Lisa Fukuzato looked at her class in the dance studio of Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center in Los Angeles’ Lincoln Heights. Twelve students, between the ages of 57 and 89, all have high blood pressure. Most have difficulty with balance, movement and understanding.
The classes — known as Salud Pa’ Ti — are open to all seniors. Many come from outside the neighborhood. The initial goal was to provide a fitness program for elderly residents who were already familiar and comfortable with Plaza de la Raza. Giselle Petzinger, a researcher at Keck Medicine of USC, just across the railroad tracks from Plaza de la Raza, worked with the art school to create the program this year. Petzinger’s research focuses on Parkinson’s Disease, a brain disorder noticeable through a person’s uncontrolled movement, like shaking. Exercise is a key way to manage Parkinson’s, and in parts of California, Latinos are diagnosed with the disease at a rate higher than any other group.
Plaza de la Raza is a 54-year-old art complex with dance studios, art studios, music rehearsal rooms, a theater, a covered outdoor stage and a gallery on the bank of the manmade lake in Lincoln Heights’ Lincoln Park, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Its focus is the arts, with classes in drawing, ballet and rock as well as traditional Mexican arts, like folklórico, mariachi and papel picado. Plaza de la Raza is also a trusted community organization where residents can go at the start of the school year for backpacks filled with school supplies. Every week, lines of residents — Latino, Asian, immigrant and citizen — stand outside the theater for free food distribution.
When COVID-19 hit the neighborhood, residents came to Plaza de la Raza seeking medical support and advice, said Tomas Benitez, director of development at Plaza de la Raza. Benitez referred them to doctors he knew at the hospital. In fall 2019, Petzinger and others approached Benitez about creating classes for elders, specifically around brain health and age-related illness. While the pandemic slowed their plans, the program began in early 2024.
Salud Pa’ Ti is a wellness program both for the brain and body. That includes targeting chronic illnesses common to the community as well as diseases like Parkinson’s, Benitez said.
Latinos had the highest rates of Parkinson’s diagnosis in Northern California, according to a 2003 study of Kaiser Permanente patients. Latinos in rural central California were diagnosed with Parkinson’s at an earlier age than their white peers, according to a 2023 article by a UCLA epidemiologist in the Journal of Gerontology, and they were treated less well by their doctors. There are relatively few studies on Parkinson’s Disease in Latinos, but those that exist are concerning, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation. A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease estimated that while Latinos make up 17% of the U.S. population, only 8% of Parkinson’s Disease research participants were people of color.
But Salud Pa’ Ti is also about being good neighbors, Petzinger explained. Community forums — essentially listening sessions — were held at Plaza de la Raza’s theater as early as February 2020. Based on what they heard, USC Keck professionals designed a series of classes flexible enough to address age-related illnesses, like Parkinson’s, and basic health needs.
“The program isn’t about one particular condition,” Fukuzato said. “What makes us unique is the ability to modify the program to meet people where they are.”
Parkinson’s Disease is impacted by chronic illness — including type-2 diabetes and heart disease, as well as stress and depression — all of which are prevalent in the neighborhood. Of 28,297 people living in Lincoln Heights, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, more than 30% live in persistent poverty — double the rate for the county and more than than the city of Los Angeles. Only about a third of residents reach daily exercise recommendations, 14% have diabetes, and heart disease-related death is higher in Lincoln Heights than in both Los Angeles City and County. Fukuzato’s class, in combination with dance, cooking and storytelling, helps lower the risk and mitigate the factors that contribute to Parkinson’s and other illnesses that begin in older age.
Exercise and dance classes help maintain strength and balance to improve physical mobility and are important to slowing the advance of Parkinson’s. Exercise class typically follows a healthy cooking demonstration with culturally relevant ingredients that are readily available in the neighborhood. On a Wednesday in late August, that included a roasted poblano chili stuffed with rice, beans, avocado, tomato, onion and cilantro — not that different from chiles rellenos in southern Mexico and Central America.
Susie Pulido, 52, drives her parents, Guille, 85, and Sator, 86, to class. Sator has diabetes and neuropathy while his wife, Guille, has difficulties with her leg after falling on the sidewalk near their home.
In addition to physical ailments, Pulido was concerned about her parents’ mental health. Neither drives, and the two are homebound. Pulido described them as not social.
Social isolation and its impact on mental health exacerbates age-related illnesses, Fukuzato noted.
“For them to come back, it’s because they are comfortable,” Pulido said. “This place makes them feel comfortable.”
Aida Feria, 68, a public health worker, and her comadre, Mariana Herrera, 69, a marriage and family therapist, praised the program’s approach. Both have family histories of dementia. Feria said she fears the onset of Parkinson’s and enjoys the exercise and dance classes that help maintain her balance and physical strength.
“This is a gift and an investment in our lives,” Feria said. “And it’s damn fun!”
