A clear, compact, and well-researched study of immigrant health care issues.
Reimann and Rodríguez-Reimann offer a concise overview of the issues associated with immigrant health care.
In this entry in the Immigrant Strides Toward Prosperity series, the authors (Reimann is a clinical psychologist, Rodríguez-Reimann an executive at the Group for Immigrant Resettlement and Assessment) survey a broad array of the health challenges facing immigrants in their new environments. They touch on major physical issues, including tuberculosis and Covid-19, as well as the range of mental issues associated with stress (including PTSD) related to various autoimmune disorders. (“Experiencing continuous stress in which the body releases adrenaline over a longer period of time can result in continuous inflammation and other health issues. For example, chronic stress can create a physical process that leads to type 2 diabetes.”) The authors also discuss seemingly more mundane matters, such as proper dental care, noting that “even small differences in healthcare practices between countries can sow confusion.” Reimann and Rodríguez-Reimann detail the numerous psychological problems that many immigrants face when dealing with unresolved grief or trauma stemming from displacement, rape, or torture, and they stress the importance of community health workers (CHWs), known as promotoras, in bridging the gap between cultures; they note that community leaders with some health care knowledge can connect immigrant groups with health care providers. The authors also include brief insets with health care stories drawn from their personal experiences, a glossary of medical terms, and a full and detailed reference section. Reimann and Rodríguez-Reimann write with clarity and obvious knowledge, and their comprehensive approach will make this book an invaluable starting point for people working at all levels of immigrant health care. The book’s overall tone of informed hope is uplifting; with the world’s immigrant population continuing to rise every year, the need for books like this will become increasingly pressing to everybody on the front lines of overburdened health care services.
A clear, compact, and well-researched study of immigrant health care issues.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781955658164
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Romo Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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