Immigrant Health, Health Services, and History University Module
Class
About this Module
Class 4: Access and Empowerment
Introduction:
This class looks at various types of health services in the 20th century that were created by immigrants themselves. Ethnic and religious hospitals, worker health centers, and community clinics have not only provided care to the underserved, but also have given immigrant communities more power to shape their own destinies. The class will also study how increasing the number of medical practitioners from immigrant backgrounds might help improve health care delivery in underserved communities.
Class Resources
Readings
- National Library of Medicine. Selected items from Outside / Inside: Exhibition Collection.
- A Chinese drugstore in Chinatown, San Francisco, 1800s
- Triennial Report: 1947–1949, Union Health Center, New York, ca. 1950
- Postcard announcing a seminar for physicians at Philadelphia’s Jewish Hospital, 1938
- A volunteer from the Chinatown Health Clinic takes a resident’s blood pressure at the Chinatown Health Fair, photograph by Corky Lee, New York City 1973
- Kraut, Alan M. and Deborah A. Kraut. “Introduction.” In Covenant of Care: Newark Beth Israel and the Jewish Hospital in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
- “ILGWU Health Center Publications.” Cornell University Library: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives. https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05780-171.html.
- “The History of the Mount Sinai Hospital.” The Mount Sinai Hospital.
https://www.mountsinai.org/locations/mount-sinai/about/history. - Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. http://www.cbwchc.org/history.asp.
- Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center Inc. https://tvhc.org/history/.
- Rumala, Bernice B. and Frederick D. Cason Jr. “Recruitment of Underrepresented Minority Students to Medical School: Minority Medical Student Organizations, An Untapped Resource.” Journal of the National Medical Association, Vol. 99, No. 9 (September 2007), 1000—1009.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575864/.
Discussion Questions
- According to Alan and Deborah Kraut, why did Jewish communities establish their own hospitals in the 19th century? What lessons do the history of ethnic and religious hospitals offer for today’s immigration and health challenges?
- The websites introduce four health care institutions—ILGWU Health Center, Mount Sinai, Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, and Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center—that serve or have served immigrant communities. Based on their websites, briefly explain the history of each clinic or hospital. Who started them and why?
- The websites and photos describe and portray health services provided not only FOR immigrants, but BY immigrants. How do you think these differ from services created by people who are from outside the immigrant community being served, such as the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service? Do these differences matter?
- According to Rumala and Cason, why does increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of medical school graduates improve health care access for underserved communities? What kinds of strategies have been successful in recruiting minorities to medical school? What could be done to increase the number of medical students from immigrant backgrounds?
- What is the relationship between health care access and immigrant empowerment, beyond simply improving health?
