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This spring,  celebrated their 10 year anniversary by hosting the book launch for the sixth volume of The Cross-Cultural Medicine Anthology, written by Oakland High School’s (OHS) Public Health Academy students. Community Reads is a community-wide initiative, started by former Associate Director of Diversity Che Abrams, Prof. Marjorie Hammer, Library Director Hai-Thom Sota, and former Chief Diversity Officer Shirley Strong. The initiative centers on shared reading of literature and a deep dialog related to critical issues in healthcare. Throughout the year, SMU community members and partners engage in conversation while reading and exploring issues related to the structural and social determinants of health in order to reduce health inequities.

On May 14, sixty Oakland High School students came to SMU for a half-day visit, which included a meet and greet with SMU faculty, students, and staff, and a tour of the Anatomy Lab. One of the SMU students, Nicole Soriano, is an Oakland High alum and will be graduating from the BSN program this fall. She was excited to provide her unique perspective to current OHS students during the breakout session, including how to transition into our SMU healthcare training programs and continue to support diverse communities.

After hearing from SMU representatives, the teen authors had the opportunity to share their perspectives with the broader community at SMU’s Health Education Center.  They took turns reading excerpts from the anthology, with themes related to mental health; mistrust & medical racism; beliefs about birth, life and death; and traditional medicine.

Oakland High School's Cross Cultural Medicine Anthology is a junior capstone project, created by English teacher Jessica Forbes, where Public Health Academy students research and write a health narrative based on their own experiences and culture. The project includes analysis and discussion of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, inquiry into students’ cultural and personal beliefs about specific health practices, and focused research of online/print sources, and ethnographic research.

The May event was part of a growing partnership between SMU’s Community Reads, Ethnic Health Institute, and Oakland High School’s Public Health Academy. In the fall of 2023, Oakland High student authors who were published in the previous year’s anthology were invited to two College of Nursing classes, Community Health and Psychiatric Mental Health, as guest speakers. In addition, SMU students completed assignments based on their essays, such as “Why Don’t We Trust the Doctors?” and “The Power of the Evil Eye.”

In March, SMU students and faculty visited Ms. Forbes’ classroom to provide feedback and support the ethnographic writing and research process. One of the faculty visitors, Dr. Beth Ching from SMU’s Occupational Therapy program, attended a book reading of the anthology at Oakland High several years ago and referred to the event as one of the inspirations for writing her first book, Next 10 Exits: Reflections on Race and Resilience in Vallejo.  She was able to provide copies of her book to the Oakland High students as part of SMU Beamer Community Engagement Award funding. 

SMU’s Community Reads and the Ethnic Health Institute are looking forward to continuing this exciting partnership and provide opportunities for health sciences students and faculty to learn from and with Oakland youth.

If interested in purchasing the book, you can email jessica.forbes@ousd.org or check it out at one of SMU’s libraries.