ultimate goal, from the information gathered, is to understand how culture changes as a result of migration and to produce a cookbook that incorporates recipes from the three regions.  This cookbook will be disseminated to women in the three regions in an effort to help combat malnourishment and the effects of lead poisoning.   

Methods

Our team’s objective for the Spring 2007 VIIDAI project was to continue investigating community health and nutrition in Lomas de San Ramon, but extend into an examination of cultural changes in diet, nutrition, household dynamics, and work.  We divided the two-day VIIDAI research project into two different, but overlapping, data collection sessions; door-to-door recipe collection and focus group.

Day 1: Recipe Collection
Our team of Anthropology and Latin American Study graduate students was divided into 3 teams (2 teams of 2 and 1 team of 3).  The objective was for each team to visit 8 houses and retrieve 2 recipes per household (one breakfast recipe and one comida or special occasion recipe), with a combined total of 24 recipes.  Recipes were to include quantities, procedures, and utensils.  The recipes collected would serve a dual purpose.  First the recipes will be added to the Tri-Regional Oaxacan recipe book project, where recipes from Oaxaca, Lomas de San Ramon, and San Diego will be brought together and published.  Second, the recipes collected in Lomas de San Ramon will be used compare with recipes from Oaxaca to identify a shift or change in nutrition, diet, or ingredients among Oaxacan migrants. 

Population selection and IRB was arranged in collaboration with the SDSU Public Health students, including a list of names and addresses for qualified participants and a map of the community divided into sections.  Upon approaching a household we would identify ourselves, ask for the woman of the household or the one who cooks, and explain our project.  When the person agreed to participate then we would continue into a consent procedure (see attached consent form), which we read orally to the participant would sign if they agreed to participate.  The consent form included an option to voice record and extended participation into the focus group participation the following day.  After completing the interview we solicited participants to attend the focus group meeting at the school the next day and then gave school supplies participants for their participation.

Day 2: Focus Group
Focus group participants were recruited from recipe collection participants on day one.  Our objective was to have two focus group sessions (9:30am and 12pm) of up to 12 people in each session and a maximum of one hour thirty minutes per session.   Our best Spanish speaker moderated the focus group while the other members were scattered around the circle to assist and participate in the discussion and to help a control of equal participation.  The one male team member remained on the outside of the group to lower possible tensions. 

The discussion surrounded the main themes of household dynamics, changes in eating and cooking, culture change through diet and nutrition (see appendix for Focus Group question).  The focus group took place in a classroom at the Lomas San Ramon elementary school and chairs were set up in a circle to promote conversation and inclusion.  The Focus Group began with an introduction by the moderator and an introduction of each participant.  Consent carried over from Day 1.  School supplies were given to each participant at the end of the focus group.

Outcomes

We collected forty-eight recipes from twenty-three houses that participated in the Public Health pot exchange project.  The recipes we collected ranged from simple recipes like eggs and beans to special occasion recipes like mole and pozole.  During the focus group we found that while the recipes these women use in Oaxaca have not changed, the ingredients that can be bought in San Quintin is of a lesser quality.  Additionally, we found that the one of the reasons for moving out of Oaxaca was to not only to provide a better quality of life for their families but also give their children an education. 

Future Projects

We have a few projects that we would like to continue with the data that we have collected from the last two VIIDAI field experiences (October 2006 and April 2007).  The continuing projects consist of a transnational cookbook and a recipe card box for the school breakfast program. 

The transnational cookbook will be based upon traditional, popular, and contemporary recipes from Oaxacan women living in Oaxaca, San Quintin, and San Diego.  The cookbook will also have women’s narratives about their lives in each locale including information pertaining to nutrition and food preparation.  The idea behind this is to document the ways in which recipes have been changed and adapted to new environments (geographical, economical, political, cultural, and national), it will also allow Oaxacan women to have a glimpse in the lives of other Oaxacan women who have either decided to stay in Oaxaca or migrate to different regions.

The recipe card box project is intended to provide the elementary school in San Quintin with alternative recipes that they can incorporate into their school breakfast program.  The recipe box will be presented to the school once the Rotary-sponsored kitchen is complete.  The recipes will be laminated and printed on note cards and placed in a recipe box so that they can easily be taken out and used while cooking in the kitchen.  They will be comprised of different breakfast and early lunch recipes that were collected in Oaxaca and San Quintin.  Those same recipes will be modified by a certified nutritionist who will be adding ingredients that further increase the nutritional value in each recipe.  The intent of the project is to improve nutrition among young school age children in San Quintin.  It is also intended to help combat particular nutritional deficiencies and environmental exposures reported in the community, such as anemia, malnutrition, and lead exposure.