Gina Miranda-Diaz and Alexander Diaz

00:03 Name is Gina. Miranda-diaz. I'm 59 years, old. Today is June 18th. 2021. I am in South Orange, New Jersey at my son's home. My interview partner is my is Alexander, Joel Diaz, and he is my son.

00:24 I am. My name is Alexander Joelle Diaz. I am 28 years. Old. Today is June 18th, 2021. We are in South Orange. New Jersey. My interview partner is Gina miranda-diaz and she is my mama.

00:44 What's up? I'm so excited for this. Where is originally from Puerto Rico. My mom and my dad are both from Puerto Rico. Actually. My mom was born here. Her mom was born over there and your family. My dad was born in Puerto Rico. He came here with his about 8. So yeah, when was the first time that you went to Puerto Rico and how often do you go? My first time? I went, I met my grandfather, my paternal grandfather. I was about who's 50 years ago this summer.

01:25 And I went to my request which is on the west coast of the island. And yeah, that's and I used to go every summer until I was about 13 and then I went I went back again, when I got older and I was in high school and college. What were those experiences like for you? And I just loved everything about it. It just, it's just a different feeling. It smells different. It's we are near the water and that just, that smell. It's just every time I smoke, the ocean, just snaps me back. It's really is the water. So warm and inviting, I just love it over there and then I had that we had chickens so I had to feed the chickens and I put that was great and we meet Maddie pictures of a Spanish Fruit beverage.

02:19 Delicioso Pizza, I love. I love my baby and

02:24 And if my grandmother with my grandfather's wife would rock me in the chest, Milagro. She was dumb.

02:31 She was a wonderful lady. So I really loved it over there. And I have friends, my cousins were there and I had learned Spanish there because if you didn't, you can play with anybody. Nobody understands English nuyorican. And so, I had to really you to step it up. And it's so funny because I watch The Flintstones and it was cold ever. Go pick up the other day and in Spanish with the introduction song in English and I was at least I could sing the introduction, but I love it. I love it over there. It's just so my heart. Is there all the time, all the time? I ate to go back as often as I can.

03:09 I remember when you when you brought me there for the first time.

03:20 Oh my what what are some traditions that you'd say have been passed down in our family words, but some Christmas Time by Miranda Miranda music, listen to folk music from Coco, the oldest rate, great food items. And that's what comes to my right, Puerto Rico, eat and get off the plane you eat. And

03:55 Dos dos tradition tile of New Year's Eve is, is, you know, sacred to me and, you know, just being with family and in, keeping those Traditions flowing and make coquito. It's really good. That is a Spanish version of eggnog, but coconut milk chocolate milk and sweetened condensed, milk and very low cal, and rum the Puerto Rican rum, where does being a female and specifically a Puerto Rican mean to you? What does it mean to you?

04:36 It means so much to me because it's really I just don't say, I'm Puerto Rican. I've lived it. I lived it as a child and growing up and I just realized that this was the half-century Mark I'm getting really old but it is so much a part of who I am because I lived nine months out of the year in the city. And then from June July August. I was reading as a Puerto Rican child. And so it was great to be long to that world. I really felt like I belonged at. That was my all I don't feel like somebody that just comes to vacation. When I go there. I'm with family and all those memories flood back.

05:18 It means sharing a culture connecting with my people communicating in Spanish and that and that I enjoy that. I love to go to Puerto Rican. Talk to people in Spanish and they like, to talk to me in English because the baking soda, test it out everybody. I just want to see how does it come into play in your, in your personal and professional life. We have very few nurses that mirror the population. So, here in New Jersey, we had like 5% of the nurses, the 5% population, nurses, identify themselves, as I think that's going to happen. You speak Spanish, and 15% of the population is

06:18 And I feel so bad for all those folks that really don't understand what's going on in the hospital. What's going on with that, care what's going on with your medication? And and and you know, it's a very, very strange and scary place still being able to speak Spanish and communicate with them allows me to advocate for them to teach them that they can make a decision. You know, I don't want them sign the consent for surgery and you know, they have no idea, it would be. So I think it's it's so important to be able to learn the language. I think it's it's my responsibility and it helps me advocate for them and it helps them to trust me and to feel better about what's happening with them. You don't understand the language, we jump right into some stories about your nursing. But for those that don't know. Can you tell me a bit about your journey? Your career Journey,? Make sure all ten years cuz you're

07:17 But when I am.

07:20 I went to school. I went to Catholic High School and I in the Bronx and I want to get away from home, and I wanted to go to be in the pin that was only seventeen and nineteen seventy-nine, and I went to school for nursing and it was, it was really tough. I was on a graduated from the class, the nursing school and didn't have anybody that had my shift values in my shared interest and my shared language in the one girl. I met were still friends today. She decided to leave the school and I was by myself. So it was, it was really tough, and I didn't have a car, and I had to work, so I can get on the Long Island. Railroad from Garden City, New York and go to Herald Square, and work at Macy's, and then I have to come back to school and study.

08:12 And keep my grades up, but unlike a lot of my peers. I didn't have the luxury of just staying home and Mom and Dad, pay, my tuition. I have paid my school, my education by myself, and I had to struggle for a b and somebody else. Maybe open their book the night before and got him a kind of thing and just feeling isolated in like nobody was, I didn't really have anybody that I connected yet. In the last year, became a little better. For the first three and a half years.

08:44 It was, I don't know, you know, sometimes you just born knowing that you want to do something. But when I was young like I'm glad you brought this up because I don't know if I ever told you my dad knew somebody who got me a job as an summer internship at a hospital as a translator. So this happened during the summer of Sam when the Son of Sam live in New York, wreaking havoc. And in fact, one of the girls said he shot with her see her cousins in my homeroom at the school that I went to. And then it was a black out and I was working at one of the 13 minutes ago, hospitals in New York City, and the end of New York City is the only state and the only city in the country. Really with 13, Municipal Hospital, states only have one for lucky. So I was at the hospital and

09:37 Why was quite an experience? I'm still people coming in, with terrible gashes from stealing jewelry case falling. All they were robbing a jewelry store. It was just out of chaos. What would? I think? One of the things that make me laugh? Is that morning? We lived right next to the subway. I mean, I'm not kidding ten feet from the subway and I went up to the subway and it's like, it's electric.

10:05 And I had to take the bus to to work that day. I had to take like two buses to get to work, but I realized how incredibly important in people's come and look. Are you going to be here next time, when I come to my appointment? You going to be there? Because you know, I can understand it and they don't understand me. And, you know, sometimes I think they, you know, they were going to help me or and, and then I said, and then I said, this is his fits. This is where I need to be.

10:34 And that hat, I really wanted to wear that white hat once for the pinning, ceremony. Never again, because they found that it carried too much bacteria. So, sanitary. Tell me a little bit more about your professional career though, because I feel like you are a nurse and that's where you are at your core, but you've been, you've had roles across the entire health system. So tell me about, you know, where you started after your work at Macy's. What did you do? Next? I went to, I was selected to be in a program in internship program and a month of your husband, the Bronx, and

11:20 I took over a position that was unfortunate that passed away. So that was kind of eerie, but I learned so much and it was Genesis of the AIDS epidemic. So that was really, really very different. We had people coming in with diagnosis that I have never heard of the nursing school pneumocystis, carinii pneumonia, and I was like, what is going on here? And all these young people are coming to the unit and they're dying. And this is only thirty years old and young people from the community. They weren't people who work in the hospital physician unit clerks. So, that was, that was quite a

12:07 A difficult time at strange time. And also a time when I really needed to kick my compassion into high gear, because these folks are being treated or non-treated. They would often be in a room with the door closed. Nobody home lunch, or the nutrition aids, with leaves of a tree in front of the door to get to the door, or did you just leave it and they wouldn't open anything and people are weak, and they can open. So, I just felt that this is where I needed to be. So after I finish working at that hospital, I work at another hospital for sure. Time. And then we had babies, I've worked in Columbia Presbyterian and I worked in the nursery. And then we had babies being born with AIDS and HIV positive. And then what happened? During this time, they were doing some clinical research studies. And so, they were testing the babies for HIV, but not telling them all. So the baby was positive.

13:06 Most positive and we weren't allowed to tell them. Luckily an injunction was filed and they had to stop at practice. And then I went over to the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. I would have done that straight out of out of graduation ceremony at the time didn't know if you wanted meet mandated that you had one year experience and we brought the nursing home without walls. We had returned a child health in Pediatrics. We have several divisions adult care geriatric. We had several divisions that we went to people's homes. But when did The Vision that only three other people who go home too? So I joined what was called the Nova nutritional ecology basketball access group and we provided home infusion for everybody in that tree in the Bronx. I mean all of the Bronx, north south east and west and we provided home infusion for people suffering from Brookland eats in an opportunistic infection and

14:06 It was so many people. I look, so just passing in passing that at one point. They just gave us the authorization to call time of death. And that was really rough. And we always recovered each other. We had, we had a cell phone at that time. Not too many people want for each girls had a cell phone because we didn't want patients, who are in pain or who dying, their families have me to call an operator, and we can operate the call as we just, everybody had her phone numbers and it was it was it was a tough time. I really burned out after a couple years because you just none of your patients get well and you have somebody who had Crohn's disease. Thank God they got better or no Lily couple or somebody on an IV nutrition, but by and large you so all these young people I had one woman who lost

15:01 For, for children, born hurdle children, January 6th of your grandchildren. She was 57 impacted. He's found this this person, but the families, and Mindy couldn't get them buried because they were afraid. They were going to contaminate the soil, and it's just one thing. If it's just a real Domino sets and then before secure system was not set up for families to take custody of the children. So they can adopt them outright and then same time, but you know what?

15:37 I want every one of my patients and I miss them terribly and I I remember almost all of their names and One Creation. She was 22 a person with Bridget and she died.

15:50 Two weeks. After her 27th birthday. She wanted me to be her nurse because I spoke Spanish. And what. She just felt that she could relate to me a little better and her son in a one-bedroom apartment. And in her bedroom was the I be Poppin.

16:07 So I said, I'd come I call Rob message, you have milk, is he had cereal, does have anything to eat, and I'm going to make sure I could bring something to her when I got there at 5, for a walk up. And I'm sitting there watching TV, a pretty good TV, and I just realized he was watching his mom suffer day in and day out. And so this was some

16:31 I used to bring to my home. I used to bring her son to my home to play with my son, your brother to play with Peter because I thought it would give him a break from watching his mom suffer. But she changed my life. Once she died. I change my career. I left I left my career. I could not work anymore sheet. You try and tell yourself as a nurse keep it professional. You don't get involved. How come you did not get involved in the person's home. What more intimate than to be in someone's face in someone's phone. And so I remember the stories. She told me that her mom used to make her, go to the bathroom in the basement. So she wouldn't contaminate the toilet in for her sister a step sister or half-sister and

17:23 Yeah, she passed away just a few weeks later. And I'm, I'm going to his funeral mass and I just was overwhelmed with emotion and that following September after her death. I started a new role as an educator, the visiting nurse service of you. How long do you teach you or would you do after that?

17:47 And that was in the 90s and at the same time I was going back for my double Masters at Hunter. So that was crazy. But the Bible but actually during that time in New York decided because if he needs and everything that was going on, that they were going to mandate that the nurses be taught infection control. So, I developed with my college program at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York that still exists today. And that was my first publishing. They've called me and asked me to publish information because I did back then didn't Sharps Containers cost about 60 bucks back in the early 90s, so we would tell them put their sharks inside of Clorox bottle.

18:33 And, you know, we some Clorox in it, put some water in it and then throw it out. So we had to pick creator.

18:41 Yeah, so I used to teach there and then I told at Lehman College and I told her at the Rutgers or UMDNJ with ecobee for and until College Ramapo and Felician University. And let my heart's always been in public health has been my passion and I was lucky, I was very fortunate in, Not only was able to work in public, my students in public health care on 4th and not enough people know about it. And you know, when I find a night like this, but I want you to understand that there's a there's a picture of a beer sixteen by dr. Ron she ever truth. And he said not everybody will Access Health

19:41 But not everybody who asks Healthcare, but everybody in in

19:49 Nice or listen to public. So, you know, you may not go to the house. We may not Access healthcare often be in the public is really, really important in and that's something that which we just still have them. Look what's happening. Now, just came down and said, it's really, it's really a testament to its significant unfortunate validation. That public health is really not getting that the funding and the importance that it should be.

20:23 One, one thing that I love and admire about you is like, not only. Do you give your entire self in your professional job but also outside of work hours. And once the really comes to mind is the story of you going down to Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria. Can you tell us a story? But yeah, I'm like the normal rate of volunteerism. People get crazy. But I I decided when I, when I sold it happened to my eyelids, we were actually dining Daddy and I at a restaurant and I saw it on the news. I was gasping and loudly. I wasn't like really containing my, my money and I was just shaking really shaking from head to toe and I felt like I had to do something, I had to do something else. Of course, I can get in touch with my family because nowhere in the United States of America.

21:23 On the mainland, would people go without Force phone service for 4 months. OK, Google where I'm going in the island of Puerto Rico, the common. Well, it was okay. So I decided to collect some supplies and send it out to the island. And of course I did this because, you know, I'm driven to do this and then I get all the supplies and I have nowhere to bring them because as it turns out in order to ship stuff to Puerto Rico, you had to have you take a TSA PreCheck is called the known shipper ID. And is it when he's talking about the old truck and I've got no where to put it and still, of course, they start panicking trying and it and I found an organization.

22:20 Puerto Rican organization. That was willing to take my stuff over to the island, but it never made it to my family. And so I made it to people who needed it. And now I'm decided I was going to take him to. I I was able to, I was in a meeting and it was September and I plan to go out there and

22:52 I thinking.

22:54 I'm December. It was when hurricane Maria hit again in November. I decided you know what I'm going to do my thing here and then I went to a meeting and I was really talking to my peers and I just became very emotional and somebody said he was collecting stuff for Puerto Rico. This is all networking is just amazing. What is a girl sits in the lung of UMDNJ, was the president and CEO of stand up to cancer.

23:28 And they had just finished doing this incredible fundraiser with Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod. Because what I was doing, was associated with able to use the funds for me to ship, my stuff over to Puerto Rico. So when I at the meeting she said what you need. I said, I need a plane, the plane, you know, 737. It doesn't have to be a big one, but he needs a plane and they made it happen. So stand up to cancer, will be

24:03 I will forever be in their debt. And so, because of their connections with American Airlines, I was able to ship these items for $0.35, a pound. Somebody else. We know new shipped, something like maybe a hundred pounds, any paid like, $500, something ridiculous to shift that amount of stuff. And so I've got really lucky. So I'm good. American Airlines knows. I'm going, I got a plane. I'm ready to go. Everything's package. Everything is labeled. Everything's Wade. We're ready to go. I went to the U-Haul today. I got everything, the plan is going.

24:44 Like your father-in-law says he's military position and then pump the brakes. Again, unknown shipper ID. You can you can stop it and let them go to the National Association of Hispanic nurses. And I was present at the New Jersey chapter 2 time is it?

25:08 You know, when I'm closer, I'll get, you know, I'm just Supply right now. Apparently, they weren't giving any more than because, you know, in Puerto Rico shipping stars and the whole issue with being able to ship things to, to the port, and the backlog that there was an, this particular, they call it, but it was enacted that them that they had imposed in. It didn't allow me to get my stuff through plus, they had to get these logs and and, and then

25:46 I was told not to send it to the island. The way I had intended because the governor's wife would take your stuff and say this is now the property of the island of Puerto Rico. That was it. That wasn't going to happen to me. Not this is not going to happen. I wasn't going to hold you to that. So I got the T-shirt, the plane and the stuff, at the cover of night, Jerry dirty under-the-radar. She has special operations and the gentleman who helped me was also part of the helping the, the National Guard to Puerto Rico. So, he was so happy to help and somebody donated insulin pens to me. So I had about $25,000 worth of insulin pens to get out and meet there.

26:36 And then I had to leave and it's hard to do, you know, kind of giveaway 3119 lb of stuff in the matter of a couple of days, but I bought some stuff on board and I was looking up that the governor asked me to go with him and the mayor, and I was the health official for the town. So the governor asked me to go with him to Puerto Rico of New Jersey and all these things. And so we went to Puerto Rico and then they can't they went back the same day, but I stayed a couple of days to make sure the supplies got out to where I needed them to get to and which team Rubicon was at Presbyterian Church in

27:14 In Arecibo, so we should have this food pantry and I had toys for the kids and then I went to my hometown, which is about an hour or so away and

27:29 Give away the rest of the stuff I had had, they had, they had one, you press one for a steady light twice, for brighter light, and third time, you press it would blink. So that was that in the headlights with you. Anyway, I could see my auntie who is sitting on the porch with a transistor radio and completely unfazed.

27:52 We have you and she had a little Christmas stocking hanging on the door in her nap, Rico, and one woman Norma Rae. I'm going to do this and I am miss somebody who wanted to help me and she came down with me. But I was it was it was just heartbreaking and given that they had a generator inside. The house. Do you want something to drink? A little candle, Lucas and stocking. And she's offering me something to eat or drink, you know, never lost that. And I said, yeah, I like

28:52 Judging her was in leaving her with stuff and she didn't want to leave her and then after I left.

28:59 Somehow word got out that the supplies were there to Reading Pennsylvania and a group of nurses and doctors Charter, a plane. And they set of three clinics in the remote areas of Puerto Rico, with all my supplies and they went to do the patients in their home slow. So that was really cool. I want to cancel these supplies. Was it just like Puerto Ricans helping Puerto Ricans, or everybody? Everybody help. Any people poop people could not do enough. I think if they felt so good that within their Community, like they didn't have to send it off to somewhere and not know where it was going to go. They knew that when they gave me actually walking into the truck. They saw us packing the truck. So I'm too damned if you do. And then I have labels with a Puerto Rican flag, you know, what? The Puerto Rico, and hurricane Maria effort. And everybody bring battery anything, they could bring it at one point. I had to tell him not to bring water one gallon of water weighs 8.25 lb so that can really rely on and when I called Sam's Club and Walmart to ask him

29:59 What is it? That has shipped two containers out. I'll just send me the stuff. Fundraisers police officers, raise money, the sergeants benevolent Association money, money. Money up, fundraiser at a very fancy Cuban restaurant and the stories. I heard the stories. I heard from people that would put a Rican Puerto Rican and it's a Cuban people at the senior center and they were saying one of your day and so give me all these toys and I had no idea now. I know my, my, my my auntie was Cuban, but it turns out that she was not related to my grandmother, but they left with her and the 1950s and so

30:59 Those stories were very surprising to me and even more limited income and they were getting me in pants at all or anything that you give me. And I just thought it was really something special and I need to listen to everybody story because they really, really was so happy.

31:34 I met this girl and she said, they're asking if I'm coming today. I'm coming today. And I'm bringing the van. I'm coming today and then which is still happy. I kept stopping and I had to stop. They were painting.

31:55 Oh goodness.

31:59 I want to be remembered as

32:04 Someone who?

32:08 Is giving and wants to give back to others and those who have less than, and I want to be known as someone who who Champions the underdog for champion sales and do not speak the language and leaders be able to have better outcomes because if you don't know what are the primary reason, they don't understand what you're telling me, they don't understand it and so are me that's that's a big one. That's a big one and then you do that for me. It's so important to have no, she said, well, I gave him his discharge instructions. I said 50, did you know asked me if he could read on did you ask us if he could read them, you know the truth. I told you right to chastise. Somebody knows how to read your hand them, something upside down, if they turn it around. That means they can read. If they don't turn it around, that means.

33:08 They don't know it's upside down because you know, I gave him the instructions that he wanted and she thought nobody was in your time. I gave them in Spanish by 17 sheet of paper that has like a too far and you know, I didn't tell her that you couldn't read but I told her I assessed as literacy and I was helping him to explain it to him. And yeah, so I just want somebody, I want you to get back and I know you've been doing your part my humanitarian side. So I just think you should get as much of themselves because it is, I think people know how good it felt about with you. They do it all the time.

33:53 To help somebody that's that's that's really suffering.

33:57 I don't think you should so good. You want to do it all the time. We talked we talked a little bit about Puerto Rican your family there. And I know one person that's especially special to you is Nana. Can you tell us a bit about you? What do you miss most about her? Oh, my nana.

34:25 She adored me.

34:30 She didn't, she just ignored me and

34:33 When I was Dumb and when I was born, as I told you, I was sent to an orphanage for a year because my father mother was not married, and my mother went to a home for unwed mothers and her mother said now, you know, I was born dark-skinned. I wasn't born, share. My mother's, her share. My mother, looks like somebody's Irish and sore, and so has got me out. Nana took me out of the orphanage when I was a year old and I just came across those pictures. I didn't show them to you then show them to you yet. When you come over next time, I ran across a picture. So she yes she is and she she was everything to me. She told me how to cook. She told me how to drive.

35:25 Be come and get in the car and drive and got to pick up my other car and she

35:29 She just loved me so much. He took me to Puerto Rico. I was her traveling buddy, and she took maybe 20. We went to the fania All-Stars concert together. She loved together and she said, I'm glad she was in my life, but I miss her terribly. She said, you know and with Dakota and Millennium like to K. She passed away on December. 2nd of 1999. Just a day after your brother's birthday.

36:16 And so what do you miss most about her?

36:21 Cooking her.

36:23 That I can't call her the last time she picked it out and I'm like, why did you bring me back?

36:41 Sausage. And and I just sat with her and I had that meal with her because something inside me said, this might be the last one and it was the last movie that has so much about her and her love of music. And, and that she gave it to me and then hurt her. And, you know.

37:04 I love, I love you. Need is just a measurable. You know, she just has so much more. If you lie to me more because my grandmother was illiterate and I had no idea should know how to read in Spanish or English.

37:24 So she got to let her one day from Social Security benefits and she said, all can you eat? And I'm going to send English me to banana in Spanish on the back. When I moved in with you and Pops was a great time was right before high school started and you provided would, I desperately needed. You were a guy, a guardian angel. You provided me with the mother's love when I didn't have what have it? And you taught me what it means and how to buy example, treat and love a woman, you know, that's that's the first introduction. Is like, how to grow up.

38:23 Be a man in this world and how to treat women, especially.

38:30 You also taught me and this is evident from the story that you just had told today just to have unending compassion and empathy and the the value of paying it forward. Especially for folks that that need it. Most in communities like ours, that, you know, you don't start off with much. But probably the thing that I love the most about you that I've inherited is a kind of like healthy disregard for the impossible.

39:03 I mean like no matter what goal is at hand or what thing you want to get done? You just find a way to do it where that means getting to the airport in 30 minutes, or an hour or shipping thousands of pounds of Puerto Rico. You have you've never taken no as an answer and that's one of the inheritance is that. I can't wait to pass on to my kids, but more than anything I'd say, it's just

39:34 You're the glue, you are the Soul and Spirit of this family, and I love you so much.

39:43 Will having a sin like, use is

39:50 Harvard grad, Rhodes scholar. I love you, Papi.