Inspired by her family history, Michelle Gil Munoz has spent her undergraduate career exploring the intersections of — and disparities between — farm work and medical access.
Throughout her childhood in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Michelle Gil Munoz would hear stories about the farm where her great-grandparents and their grandparents worked and lived.
“When they were working in the fields, they had no lights, they had no fancy equipment,” said Gil Munoz, a senior. “They would tell me, ‘When it went dark, it went dark. Pitch black.’”
This darkness and the long working hours led to plenty of lore, including one particularly memorable story that is still told by family members with a laugh: the night Gil Munoz’s great-great-grandmother spent an unexpected evening under the stars.
“[She] just got lost in the fields, and no one could find her for, like, a day,” said Gil Munoz.
And when they found her? “She was by the river with the family dogs having the time of her life and eating fruit,” the Tar Heel said.
Though she did not know it at the time, these familiar stories would inspire Gil Munoz’s studies, research and career aspirations more than a decade later and 1,800 miles away from her homeland.
Farmworkers and physicians
Gil Munoz moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, from Maracaibo in 2015 and to Chapel Hill six years later when she enrolled at Carolina. Though she never worked on her family’s farm in Venezuela, she credits her upbringing for the deep knowledge and appreciation she has of farmworkers’ specialized skills and physical labor.
She also credits her grandmother, who was a doctor in Venezuela, for sparking her passion for healthcare.
“I always knew I was going to major in biology,” Gil Munoz said. But the class “Comparative Healing Systems,” taught by UNC anthropologist Jocelyn Chua, introduced her to healing systems around the world and another way of looking at healthcare: medical anthropology.
“It opened my eyes to how health disparities play a major role in the development of disease in certain populations, and it started my interest and passion for the major,” Gil Munoz said.
She decided to double major, taking medical school prerequisite classes through the biology major and looking at health and illness through biological, cultural, political and economic lenses through medical anthropology classes.
While balancing those majors, a minor in Latina/o studies and her work as a resident adviser with Carolina Housing in Granville Towers and Ehringhaus residence halls, she also delved into research opportunities.
“For most of my time as an undergraduate, I’ve worked at the McKay genetics lab,” Gil Munoz said. Under the mentorship of graduate student Oscar Arroyo, she studied Drosophila — or fruit flies — to determine which maternal factors impact offspring and their development.
In addition to the McKay lab, Gil Munoz pursued internships with the Equity and Environmental Justice Program (QUEST) through the Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she researched genes associated with endometrial cancer; Oerth Bio, a local start-up that studies the efficiency of current farming practices; and the Durham-based nonprofit, Student Action with Farmworkers.
The diverse experiences and knowledge she gained led to a new goal: combing her areas of interest and conducting original research.
Research in the field
With a 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) through the Office for Undergraduate Research, Gil Munoz began her investigation of the healthcare experiences of farmworkers in the greater Triangle area.
To do this, she spent the summer driving to farms near Benson, about an hour from Chapel Hill, and working with local organizations including Student Action with Farmworkers, the NC Farmworkers Project and the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry to interview farmworkers.
“The primary goal of my study is to understand how working conditions and social inequalities affect farmworkers’ health in the long term and short term as well as their willingness and ability to seek medical attention,” she said.
In mobile clinics, she observed interactions and translated conversations between medical providers and Spanish-speaking workers. With the ministry, she spent time in the fields with workers and visited their homes and communities.
The conversations that resonated most with her and the workers she interviewed, she said, were ones centered around family — parents and grandparents that, like Gil Munoz’s, passed down skills and knowledge and worked to provide for their children and loved ones.
With the support of her research adviser, Martha King, teaching associate professor of anthropology, and her senior year coursework, Gil Munoz is continuing to explore how the organizations she partnered with this summer can best serve farmworkers in the area.
“I hope to advocate for improved healthcare policies and interventions that address [farmworkers’] unique needs,” she said. She will present her work at the Celebration of Undergraduate Research this spring.
Gil Munoz is grateful for the support of her sisters and siblings in UNC’s chapter of Omega Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, a Latina-oriented student organization that focuses on “women’s empowerment, academic achievement, professionalism, service and diversity.” Gil Munoz serves as president and says she learned many of the leadership skills needed to thrive in self-paced research in her time with the organization.
After she graduates in May, Gil Munoz hopes to attend medical school in pursuit of becoming either a pediatrician or a family medicine provider. She plans to continue to serve the farmworker community through her future medical practice and volunteer work. She calls her time at Carolina, especially the research opportunities, “eye-opening.”
By Jess Abel, College of Arts and Sciences