Contributor/Nurse/Artist: Tashaé Gomez-Jones
In the spirit of the U.S. Independence Day celebrated on July 4th, we welcome this powerful image from recent BSN graduate Tashaé Gomez-Jones, inspired by the concept of emancipatory knowing in nursing!
My name is Tashaé Gomez-Jones. I am a recent BSN graduate from Heritage University located on the Yakama Nation reservation in Washington state. In my program we studied the 5 fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing. While learning about community health nursing, many of the inequities in my rural, agricultural based community became glaringly obvious to me. As a nurse who will soon be caring for the individuals and families that live in my community, the concept of emancipatory knowing has become important to me in addressing these inequities. I was moved to create an aesthetic representation of what emancipatory knowing means to me. In my illustration, I included a fist representing black and brown nurses like myself and the nurses in my program over a blue, cloudy sky.
See more information about the Heritage University Nursing program here.
About Tashaé Gomez-Jones
I recently graduated from the BSN program at Heritage University located on the Yakama Nation Indian Reservation in Toppenish, WA. I am passionate about mental health, and will soon work as a Psychiatric-Mental Health nurse at an in-patient facility that focuses on the care of adults facing acute mental-health crisis.
That is an amazing Tashae! Go as far as you can in the discipline of nursing. Believing you will serve your community to the best of your abilities. I know that there at Heritage University you have been empowered with the necessary tools, knowledge and skills and that you will be amazing!
Hello Tashae,
When I worked as a PHN, I had the delight of corresponding with a CHN serving her Six Nations community in Bradford Ontario. Her nursing entry was focused on the prevention and treatment of diabetes among the people and it branched out into all aspects of community well-being. I’m sorry that now many years later I no longer have our correspondence to share with you. Surely with your community links, contact with the nursing team at Six Nations of which I was profoundly impressed might happen.
I believe that it is essential for aboriginal communities to be served by aboriginal nurses.
In this world of six degrees of separation it is with pleasure to tell you that many years ago my next door neighbour, Anne, a pianist and organist moved to your nation’s Yakama terrItory with her new husband, Monty, a non- aboriginal farmer, assisted at times by Anne’s church associate, Don. I understood from the latter that Anne and Monty had two children. If you know Anne, please give her my regards.
Please accept my very best good thoughts about the future of your intentions as a nurse serving your community.
Sincerely,
Dorothea Fox Jakob, Toronto
I live with mountains that surround me so I am used to the images of its peaks piercing the sky. Your depiction of the fist with the clouds and sky in the background is a powerful image of freedom without limits. Congratulations of your graduation and your future in mental health care.
Fabulous image! Much success to you!
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