Medicine Grows on Trees!

"[As] a working class family, we didn’t have health insurance network. Our Kaiser was my moms backyard."

By Antony Jauregui
August 27, 2007

Listen to this Commentary!

Herbal remedies have become a huge business in the U.S. as people seek alternative ways to get better and ward off illness. But for Youth Radio’s Antony Jauregui, herbal medicine isn’t the alternative; it’s a long-standing tradition in his family. (August 24 on NPR's Living on Earth)

For many generations, my family has passed down the Mexican tradition of growing medicinal herbs to treat and cure everyday ailments. Because I am growing up in the U.S., I am afraid that my connection to these plants might get lost.

It’s important to me not just to gain the knowledge of these valuable plants, but to share it with people who could benefit from their use.

Let’s go on a little scavenger hunt with my mom in her garden. (Garden ambi under…)

MOM (On Tape)
Sería el cambio de tierra que le hice, pero se ve muy bonita esta planta…

ANTONY
This is my mom is admiring her epazote plant. We’ve used plants like these throughout my childhood.

I’ve been gathering samples of each plant and taping them into my notebook, writing all I know about each one.

Most of what I know of medicinal plants comes from seeing my mom use them.

MOM (On Tape)
Desde que naci. Vivi en un lugar que para todo usaban hierbas; para cada ves que se enfermaba alguien pura hierba.

ANTONY
She says that, in her hometown everyone used herbs anytime someone got sick. I ask my mom which illnesses can be treated with herbs…

MOM (On Tape)
Pues para insomnio, para colicos, para dolores en la espalda, la cabesa, vomito, que se yo.

ANTONY
...insomnia, back pains, nausea, headaches…my mom’s list of herbal remedies cure alls sort of complaints.

Its my work now to continue her traditions – and I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the plants in my region. Let’s take a walk through the Santa Monica Mountains with Antonio Solorio.

ANTONIO SOLORIO (On Tape)
Now this plant, this tree; the willow is actually a medicinal tree. The Native Americans in this region known as the Chumash use the willow as medicine.

ANTONY
Antonio Solorio is an ethno-botanist and National Park ranger who has been studying traditional medicinal gardens in East Los Angeles.

ANTONIO (On Tape)
So the willow tree - salex is the genus… If you look at aspirin, its made up of salicilic acid, this is right here the true aspirin, the original aspirin, the original medicines for a toothache or a headache, and a healer would administer and the chemicals that are found the potency – its right underneath the bark.

ANTONY
Antonio Solorio has a very practical reason for why many families use backyard herbs as medicine.

ANTONIO (On Tape)
Growing up in East Los Angeles, in a working class family, we didn’t have health insurance network. Our Kaiser was my moms backyard. You know or Blue Cross was my mom’s backyard.

ANTONY
High healthcare costs have many Latino families, like Antonio’s, returning to traditional medicine. But, certain plant medicines found in their home countries are not available here in the U.S.

ANTONIO (On Tape)
Not even in the local mercados that would cater to the Latino communities. So that’s something that’s being lost. Also when you move to an urban area your culture certain practices are getting replaced and it’s kind of the whole process of migrating.

ANTONY
Which gives many Latinos no back-yard alternative to expensive western medicine. But some in the community turn away from medicinal herbs to shake a persistent stereotype.

KAREN HOLLIDAY (On Tape)
Especially about the Latino community there’s this stigma of backwardness…

ANTONY
Karen Holliday is an anthropologist who spends a lot of time in botanicas, which are part-pharmacy, part-spiritual center – where many immigrants seek counseling for everything from back pains to bad luck.

KAREN (On Tape)
immediately the way that Latinos were portrayed as well as the botanicas were superstitious, witchcraft, occult, devil worshipping, and that’s a very narrow way of looking at people.

ANTONY
People probably aren’t worshipping the devil at botanicas, but some powders and mixtures sold there are known to do more harm than good. Like when they contain poisons. On example is a powder called Greta from Mexico that’s used to treat indigestion. It’s been found by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have very high levels of lead.

And there is another important reason to look beyond medicinal herbs says Dr. Steven J. Brown from the AIDS Research Alliance in Los Angeles.

DR. BROWN (On Tape)
Not to say there won’t be some certain interventions that affect the illness… but I think it’s important to make a distinction between the disease which the patient has and the illness which the patient experiences. Most cancers…gastric ulcers … which needs to be treated with anti-biotics, many neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s can only be treated really medically.

ANTONY (On Tape)
That leaves more room for plant medicine and traditional healing to treat physical symptoms…and more than that. Working with my mom in the garden, I realize it’s also about the spiritual and mental satisfaction that comes from growing a plant and from preparing it.

I often prepare my own dandelion tea to relax after a long day. And sometimes it is actually the process in which it is made which has a soothing effect.

To me, being healthy means more than taking a pill and being free from disease. I take a more active role in my health; one that ties me to my culture and feeds my mind.

Ahhh.

BACK ANNOUNCE Antony Jáuregui is a correspondent for Youth Radio. He leaves Los Angeles to study environmental science and journalism in Northern Arizona this week.