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Vol 44 No. 6
www.theactiveage.com Kansas’ Largest Newspaper
May 2023
Latinos face tough choice Uphold cultural tradition or trust strangers to care for their parents?
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By Stefania Lugli Planeta Venus/The Active Age Two tasks start Elizabeth Montes’ day: a morning prayer and a routine check to make sure her mother woke up, too. Then: breakfast. Medication. Food. Shower. Hospice. More food. Standby in case her mother decides to make a trek for the kitchen. Bedtime. And, usually, a 2:30 a.m. wakeup call from Montes’ mother’s low blood sugar demanding attention. “It gets very tiring. I can’t leave her by herself for a long time,” Montes, 63, said in an interview. “The other day she woke up, went to the bathroom [by herself ] and I heard her yell out, ‘Help! Help!’ When I find her in the hallway, she goes, ‘I can’t find my room. Where is my room?’” Evangelina Rubio, 88, laid on her side, quiet, keeping eyes trained on her
daughter as she divulged details of her mother’s recent years: health scares that took her to grave’s edge and back, a garden of orange pill bottles that’s grown by each passing spring and taking advantage of any resource that comes Montes’ way. Latinos like Montes tend to shoulder the responsibility of caring after aging family members, which commonly forces adult children into a taxing position: to keep caregiving inhouse, they find themselves shut out from the rest of the world. Montes was a priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church until the end of 2021, when both her and her mother got severe cases of Covid. They both recovered, but Montes never returned to work while her mother never returned to her old health. Montes always knew, as the oldest of three, that any geriatric care would
Photo by Fernando Salazar
As the oldest child in a Latino family, Elizabeth Montes says she knew it would be her responsibilty to care for her mother, Evangelina Rubio. ultimately fall on her shoulders. or when I’m left wondering what my capabilities are outside of my mom’s “When you come from a traditional Mexican family, as the care. A lot happens in your head when you’re in isolation.” oldest, you’re it,” she said. “I have no regrets. But it gets lonely and Montes also has soured relationships with both her sister and frustrating, especially not being able to do all the things you want to do See Latinos, page 6
WSU prof: Quivira civilization underestimated
ARKANSAS CITY — An early Great Plains civilization centered around the Arkansas River was much bigger and more influential than previously thought, says a Wichita State professor of anthropology. Don Blakeslee, who's been conducting archaeological research here for a decade, said recent discoveries challenge the view of the Plains as being sparsley populated and less culturally advanced than other pre-Columbian societies. In 2017, Blakeslee claimed to have confirmed the location of an ancient Native American settlement known as Etzanoa in a spot near Arkansas City where it had long been suspected. Now, Blakeslee says Etzanoa was part of a nation called Quivira that totalled more than 200,000 people. Ancestors of today's Wichita tribe,
they traded goods across North America and even had a previously unknown common language, he says. “It’s going to revolutionize our view of the Great Plains societies, and it already has for me and my students,” Blakeslee said in a news release from the school. “Charles Mann wrote Photo courtesy of Wichita State University (in the book) ‘1491’ Wichita State University professor Don about the thriving Blakeslee and students conduct an archaeology Native American dig near Arkansas City. societies before the he talked about the Great Plains, time of Columbus in he called them distant and sparsely South America, Central America and the American Southeast, but when See Quivira, page 9
Questions about services?
Central Plains Area Agency on Aging/Sedgwick County Department on Aging: 1-855-200-2372
Butler County: (316) 775-0500 or 1-800-279-3655 Harvey County: (316) 284-6880 or 1-800-279-3655