TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond acculturation
T2 - Immigration, discrimination, and health research among Mexicans in the United States
AU - Viruell-Fuentes, Edna A.
N1 - Funding Information:
I wish to express my gratitude to Sherman A. James, Amy J. Schulz, Arline Geronimus, Dolores Acevedo-García, Ichiro Kawachi, Robert C. Smith, members of the Migration and Immigrant Incorporation Workshop at Harvard University, and four anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. This research would not have been possible without the generous support of the Social Science Research Council's International Migration Program (with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), the National Science Foundation (Grant No. SES-0222495), the W.K. Kellogg Fellowship in Health Policy Research, and at the University of Michigan: the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Center for the Education of Women, and the Rackham Graduate School. Short excerpts from Viruell-Fuentes (2006) are republished here with permission (conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.) from Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2007/10
Y1 - 2007/10
N2 - Evidence suggests that, despite their lower socio-economic status, certain health outcomes are better for first-generation Mexican immigrants than their US-born counterparts. Socio-cultural explanations for this apparent epidemiological paradox propose that culture-driven health behaviors and social networks protect the health of the first generation and that, as immigrants acculturate, they lose these health-protecting factors. However, the prominence granted to acculturation within these explanations diverts attention from structural and contextual factors, such as social and economic inequalities, that could affect the health of immigrants and their descendants. The aim of this study is to offer a conceptual redirection away from individual-centered acculturation models towards a more complex understanding of immigrant adaptation in health research. To this end, 40 qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with first- and second-generation Mexican immigrant women in Southeastern Michigan. The women's narratives highlighted a key process linked to their integration into US society, in which the second generation experienced a more pervasive and cumulative exposure to "othering" than the first generation. The findings point to "othering" and discrimination as potential pathways through which the health of immigrants and their descendants erodes. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual model that locates "othering" processes within a structural framework, and by drawing implications for research on immigrant health and on discrimination and health.
AB - Evidence suggests that, despite their lower socio-economic status, certain health outcomes are better for first-generation Mexican immigrants than their US-born counterparts. Socio-cultural explanations for this apparent epidemiological paradox propose that culture-driven health behaviors and social networks protect the health of the first generation and that, as immigrants acculturate, they lose these health-protecting factors. However, the prominence granted to acculturation within these explanations diverts attention from structural and contextual factors, such as social and economic inequalities, that could affect the health of immigrants and their descendants. The aim of this study is to offer a conceptual redirection away from individual-centered acculturation models towards a more complex understanding of immigrant adaptation in health research. To this end, 40 qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with first- and second-generation Mexican immigrant women in Southeastern Michigan. The women's narratives highlighted a key process linked to their integration into US society, in which the second generation experienced a more pervasive and cumulative exposure to "othering" than the first generation. The findings point to "othering" and discrimination as potential pathways through which the health of immigrants and their descendants erodes. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual model that locates "othering" processes within a structural framework, and by drawing implications for research on immigrant health and on discrimination and health.
KW - Acculturation
KW - Discrimination
KW - Immigration
KW - Latinos
KW - Othering
KW - USA
KW - Women
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.05.010
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.05.010
M3 - Article
C2 - 17602812
AN - SCOPUS:34548165314
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 65
SP - 1524
EP - 1535
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
IS - 7
ER -