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The Myth Of The White Minority, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

In recent years, and especially in the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection, projections that whites will soon become a minority have proliferated. In this essay, I will argue that such predictions are misleading at best, as they rest on questionable philosophical presuppositions, including the presupposition that racial concepts like ‘whiteness’ are static and unchanging rather than fluid and continually being reconstructed. If I am right about these fundamental inaccuracies, one must wonder why the myth of the white minority persists. I will argue that by re-envisioning whites as a minority culture struggling against a hostile dominant group, and by promoting …

The Clinical Gaze In The Practice Of Migrant Health: Indigenous Mexican Migrants In The United States, Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

This paper utilizes eighteen months of ethnographic and interview research undertaken in 2003 and 2004 as well as follow-up fieldwork from 2005 to 2007 to explore the sociocultural factors affecting the interactions and barriers between U.S. biomedical professionals and their unauthorized Mexican migrant patients. The participants include unauthorized indigenous Triqui migrants along a transnational circuit from the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, to central California, to northwest Washington State and the physicians and nurses staffing the clinics serving Triqui people in these locations. The data show that social and economic structures in health care and subtle cultural factors in biomedicine keep …

Americas And Caribbean Islands Union, Ruben B. Botello Jd

Ruben B Botello JD

Structural Vulnerability And Hierarchies Of Ethnicity And Citizenship On The Farm., Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

Every year, the United States employs nearly two million seasonal farm laborers, approximately half of whom are migrants (Rothenberg 1998). This article utilizes one year of participant observation on a berry farm in Washington State to analyze hierarchies of ethnicity and citizenship, structural vulnerability, and health disparities in agriculture in the United States. The farm labor structure is organized along a segregated continuum from US citizen Anglo-American to US citizen Latino, undocumented mestizo Mexican to undocumented indigenous Mexican. The ethnography shows how this structure symbolically reinforces conflations of race with perceptions of civilized and modern subjects. These hierarchies produce what …

The Unintended Consequences Of Low H-1b Visa Caps: Brain Blocking, Brain Diversion, And Racial Discrimination Against Asian Technology Professionals, Jeffrey L. Gower

Jeffrey L Gower

American business interests face increasing difficulties as they attempt to compete against global technology-based industries. As the U.S. educational system produces interests face increasing difficulties as they attempt to compete fewer technology workers, many firms look to foreign countries such as India, China, or other Asian countries that have an abundance of skilled professionals. The U.S. Congress created the H-1B visa program in 1990 for educated skilled foreign workers, and manipulated the yearly cap on several occasions. Limits were as high as 195,000 as recently as 2003, but were reduced to 65,000 by 2009. The result of placing a low …

Oaxacans Like To Work Bent Over: The Naturalization Of Social Suffering Among Berry Farm Workers, Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

No abstract provided.

Parce Qu'ils Sont Plus Pres Sol: L'Invisibilisation De La Souffrance Sociale Des Cueilleurs De Baies, Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

No abstract provided.

An Ethnographic Study Of The Social Context Of Migrant Health In The United States, Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

Background

Migrant workers in the United States have extremely poor health. This paper aims to identify ways in which the social context of migrant farm workers affects their health and health care.

Methods and Findings

This qualitative study employs participant observation and interviews on farms and in clinics throughout 15 months of migration with a group of indigenous Triqui Mexicans in the western US and Mexico. Study participants include more than 130 farm workers and 30 clinicians. Data are analyzed utilizing grounded theory, accompanied by theories of structural violence, symbolic violence, and the clinical gaze. The study reveals that farm …