Body
“Dice la doctora si se quiere poner la vacuna contra el flu,” [The doctor wants to know if you want the flu vaccine] 10-year-old Eric Espinoza explained to his mother at one of her medical appointments years ago. “Mijo, que dice esta carta?,” [Darling, what does this letter say?] asked his father while handing him an insurance letter. “Dice que tiene este deductible, pero no se que significa esto,” [It says it has a deductible, but I don’t know what that means] replied Espinoza.
Before he had even entered middle school, Espinoza already had adult-level responsibilities. As the oldest of four children growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he was his parents’ linguistic compass in a sea of unfamiliar words and phrases. From translating complicated documents to making important phone calls, “I would be the one calling to pay bills, handling insurance issues, everything,” he remembers. “Oftentimes it was very complex medical or legal jargon. I didn’t know what more than half of those terms were.”
Despite that pressure, Espinoza says he had a nearly idyllic childhood in his melting-pot neighborhood of large Hispanic and Polish families. He excelled in his high school’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program and graduated third in his class with perfect attendance. The school’s IB coordinator encouraged him to apply to private colleges, and based on a generous financial aid offer, Espinoza chose Knox College, a four-year small liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois. Coincidentally, Knox offered a class in medical interpreting. Espinoza, who aspired to be a physician, quickly signed up. “I told myself it would be easy, because I had done it practically my whole life, but oddly enough, interpreting professionally was very different. There were more rules, and I also learned about the ethics of interpreting. It was much more complex than I thought.”
He enjoyed the experience so much he decided to volunteer for various non-profit organizations in Chicago during the pandemic. He also volunteered remotely with the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) in Portland, Maine, where he frequently found himself interpreting for minors from Latin America who migrated to the U.S. to seek asylum or were stuck in Mexico trying to figure out the byzantine U.S. immigration system. “It was heartbreaking to see a kid dealing with the complexities of our legal system,” he says. “When complex legal terms were used, I'd see their confused faces, because they didn't understand. The only thing they understood was, ‘I'm sorry, but you don't qualify for asylum. However, you can get a second opinion.’”
In June 2023, Espinoza graduated from Knox with an award given to a senior whose scholarly achievements were exceptional. Immediately after graduation, he participated in a pre-med immersion program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, Illinois. He sat in lectures, took part in an emergency medical event simulation, and got to perform a simulated surgical procedure. The experience only confirmed his desire to go to medical school.
Later, Espinoza was selected as an intern at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in its language services department where he once again worked as a medical interpreter. When he heard about a Northwestern Medicine program looking for youth volunteers to spread the word about Parkinson’s disease through community events, he was intrigued. After he reached out and introduced himself, Espinoza was told he would be a good fit, but that he would also be a candidate for a paid job at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, which was looking for a Spanish-speaker who could do outreach in the Spanish-speaking community. “When I saw the job opportunity, I knew that this was the perfect job for me,” he says.
Espinoza was hired in November and now works as an Outreach Coordinator for the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Program. “My mission is to create a space for Spanish-speaking individuals with Parkinson’s at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab,” he says. In the coming months, Espinoza will be coordinating a support group for people with Lewy body dementia, a form of dementia that leads to problems with thinking, movement and mood. He also will be a key part of a story-telling project for people with Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition that causes unintended movements.
Espinoza also is working on a series of YouTube videos in Spanish for people with Parkinson’s that will cover topics such as how to deal with a Parkinson’s diagnosis, rehabilitation and interventions, and mental health. He will be the host of the series as well as a speaker. He already has come up with 30 topics he would like to address. “Maybe I was a little too ambitious,” he jokes.
Eventually, Espinoza would like to go into Chicago’s large Spanish-speaking community to get the word out about Parkinson’s. He hopes to play a role in getting more Latinos involved as research participants and would like to create a Parkinson’s support group for people who are more comfortable speaking Spanish. He also wants to help create initiatives across Shirley Ryan AbilityLab to increase the number of Spanish-speaking health professionals. “One thing I really love about my job is that I can do a lot of different things,” he says. “I never imagined I would be in a place like Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and now I have a chance to be my community’s bridge to the world of healthcare and research.”