Photo: Sally Aristei
Photo: Sally Aristei |
Anastacio Medina personifies the American Dream. He fled miserable conditions in Mexico, where his father was assassinated, when he was 15 and started a new life here in America with his aunt. Today he is retired after 28 years at the Los Angeles County Public Health Department and is an active community leader and public health advocate, working the streets of Los Angeles to combat tuberculosis and unite the community in a fight it can win.
"If you work hard here, you will have a good chance to succeed," Medina says.
Medina has been working with the American Lung Association of Los Angeles County and some of the largest Catholic churches in the Los Angeles area on a successful tuberculosis education and outreach project. At one church event in Huntington Park, he secured more than 40 volunteers who handed out information and gave TB skin tests to hundreds of parishioners.
Medina also has enlisted the support of local businesspeople, getting donations of Mexican pastries and other items for the project. He wants to help the community learn to work together to solve its own problems.
"We need to educate small business about the needs of the community," he says. "We all have to participate to realize the American Dream."