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Dispatches from the Field: The Stethoscope Diaspora

By Alejandro Tarre

Alvin Mena Cantero might seem indistinguishable from the thousands of hard-working Cuban immigrants in Houston. The 30-year-old recently bought a house in the suburbs and has two jobs, one as a family nurse and the other as weekend supervisor at a mental health center. But Mena is no ordinary exile.

Just four years earlier, he was among the tens of thousands of Cuban health professionals deployed to Venezuela under a bilateral aid-for-oil agreement initiated in 2003. He graduated at the top of his class from Calixto García University Hospital in Havana and was selected to serve in...

Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.

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