The Elders panel provided an opportunity for the audience to hear from a group of elders of color to share the trials, tribulations, successes and challenges that shaped their individual lives. This extraordinary group of elders of color agreed to candidly discuss how their race/ethnicity and sex/gender provided them opportunities (or lack thereof ), and how these opportunities (positively and/or negatively) influenced their lives. The Public Health Ethics Forum Planning Committee agreed on a conversation format for the elders’ panel discussions. The theme of the panel discussion was, “Thriving and Aging with Dignity.” The Planning Committee spent considerable time and energy discussing objectives befitting the breadth and depth of the lived experiences of this unique panel of elders. The objectives were:
Identify biases that comprise and/or compromise healthy aging.
Explore community understanding about the differences between being elderly, and elder, and and/or being an emerging elder.
Examine the ethical considerations that drive achieving healthy aging: What should public health do?
Assure social justice in the experience of aging.
Achieving healthy aging: What should public health do?
The Planning Committee agreed that most of the public health workforce are not elders, so it was important to listen without judging and discuss without debating. The format was for the Moderator to ask each panelist a series of questions and allow time for panelists to respond individually. The Moderator asked each panelist to introduce himself or herself.
Elias Segarra
Yes, my name is Elias Segarra.
I was born in Puerto Rico, USA, and I am 88 years old.
And it’s funny -- I have three cancers. They have been treated at Emory, and the main one that’s giving me now, like, more trouble is a bone cancer. And I’m getting chemotherapy for that, but I’m doing okay. I live in Duluth, and I am -- I’m retired. I look at what you were saying -- I mean, every day, I mean, I look at -- I live day by day, and I feel happy. I feel happy. I -- when I’m going to sleep at night, sometimes,
I get a little -- and then I think of what I’m going to do the other day, what I’m going to have for breakfast. I have to prepare it myself, because I live alone. But I feel happy. I watch my TV, and my computer.
I mean, I love my computer. Because of my computer, I read papers from all over the world. I read newspapers, and then I -- if I cannot see the letters well, I put them bigger, and I am -- I could say I’m living a happy life.
Nadinne Cruz
Yes, my name is Nadinne Irene Cruz. I’m an immigrant from the Philippines. This year, my mother, who is alive, turned 97, and I turned 70. And our newest grandchild was born, and he’s three weeks old. So this is a good year. I don’t like credentials for myself. I think of myself primarily as a person who’s searching for different ways of looking at things that are in front of our faces, like growing old, and being at that stage in life where I think more closely or more seriously with intentionality about how to die well as part of living well. And as part of being healthy. So I’ve worked mostly in higher education over 30 years in what is called public service education, so I’ve taught service learning, civic education, public service, scholarship at various institutions in the United States, and I have also run a consortium of 18 colleges.
So I’ve been connected with education for a long time, but I’m also a very, very deep critic of the very thing that I’m associated with. So my typical way is to be a critic of the conventional way of looking at things. So I will be speaking out about how I feel uncomfortable with how elderly and elder is defined, at least as far as I can -- as far as I hear it around me. Thanks.
Chester Antone
My name’s Chester Antone. I’m from Arizona, southwestern Arizona, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Our nation borders on Mexico, and we have been primarily involved with healthcare as a politician, I guess you might say, but I don’t lie. But yeah, I was in denial for quite a long time until CDC and Tuskegee told me I was elder -- elderly, so here I am. So, yeah, we run into a lot of the issues nationally with the Native American population elderly, and we talk about it. We try to figure out ways of -- how to serve, because in our way, and most Indian communities, the elderly are special. They’re honored, but as you’ll see, some of the conversation may turn into a gradual erosion of what we used to be. But I’m here, so I’ll be participating.
Mamie Watkins-Clemons
Okay. Good morning. Good morning. My friends -- Yes. -- and I say you are my friends, because you’re here. My name -- I’m going to give you a long name. My name is Mamie Viola Henry Watkins-Clemmons…
And it took me a bit over 100 years to get here, to be here with you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I guess you would like to know a little something about my background, which I don’t have long enough to tell you about it, but I was born in Evergreen, Alabama--and when you think you’re in Evergreen, go a little further out to China -- China, Alabama. And I was told by several they don’t know how we got to be there, because it was back in the woods. I was fortunate to be born of two parents that were both schoolteachers, and to be able to go to school to your relatives -- it takes a bit. But I’m thankful to be here, to tell you a little something about it -- my education, if you call it that, able to walk to school while others rode buses to school, but we were able to be taught of things that would concern you later on in life. Meaning that there’s no stopping place if you really want to be somebody, so to speak. So I’m very grateful this morning to be here to tell you a little about life, education a bit. Being taught by my parents, then being taught by my brother, who moved from the country all the way to Tuskegee, and after Tuskegee, many, many other places -- but I’m thankful -- grateful to be here now. Sound a bit repetitious, but that means that’s so I’ll be able to let you know, and you may want to ask questions after that. But able to go to school, to walk to school. After being -- finishing 12th grade, and moving to Alabama State Teachers’ College at that time, being able to teach on a provisional certificate, meaning that the community wanted you. I walked two miles to a two-room school, where two teachers taught, and kept warm by a stove that wood was cut to make fire for the children in order to study. Moving from there, being at Alabama State University now, to Tuskegee, and you’ve heard a lot about Tuskegee.
You will be hearing about Tuskegee.
Then, receiving a BS degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Now, I’m able to tell you a little about the school, and the teachers that came from that two-teacher school room. We could point them.
Dr. Rueben Warren
What has most impacted your life?
Mr. Segarra
I’m trying to think. I’ve already done so many things, but I believe my mother had such an important part in my life, mainly making me and my personality as a positive person. I’m an eternal optimist. I was born in -- as I told you, in Puerto Rico, at such a long time ago, and it was so, so different. We were poor, and it was different at that time. I know someone here asked a lady that she has 101, but I have 88, and it was so different. But that was what most impacted me, was my mother.
Ms. Cruz
What has most impacted me? I’m going to say it straight-up, because it’s part of what I would like to share. There’s a lot of stigma attached to it -- is that when I was three or four years old, somebody came into our house, pointed a gun at my father, and gunned him down and killed him. My mother, during World War II, saw her fiancée shot and killed by an American soldier who thought they were the Japanese enemy, because all Asians look alike. Those killings are part of -- I think of inter-generational racial -- historical racial trauma, and a lot of what I have -- most of my 70 years has been focused on the particularities of my individual family. And it has taken me a very, very long time to see my family’s health in the larger context of large swathes of history and social systems. And so, that’s what I hope to be able to share, is what I have struggled to figure out about my own life in the context of the larger historical drama, to figure out how to be a healthy, thriving older person.
Mr. Antone
What has impacted me the most in education? My mother, who really didn’t know too much made sure that I sat at the table and did my homework every night under the -- there was a kerosene lamp. For her to do that made me pursue education at different times in my life, and eventually make it out of the University of Arizona, and that’s the first in our family. But the other thing that I think had more of an impact on me, as far as how I view life, right now, as being something given to you by the Creator, that you should honor it -- I came to that realization by having to have lived through many dark moments. I’m an alcoholic for maybe over -- been sober now for over 20 years. But that experience has taught me the value of life now, and I just want to be a part of it now, and be happy, and do what I can for the people. The most important thing -- the one most important -- The one most important thing in my life has been the prayer life of my parents, and the idea that was put into my head was that you can -- there’s no height that you cannot reach if you are willing to pay the price all the way. So I’ve been impacted by people, dealing with people, knowing people, and being a part of their lives. That has impacted my life, to want to be a loving person, and be loved by those.
Dr. Warren
This question is a little sensitive one. Give me an example of something that’s been a bias or a prejudice to you -- something or some event, bias or a prejudice to you.
Mr. Segarra
I studied in the University of Miami, Coral Gables long ago. And at that time, I remember there was still segregation, which when I came, was so strange to me. Because we didn’t have that in Puerto Rico, but I felt segregated -- what struck me -- once, it was a -- like a chauffeur of a bus. And I handed him some money, and he made some comments. I don’t even recall it now, but I felt myself -- he made some comments as to -- because he heard my accent, as to derogative, and I probably couldn’t understand part of it. But a friend of mine that was with me -- he was from Cuba, and he heard it. He knew a lot more English than I did at that time, so he answered him. And, I mean, that’s an occasion I can remember when I felt like -- like, prejudiced because of my…
Ms. Cruz
There are so many that I -- throw out a few. So I used to have hair below my waist. I chopped it all off because I could never, it seemed, establish a sense of my authority with the long hair. And so I chopped it off because nobody believed I was actually the teacher in the class. “So where’s the teacher?” Well, I’m the teacher. “Oh, you don’t look like the teacher.” That was one of many. Another would be, like, oh, “why are you so emotional?” Followed with, “why are you so analytical?” And so, either I was overly-analytical, or overly-emotional, and then the last one -- example -- there are just so many, but I’ll just throw out these three -- is -- so I was invited to give a presentation on United States-Philippines relations. And at that time, it was during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and I was working on a social justice movement on human rights violations under the dictatorship of Marcos. And then, I included why the United States was implicated in giving military aid to a dictatorship for the containment of communism in Southeast Asia. And the response at the end of my presentation was not curiosity about anything. It was, “Well, why don’t you just go back, then, to the Philippines, if you don’t like it here so much?” So, a few examples.
Mr. Antone
My experience has been that a corporation in our native lives from things outside coming in has been most difficult. And I don’t want to say anything about something that’s true nationally among tribes, but in my particular tribe, it seems that a corporation has kind of led us to become like the federal government. And the same thing that oppressed us, we seem to oppress. We learned it. If you look at our system of government, ours is a three-branch government, but all that bureaucracy is the same.
But we still argue with the federal government about their bureaucracy, which we inherited, and that has kind of, like, a negative effect on how we feel about Indian for our elders. Because that’s what I said earlier, that we’re seeming to lose that which we had for our elders. We have an adult protection ordinance. Why? To illustrate that how far we’ve come to get to that point where we actually need an ordinance. And long ago, we didn’t -- we didn’t need an ordinance because it was just natural. You took care of your elders like you go on a hunt and you were able to get lucky to bag a deer your first time. Take over to the elders. You don’t get nothing out of it. Then after that, you always have to give some to the elders. So it changed from that due to the time period. And I guess that’s how I wanted to answer that question.
Ms. Mamie Clemons
The great part of my life has been to be happy. To be happy and to make those around me happy. And whatever I could do to see happiness even in the face of a child, if the child looked worried at school, I’d like to make him happy. And I’ve always thought of this. If you are happy, can’t anyone make you mad? If you can make me angry, then you’re smarter than I am because I believe that no way should we walk around sad even though things may not go according to the way even others around you they may go of what you have seen or what you have learned. But you become that type of person that you can climb as high as the good Lord would let you go. That’s what I think.
Dr. Warren
I asked Aunt Mamie to give me an example of something bad or some prejudice, she would not do it. She translated happy no matter what I say. I said it about five times. It all came out happy. It all came on happy.
The last question before we open it up for you to ask them questions is what advice would you give our audience? What advice would you give our audience?
Mr. Segarra
I would give you advice that to live this life, to live is just a miracle. And enjoy your life and do the thing that makes you happiest as much as you can. And enjoy doing that, doing what you really feel passionate about. For a long time, I tried to do what others thought I should do and it didn’t work for me. So I mean, that’s the advice. I mean, follow your -- follow your vocation, whatever you feel like. Like doing that makes you happy.
Ms. Cruz
For me, I guess the advice is what I’d like to share as an advice. What I’ve been trying to do, which is to develop some metaphors, or pictures or visuals or vision, of what it means to become elder and in the latter stages of the life cycle. And I don’t know what it might be for you. It has helped me through a lifetime of chronic depression which I think is a much stigmatized illness. In my community of Filipino-Americans, they will cite obesity, hypertension, and diabetes and won’t say anything about the high suicide rates of females, of Filipina-Americans. So some of my visuals are two and I’d like to share that as an advice. One metaphor I think of for myself to make me feel happy as a useful person is as an old-growth tree. When you think about in the Redwood Forest, the old-growth tree with all the roots interacting underneath the soil, all we need to do as an old-growth tree is to stand tall and keep standing, because then the new growth and the seedlings and all that they are can come. And we develop a big forest. And to a great extent, it sounds like a passive thing but it’s a very active thing and it is centuries old. And so there is an inherent integral value to being an old-growth tree. And if I’m a kind of human -- the metaphor of an old-growth tree, it is important for me to stay standing. And so that gives me incentive to overcome a lifetime illness of depression. The other visual that I use and I share it as an advice is the metaphor that transition. So I transition from firefighting which is like active, heroic, risk-taking, at the barricades, physically fit, able to do lots of things, and feel useful that way. But I’m no longer firefighting in the sense that I don’t have that part of my life anymore. But I can be weaving. And weaving is integral to the value of all communities. Weaving is invisible. It’s not heroic, not seen as heroic. It’s seen as feminine. It’s every day, but all communities cannot survive without the constant weaving of the fabric of humanity and community and without the constant mending of that fabric. And I can do that even when I can no longer be physically fit, as long as I can interact with people, I can still have value as a weaver of society.
Mr. Antone
My advice is to go wherever one would go when it all ends—is to make your life, your characteristics, your and traditions, you know, you leave that into memories of people that you’ve known in the hopes that you really live your life well—it would have some value. Your life had a value. And hopefully, it will pass on to the people that remember you the way they do because you have these good things about you. I think that will be the advice I would give to live your life like that, to leave a good memory.
Ms. Clemons
I learned early in life that prayer moves mountains. And I wanted to know, “Well, what is real prayer?” So I brought to my knowledge from the Holy Spirit that I could pray in seven W’s and just about cover what God would have me be and do. The seven W’s of prayer, I will give them to you. You might want to write them down. Number one, I pray that God’s Will be done. That’s W number one. That I really don’t know everything about me but there is some higher power somewhere that knows about me. What I need, what I can do at all. So W number one, I pray God’s Will be done. Number two, I pray that it be done in His Way. You know, when I started out to school, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to be or even what I could be. But I remember that a higher power knows all about it. So I want His Will to be done in His Way. We may not learn all that we want to know quickly. But we might have to bypass some things in order to get to the best things. I pray that His Will be done in His Way, the way He wants to do it. I may not know. I may not understand. So I pray that His Will, His Way and then His Word. We studied the Word. Everyone knows something about the word Bible. So if it’s according to His Word, I know it’s all right. His Will, His Way, His Word and then all I have to do is watch. Watch and pray. And while I’m watching, while I’m watching, I have to wait. When I was teaching all of provisional and there were two ways school, I did not know that I could be 100 and one and be here and give you some knowledge of what I have gone through. So His Way and then I have to learn to Wait. Wait till the proper time. I may not be able to do what I want to do but there is a time element. His Way, His Will, His Word, and then Wait. And while you’re waiting, don’t forget while you are waiting, there must be some Work done. There’s something you have to do. There’s something you have to know. So that’s His Will, His Way, His Word, then Wait, Watch.
Watch and then wait then continue to Work, because the Word says, “I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. Night cometh, no man can work.” So we don’t just sit and wait like we’re waiting on the street car or a bus. But there must be some work done. So then we work the works of Him that sent us while it’s day. Night cometh, no man can work. Moreover, after we have let His Will be done, in His Way, through His Word, while we just Watch and pray then we wait. We Wait on the Lord. But we don’t Wait empty handed. We wait while we are working. We continue to work. You know, I thought about that work part and I learned to work because I -- when I would see this elderly gentleman plowing and you may not even know what the word plow [laughter]. But he was plowing a mule in order to raise vegetables.
I would have him sit down under the shade tree and wait while I go around a row or two and do what he did with the plow. And I was only an upper teenager at that time but I wanted to help. And while I was waiting and I saw an elderly person drawing water out of a well, turning a crank to get water. I stopped to help them draw water. And then with the drawing and the waving, I had to wait until the cows that we milked. I had to wait until they grazed in the wood and come. And I had to draw water to give the animals water. And I thought to myself, “It looked like they never would stop drinking water.” They were thirsty. So with that, and I repeat those seven times, the seven W’s --
God’s Will, His Way, do His Word while we Watch and pray. Then we Wait on the Lord and while we’re waiting, we Work. And after we have done that, you can feel like worshipping. You feel like worshipping because you’ve done something that helped with it. So I am very thankful to have been able to see how to work and make vegetables grow so that we could eat properly and your health could be good. You would be strong and mighty.
Following the responses from the panelists, there was an hour question an answer period. The audience shared their stories about their engagements with elders ranging from professional to personal family stories. The entire panel discussion is available on the National Bioethics Center website at: tuskegeebioethic.org.