Oscar De La Hoya Wants To Knock Out Breast Cancer

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 00:28

When Oscar De La Hoya won the boxing gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Summer Games in 1992, he had the ultimate motivation: fighting in memory of his late mother, Cecilia De La Hoya, who passed away two years earlier from breast cancer. After losing his mom, the boxing legend began to foster breast cancer centers and programs around the world.

Now two decades later, De La Hoya continues this fight joining Susan G. Komen for the cure in their More than Pink campaign. With this movement, the organization aims to lower by half the current number of US breast cancer deaths in the next 10 years.

“The pain that she went through was because she didn't go to the doctor [to] get her mammogram or checkups, so she was already at stage 4 of cancer [when she was diagnosed],” De La Hoya tells Chica about his mother. "We can create awareness, which is very important because all it takes is for you to go to the doctor."

An estimated 2,800 Hispanic women were expected to die from breast cancer in the US in 2015. Many rely on religion or their faith in miracles instead getting the proper care to fight cancer, according to The National Center for Biotechnology Information. De La Hoya urges Latinas to get checked out and avoid making the same mistake his mother made. “[Learn from] the experience of my mother; She [was] too proud to go to the doctor thinking that if she left us at home, she was being a bad mother. Take care of yourself. That's what it's going to take,”he said.

Although De La Hoya remembers the days his mother was sick, he also reminisces about the beautiful memories. “Every single day when I would get home from school, she would sing a song by Juan Gabriel called Amor Eterno,” he shares. “Whether it's the daughter, the mom, the aunt, and the grandmother: go take care of yourself. It could save your life.”

To Join Susan G. Komen and Oscar in the More Than Pink campaign, visit ww5.komen.org for more details!