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After Helping her Mother Graduate, Emilia Hurtado, Arcadia ’24, is Specializing in Medical Racism

As part of a new “Meet the Class” series, Arcadia University has been highlighting new students in the Class of 2024 each week.

This week’s student feature is Emilia Hurtado, a first-year Chemistry major who immigrated from Costa Rica with her mother at eight years old.

“There were a lot of differences between my school in Costa Rica versus studying here. And I didn’t speak any English when I came here,” said Hurtado, who recalls struggling the first year she attended elementary school in New Jersey.

She started off in an English as a Second Language class for two months, before joining her peers in another class where she had to “keep the pace” with her classmates.

For the past five years, however, Hurtado has been putting her bilingual skills to use by helping her mother in her college courses. Hurtado often translates her mother’s coursework and proofreads her assignments.

“She can understand basic English, but when it comes to college classes, it’s sometimes hard for her to understand. Since middle school, I’ve been translating stuff for my mom,” said Hurtado.

I’m proud of her,” said Hurtado. “She works full-time and sometimes she’s had to take gap years because it overlapped with her job as a hospice nurse, so getting her degree was hard.”

Hurtado’s mother is now applying for nursing school and hopes to continue her education at Rutgers University.

Hurtado herself plans to pursue medical research after earning her degree from Arcadia. She hopes to specialize in medical racism, which is discrimination in healthcare based on the idea that there are biological character differentials between races that can be ranked.

“I want to do something in the medical field to make a difference,” said Hurtado who hopes to do medical research to improve how people of color are treated in the U.S. healthcare system.