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Hello Everyone!

My name is Naomi Ogaldez. I am a Staff Reporter at El Nuevo Sol, which is an online bilingual newspaper at California State University, Northridge. I am writing a research article and a news package on vitiligo in the Latino community. My inspiration for wanting to write this piece was one of my mom's friends named Ilda who has vitiligo. 

I met her shortly after my dad had abandoned my household when I was 6 years old. I remember she was one of the few people in my church that would comfort me in that devastating time growing up. When people found out about my dad, they would reject me and say many hurtful remarks that I will never forget. 

What really made me admire her was her love. Despite being humbled and despised by most of the people in the church because of her vitiligo, she still would serve the community and help those in need like me. It would get me mad watching how people would treat the both of us, but especially her. I dealt with the negativity that everyone would say to me because I didn't have a dad, but I couldn't stand to see how they treated her. I would always try my best to defend my beloved friend. I felt that I wasn't doing enough to help her. I knew I wanted to do something about it when I grew older.

Now I feel that I have the capability of making a bigger impact than before. So I decided I wanted to write about vitiligo. Since I am writing it for El Nuevo Sol, I have to make the focus be towards the Latino community because that’s our audience. 

With this article, I wanted to bring awareness about vitiligo, correct a ton of misconceptions about it, get different perspectives of people who have it, and impact my community in a positive way. 

What I need help with:

-I need to interview a Latino that has vitiligo that would love to share their story with me on camera for my news package.

-I have to interview a Dermatologist or a Researcher that would like to tell me about the theories they believe that causes vitiligo and how they have seen it affect the Latino community.

-I have to interview a health insurance company representative because I also want to talk about how insurance companies deal with vitiligo patience. What are the limits for coverage and if they accept any type of vitiligo.

If you may know of someone that would let me interview them or you yourself would love to, please let me know!

I live in Northridge, California so if anyone lives around this area and would love to get interviewed on camera please email me at kooleo1516@yahoo.com or comment on this forum.

If worst comes to worst, I can do a skype interview, but I would prefer to film in person.

Also, if their is any information that you believe I should include or proper terms about vitiligo, please let me know. 

Thanks for all the help!