'Vivan Las Voces' Initiative Brings Community Stories to Light

As a child, Gina Miranda-Diaz spent summers in Puerto Rico with relatives, and that experience helped shape whom she became as an adult. The island was where she honed her Spanish and where she truly felt at home.

“The best moments of my youth were spent in Puerto Rico,” she says.

Miranda-Diaz’s Puerto Rican heritage even played a role in her career as a nurse. Because she became fluent on her summer trips, her father signed her up to be a hospital translator and she saw the importance of being able to communicate and advocate for Spanish speakers around their health. Miranda-Diaz, 59, is now a leader in the nursing field, especially when it comes to advocating for Hispanic patients and nurses.

In an interview for Vivan Las Voces, a partnership between AARP’s Office of Community Engagement and StoryCorps, Miranda-Diaz talks to her son Alexander Diaz about the role Puerto Rico has played in her life. She describes her love of the island, its impact on her career and her efforts to send help to Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Vivan Las Voces is a special initiative between AARP and StoryCorps — an organization that collects and preserves diverse stories in cooperation with the Library of Congress.

“I wanted to tell my story through my eyes, through the lens of a girl who grew up there as a child, who learned to ride a bike there,” Miranda-Diaz says.

That’s the beauty of StoryCorps and Vivan Las Voces: The stories are authentic, emotional, meaningful and powerful, says Alissa Pelc, managing director for corporate partnerships and strategic engagement at StoryCorps.

Vivan Las Voces “helps us ensure that the conversations we’re recording and preserving and this national archive of stories reflects the true diversity of our country,” Pelc says. “It helps amplify and share voices that are not always heard in mainstream media.”

Participation is easy

For Vivan Las Voces, AARP and StoryCorps are asking people across the diverse Hispanic and Latino communities to share meaningful conversations, ask important questions and honor loved ones through the experience. Typically participants are interviewed by a friend or relative who knows them, enhancing the conversation.