(bright music) - [Announcer] "Roots, Race, & Culture" is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat jazz music) - Hello, everybody, and welcome to "Roots, Race, and Culture," where we bring you into candid conversations about shared cultural experiences.

I'm Danor Gerald.

- And I'm Lonzo Liggins.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations, or STEM, are projected to grow over two times faster than the total for all occupations in the next decade.

Blacks, Hispanics, and women, however, are lagging far behind.

For example, Blacks who make up 11% of the workforce, only comprise 9% of STEM occupations.

Hispanics who represent 17% of the workforce, only comprise 8% of STEM jobs.

On the other hand, Asians, who comprise only 6% of the workforce, represent 13% of STEM jobs, nearly doubling the number of jobs for Hispanics.

So why is this?

Well, we invited two guests to help us understand this problem better and to offer some solutions.

Welcome, guys.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, so great to have you.

- Juliette, why don't we start with you?

- Yes, I am a founder and director of Club Ability.

My background is a systems engineer with an MBA degree, and a project management professional certification.

- [Lonzo] Oh, excellent.

- All right, and the legendary Dr. Richard Ferguson.

Introduce yourself, please.

- (chuckling) Thank you, Lonzo.

Dr. Richard Ferguson.

I'm the president and founder of Black Physicians of Utah.

I'm a family medicine physician by training, although I've practiced emergency medicine primarily for the last 10 to 12 years across the nation.

And my day job, I'm the Chief Medical Officer for Health Choice Utah.

- Wow.

So you've seen a lot in your career it sounds like.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- And let's talk about the elephant in the room.

That jumping purple suit you got on there.

- [Lonzo] That is hot stuff, man.

- [Danor] Hot stuff.

- Thank you, thank you.

Just trying to model our colors.

- What are the colors?

- Purple, white and a tinge of blue.

- [Lonzo] Oh.

- [Danor] Very nice.

- [Lonzo] A taste of blue.

Looks awesome.

- [Danor] Awesome.

- Thank you.

- [Lonzo] He always looks great.

- So, can you guys just give us a little information about your organizations?

Why don't we start with you, Juliette?

- Yes.

Club Ability works with Hispanic Youth, especially with the special needs students, and also to become tech creator and also, means to gain digital skills, to get better jobs, higher income, and decrease poverty rates.

- Oh wow.

So how young are these youth when they start?

- Our students are from, started from seven years old to fifteen years old.

- [Lonzo] Wow.

- [Danor] That's a good spread.

Yeah, that's a, that's.

- A nice, yes.

- It's a nice time to get in and learn those skills.

- And our program is bilingual.

It's in Spanish and in English because it is a reason we need to embrace our root, our culture.

- [Lonzo] Yes, yes.

Excellent.

- [Danor] Love that.

- Dr. Ferguson, tell us about your organization.

Tell us about Black Physicians of Utah.

- Yeah.

Yes.

So Black Physicians of Utah created in March, 2021.

And it was, you know, part of the impetus was it is as a Black physician here in Utah since 2010, I was often the only Black physician I saw in a predominantly white space and a predominantly white state.

And I could have either whined and complained about it or I could do something to change it.

So I started BPOU as one, a means to increase representation of Black physicians in the state.

And that often is through mentorship, trying to, much of it is modeling of behavior.

If someone can see it, they can be it.

- Mm.

I believe that.

- And then secondly, it is to improve healthcare outcomes.

'Cause often healthcare outcomes are improved for people of color, particularly African Americans, if they can receive care from someone that looks like them.

- Wow.

- Mm.

Yes.

- Yes.

That's right.

- That's interesting.

- Now, 'cause I wanna jump right into this.

So based on both of your experiences, why do you feel that Blacks and Hispanics aren't as well represented as other minorities, such as Asians as we were talking about before?

I'm gonna start with you, Juliette.

- Yes.

I think is that there is a limit in access, high-quality for Hispanics.

For example, Hispanic youth, they don't have access to a strong STEM program in their childhood.

Also, there is like a lack of mentor or role models who encouraged them to pursue a STEM careers.

I think my community is hardworking and they love their family.

They only need this access to high quality to be part of STEM.

- Oh, yeah.

- That's so great.

You're helping to provide that.

- Yeah.

- Dr. Ferguson, what are your thoughts on that?

- It's very similar.

That's why we have a strong and robust mentorship program where we're taking pre-meds and even into high school now that we'll be starting in February this year because many Black students from early on in school, junior high, high school, throughout college, actually many of our mentor, our mentees, are non-traditional students.

They tend to actually be deciding to pursue medicine a bit later because they have not met a Black physician often and no one has approached them until later on in their years in college to say, have you considered medicine?

You're really bright.

And they actually find someone that's taking an interest in them.

Well, this needs to start a lot earlier.

We need to be able to build that pipeline to encourage Black youth that they can see themselves in a STEM field, particularly medicine in our case.

But we want to make sure that we can change the, I guess the landscape.

Because America's gonna continue to diversify, or it's gonna become more diverse.

And Black and Brown communities, particularly in Utah, are growing and they want to receive care from providers.

that are representative from their community.

And we need to be able to start setting the example now and that's what BPOU's trying to do, but as well as comparing that with community education.

- Yes.

Also, you see in my community, the parents, the Hispanic parents often didn't have the opportunity to finish high school.

And also, they maybe had worse, maybe two or three jobs and they don't have enough time- - Oh, to be the mentor.

- Yes.

- That the person needs, to encourage them.

- And this is a reason we need to collaborate more with this communities, with our communities.

- Well, according to the education advisory board, now this is after a student has decided to go into STEM and they go into it in high school or college, one third of Blacks and Hispanics will change their major out of STEM because they feel like they're being discriminated against.

So how, have you ever seen or received any pushback from students when you're encouraging them and then they get to college and they're like, no, I don't want to do this anymore.

How have you guys experienced or found that?

- I, that's a great question, a great point.

So I see it often, and it's many times it's pre-medical advisors that are at college campuses, it's high school, college advisors.

- Wow.

- That are blatantly discouraging Black students from pursuing higher, not necessarily higher degrees, but particular arduous or tough fields.

And they will say, well, maybe you won't be as great as that.

Maybe consider this other tier of school.

Not always encouraging them to, you know, shoot for the stars, you know, settle for the moon or you know, stay a little closer to earth.

Do what you're more capable of.

I've saw that, I've seen that from my volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club here at the Capitol West.

But also I've seen it at University of Utah campus.

There's actually quite a few resources with University of Utah for Black students.

But many of the advisors will not connect them to these resources that are particularly for STEM opportunities in the summer, working in a research lab, getting an internship with a biotech firm.

They are out there, they want to hire Black and Hispanic students, but you don't have often professors that are encouraging this behavior.

- Hmm.

And providing those connections.

That's important.

- Was there like a personal experience that you had going to college?

- In my case, I study in Peru, okay.

I didn't have any pushback about my race or ethnicity.

However, being a woman in the STEM, I have, since the first time I study STEM, I have bullying from my male students, my male colleagues.

And also, many of our students, males talk about our appearance like a woman because there were eight woman and a lot of men and it's hard because sometimes they didn't respect you and your opinion.

- Yeah.

That even happened recently in South America with a woman who was in the Congress and she had someone who basically like, was inappropriate on the floor of Congress with this woman.

So I can see how that would be very damaging to your sense of self-confidence.

- Yes.

I think so.

Women in a STEM are very valuable and in my experience, because I am study an engineer career and see that woman are more determined to finish this career than the male.

- Wow.

- In my experience, okay?

Every experience is different, but in my experience, more women, if they decide to pursue a STEM career, they finish.

- [Danor] Yeah.

So why do you think they're more valuable?

- Our thing, like a woman, we are perspective is different.

Like we have like a, when we create technology, we see more aspect maybe, and this is the diverse team who help.

It's like a not gender is involved.

Gender, race, ethnicity, believe in other thing.

You have a diverse team, your product, your technology will be better.

- Right.

- Wow.

- So I'm curious, when people think of STEM, they think of, you know, engineering.

And so talk to us about the medical field.

How does STEM differ than IT or something like that?

Like what's, what's the significance?

- Well, the gap is actually parallel.

It's very much the same and for similar reasons.

- [Lonzo] Okay.

- So for example, when we look at the percent of those with African Americans with master's degrees and PhDs, it's about 5% in the nation.

When we look at the, you know, there were 13.6% of the population based on recent census, but we also are only 5% of physicians.

And the number of physicians in the US or Black physicians in the US, has not increased in over 30 years.

- Wow.

- Why is that?

And some of that is of course effects of, you know, the elephant in the room, systemic and institutional racism that, you know, her and I exist and our organizations exist to actually undo a lot of this.

- [Lonzo] Yeah.

- And trying to gain a lot of non-BIPOC allies and support and PWIs to try and encourage this change.

And some of that's gonna happen at the institutional level, some of it's gonna have to start at the state and legislative level.

- Okay.

- To effect long-term, long-term change to address these disparities and these gaps.

I mean, 13% of the population, but 5% of what's represented in STEM fields and medicine.

Yeah.

It's 2023.

It's time to change.

- [Lonzo] Yeah.

- And I believe her and our organization have solutions for it.

- So, and I wanna get to those solutions.

I just wanna ask you a quick question about, do you think with young, Black and Hispanic youth that there's a stigma against going into those fields that they're considered nerdy or they're just not as cool as like pursuing other fields like entertainment or sports or things like that?

Do you think that plays a part in it?

- Yeah, I think it definitely does.

That's where we have the effects of systemic racism and then sometimes cultural bias.

And sometimes that is perpetuated within our own communities.

But it started as a reason because often the generation before us didn't see an example of physician to follow, didn't see an engineer, didn't see, didn't know of a chemist, didn't know of a veterinarian in their community, in their state.

So they often go by what they're able to see.

So if someone is often in a blue collar role, which jobs are necessary, but many of them don't require a higher degree.

So they say, well, mom and dad didn't do it and grandfather, you know, grandpa worked at the factory.

I don't need to necessarily aspire more and sometimes my escape may be athletics.

- Right.

- Which, you know, BPOU definitely usually does not encourage, but we do encourage fitness.

- Right.

- And, you know, being generally healthy.

- Yeah, we want to give you a chance to answer this question as well.

And then we wanna show some people who are in your program and in your program who are young and who've benefited from it.

So why don't we start with you finishing that question about youth.

- Yes.

In the case, Latinos don't, doesn't have a lot of role models, but the thing is, we need to start in the job age.

This is the thing.

Club Ability was born to see more Hispanic being a STEM creator of technology.

And this is the reason we want to involve in the like a field trip to see how it's work in technology.

- Yeah.

- Met our role models.

- [Danor] Yes.

- In the industry.

Connect with Hispanic role models.

- Because there's a lot of technology companies out here and they should be helping bring these students into their buildings and meeting some of these people to get to understand that.

I have one thought that came to mind, though, before we do this thing with the team.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know, I remember learning in history about a lot of things that were invented and credit was given to someone other than the actual inventor.

The Eli Whitney and the cotton gins come to mind.

But I don't know if that's the one.

So maybe there's a little bit of historical trauma there where we've seen that, you know, Black or Hispanic people have invented things but weren't allowed to have a patent or to, you know, apply for a patent or whatever.

And then so the credit or the, all the residual income and everything was given to someone else.

- [Juliette] Yes.

- So do you think that that could actually have an impact on our way we see things?

- I read the book "Hidden Figures" who has a movie about the women in NASA.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

Three Black women and worked for NASA.

- Yes.

You read this book, you understand better what happened in this environment.

It was worked.

Men was not able to work in company, hire white woman, and then finally, white woman is not enough and they say, okay, let's go to open a woman with color, Black color.

And this is a thing.

If this don't happen, maybe we don't have in this point because it's in the nineties.

And I think we need more than that, okay?

We need to project in our environment, in our society, society marketing who talk about everyone is welcome.

Woman of color.

People of color.

Because if you saw the first ad when you promotion a computer appear the man, the man working in the computer and the wife cleaning or in the kitchen.

And this is a thing.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah, I see it.

Well, why don't we look at some of the, why don't we take a look at some of the videos of some of the students who are doing well in some of your programs.

Why don't we start with Dr. Ferguson's, the Black Physicians of Utah.

This is Maya?

- Yeah.

Maya Sherrell.

- Maya Sherrell.

Okay.

This is Maya Sherrell.

- Hi, my name is Maya Sherrell.

I'm a third year undergrad at the University of Utah.

I'm pre-med and I'm part of the Black Physicians of Utah.

Recently, I got to attend one of my very first events with the Black Physicians of Utah, their Medicine Immersion Day.

And honestly, the event was life changing for me.

Not only did I get to go visit my first OR and try my first stitch, but I also got the opportunity to meet my first ever Black physician, my first ever African American physician.

And I got the opportunity to have engaging conversations with physicians.

Personally, I chose STEM, I chose pre-med because science and mathematics gave me the opportunity to, you know, learn new things about the world every day and know things that I've never known before and know things that I would've never known.

And just doing that kind of inspires me every single day.

I think more people of color should go into STEM just because not only do you learn new stuff, but you get the opportunity to bring that back to your community and in a way that changes the world.

When I was 14, my father had a stroke and I was thrown into the medical world in a way.

And specifically, I was thrown into what the medical world is like for an African American male.

And it was obvious that there were disparities.

I mean just, you know, pain level and patient care and treatment.

It's different for an African American male.

And that really is kind of what pushes me because I know that there are changes I wanna see and I know that there are changes to be made.

And not only are the Black Physicians of Utah providing African American physicians to people like me, they're also a group of people working to be better and working to see that change in the medical field, just, which really inspires me and it makes me really happy to be part of the Black Physicians of Utah.

- What an inspiring young woman.

- Right.

That was powerful.

- Wow.

- Yeah, it was more like her.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- That's fantastic.

And there's quite a few Maya Sherrell's that we're trying to mold and develop to encourage to pursue medicine because often I started just like her.

It's sometimes, it's just that spark.

It's not always needing a ton of financial access.

It's just planting the idea, planting that seed, and showing that they can be like us.

They can be a medical professional.

And that's often all she, and now she's going.

- Yeah.

- And we give her the path and a little bit of guidance.

- And that's all you need too.

And we want to, and let's talk about solutions in a minute, but first, let's see what are your students doing.

Who's this student?

- Lucciana Venancio.

She's 11 years old.

- She's 11 years old.

Oh, this is gonna be great.

- Good morning.

My name is Lucciana Venancio.

I'm 11 years old and I'm from Peru.

The most important part of STEM is to realize I'm learning new skills such as career and make my own strategies and analyze and investigate and then make decisions.

My favorite part of being part of Club Ability, which is STEM programs that are helping me enhance my capabilities, which also help me to face new challenges, solve problems, and of all feel that I gain confidence in me.

A clear example is what I experienced a few days ago in my classroom.

I was motivated to participate in elections as student vice president and I managed to win.

I'm convinced that I took some help from my parent, but above all, thanks to Club Ability programs that gave me the tools to push myself and take on this challenge that fills me with pride.

All people, boys and girls from different cultures, should have support and resources that encourage the great potential that we have on each of us.

This can be given through STEM.

Thank you very much.

- I love that.

I just love that.

That is, she's as cute as can be.

- She's remarkable.

She is very focused in STEM and she's a leader in this age.

Imagine in this age, 11 years old, her second language is English, and she's determined.

Imagine when she will be 18 years old, 20, 30.

This is kind of student we have and we are so proud of their parents and them because they create technology who serves everyone.

This is for us.

- [Lonzo] Wow.

- That is great.

- These people are gonna change the world.

You can feel it.

- Yeah, and you know, the best part of all of this is that you're providing a face, like you said, a role model for kids to see, to look up to.

I remember when, and I'm gonna age myself a little bit here, but when Tiger Woods first started playing golf and he became this big huge figure.

Prior to that, Black folks never talked about playing golf.

We were like, "I ain't playing golf", but all of a sudden, Tiger Woods came out and started playing golf and we were like, "Yeah, I'm getting me some clubs, you know, I wanna go out and play."

And it seems to happen that way that once we see someone who's prominent in our community, such as yourself and yourself, who are, you know, in these positions that we maybe never thought ourselves doing, then we think, well, hey, if he can do it, then maybe I can do it.

- I wanna hear about some of these solutions that- - Yes.

Let's jump with other solutions.

- Things that we can do to help push this forward.

- Well, yeah.

Well part of it is exposure and experience.

So BPOU had has had two days such as Medicine Immersion Day that Maya alluded to.

But also we are partnering with larger tech companies within Utah, particularly Stryker.

We had a clinical research day.

So this is where if you don't necessarily want to be an MD, I just want you in the STEM field period.

I want you to pursue a PhD.

I want you to consider becoming a biomedical engineer.

So we have a day where we have students come in, they learn a bit of the science background behind technology, they get to work with simulating devices, and then that spark is lit.

There's the mom calling me, there's the students applying for mentorship.

And then I have the CEO of the company saying, how can I better give an opportunity to more of your students?

I would, you know, they are potential employees.

- Yeah.

- Managers, directors for this particular biotech company.

We want to do the same thing for the medical schools here.

There is talent within the state.

We just need to nurture it.

And part of that is through our mentorship programs that we provide, but also our partnerships with Intermountain, University of Utah, larger companies that will provide research and clinical opportunities, shadowing, so that they can see the, you know, what value they can gain and they can share themselves in pursuing a career in medicine.

And it often starts very small and, but we just need to continue molding this for many of the Black youth within Utah and the Hispanic youth as well.

- Yeah.

- We would like to eventually start a Latino Physicians of Utah that's a similar organization where they're not only addressing health equities within the state, health inequities, I should say, by increasing representation, but they're all going to be trusted messengers for medicine, trusted messengers for the STEM field.

And so often, it's ourselves that get this opportunity to be on the stage with you that a young child will see this or their parent will see it and they go, oh, I want them to be a part of that argument.

And it's a multiplier.

Someone's gonna hear what Maya said and it's have a multiplying effect similar to what you said with Tiger Woods.

- Absolutely great.

That's awesome.

What about solutions for you?

- I think we need to educate youth in general, okay?

I think we need to educate like parents in our community and say, why is important Latinos, Hispanic be part of STEM currently and also the government and the private sector.

I think they are truly engaged with this goal.

But the thing is, technology doesn't serve for everyone.

There is technology that works better for male than female, for lighter skin tone than darker skin tones.

They don't have many thing about a special need.

And we need that.

We need involved.

And for this reason, in Club Ability, we have a program to educate about oh, they discover creating video game and say STEM is good, STEM is fun.

I am can pursue a STEM career, but also we have like a field trips to go to these tech companies to meet our role models.

To have a mentor.

- [Lonze] Yeah.

- And also because there are low incomes, try to get device, try to do all these things.

- [Lonzo] Yeah.

- And also we have a conference to educate our family to say, okay, if you started in kindergarten, you have this option.

If you are in elementary, you have this option not only in Club Ability, everyone, because this is the idea.

Work together and see more diversity.

We need more diversity because currently, the technology doesn't serve for everyone.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

Working together is key.

- Working together, the thing that's come to mind for me is that it takes two people to shake hands, right?

You can reach out and reach up, but if no one's there to reach down and hold your hand and help you, you're not gonna get very far, right?

- So- - But we also, we want you guys to stick around 'cause we want to hear about more of this STEM stuff.

And I want to hear about the pay, because a lot of people wanna know- - (laughing) That'll be podcast.

- How much people these STEM fields are making.

So we're gonna wrap this up and I want you guys to stick around, is that okay?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Okay, great.

- That's gonna be in the podcast, guys.

- Yes.

Fantastic.

Well, this has been an enlightening and informative show.

We want to thank you, our guests, and these guests for coming in and dropping some pearls of wisdom on us.

Next week, we'll be talking about indigenous food activism so be sure to check that out.

- [Narrator] "Roots, Race, & Culture" is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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