In 2009, Samarron worked together with five other undocumented students and educators at Pima Community College and the University of Arizona to create ScholarshipsA-Z<\/a>, an immigrant, youth-led organization in Tucson that assists undocumented youth and their families with scholarship opportunities and leadership trainings. The program is still a vital part of the Tucson community more than 10 years later.<\/p>\n \u201cI valued so much working with other undocumented immigrants\u2013\u2013that gives me a lot of energy, and so it has been empowering,\u201d Samarron said of the work required to found ScholarshipsA-Z. \u201cI am close friends with that first group of undocumented students. When you come together as a community that is suppressed, you learn the power in finding solutions together. It is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n While earning her bachelor\u2019s in nutritional sciences from UA, Samarron worked as a research assistant on a project with primary investigator Sofia Gomez called “DACAmented Voices in Health Care,”<\/a> sharing stories of Arizona students who are part of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).<\/p>\n \u201cThat project was more focused on community-based participatory research using Photovoice,\u201d Samarron said. \u201cIt examined how Arizona\u2019s restrictive immigration policies impact health status of undocumented youth who were DACA recipients.”<\/p>\n After her experience with the project, Samarron said she was inspired and knew she wanted to work on addressing health equity issues.<\/p>\n \u201cIt introduced me to what public health is,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like as a Mexican immigrant, I could also be part of public health. It was validating to learn from a Latinx researcher and participants. It was very empowering to see myself reflected in the discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduation, Samarron entered UA\u2019s Individualized Supervised Practice Pathway, a dietetic internship to become a registered dietitian.<\/p>\n In 2018, Samarron moved to Flagstaff and joined Northern Arizona University\u2019s Center for Health Equity Research<\/a> (CHER), where she now works as a senior research coordinator for the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative\u2019s Community Engagement Core<\/a>. She is one of the co-hosts of the center\u2019s seminal podcast, Fairness First<\/a>, which explores health equity issues with guests from the community as well as NAU.<\/p>\n While working full time for CHER, Samarron also is finishing a Master in Public Health<\/a> in NAU\u2019s Department of Health Sciences<\/a>. Her MPH project focuses on how hotel practices, policies and procedures impact the eating habits and hydration of Latina immigrant hotel housekeepers.<\/p>\n \u201cMy project shows how hotels implement exploitive practices preventing housekeepers from adequate dietary intake, which is detrimental to their health over time,\u201d Samarron said. \u201cIt is important to understand how institutions that employ immigrants and people of color, especially in time of COVID-19, are caring for workers. Overall, my project attempts to pose the question of how can institutional policies and community care not depend on the exploitation of health and life, especially from low wage workers?\u201d<\/p>\n
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