Cultural Shock In Health Care

a. Culture Shock, page 34: The disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life.

Being a migrant worker, and working in the fields year after year is difficult as the wages are very low for the work to be done. Those are the reasons a family comes together as a whole to work and support each other. Simple things such as personal hygiene, privacy, and air conditioning are things taken for granted by those more fortunate, yet looked highly upon by those less fortunate. Same goes with the way of living of migrant workers, as many have adopted that lifestyle to their culture and consider it normal. Yet to myself,

it is a culture shock to see how another culture lives and goes about their daily routine. For those who immigrated into the United States of America, the goal to have the American Dream and live a better life is sometimes unobtainable. They look at the American culture for the first time and experience a culture shock, as do many when traveling to distant countries for the first time. Those in the video had this happen to them. One female was upset because of having to relocate with her family in order for them to acquire another field job. Her complaint was that she missed her home, as the places she were to stay in are small and lack the warmth of a home. She even missed being in school and looked forward to when she can return, as her dream was to go to college and graduate and obtain a real career. The notion of an education is something so common, yet it appears hard to reach for them.

b. Underclass, page 269: A group of people for whom poverty persists year after year and across generations.

The underclass is the lowest rung on the class structure, consisting of those who do not have much chance to make it into a higher class. As they are considered below the social class structure entirely. Some migrant farm workers find themselves in this position for many many years. As a mother stated in the video that she hates to see her children and children's children fall into the same position she is currently in, working on farms barely making enough money to support her family unless everyone else in the family works as well. This social class is not the most common, yet it was something that was made to my knowledge in the video. For the majority of migrant field workers, they are placed into the “working poor” class. This is because of temporary or seasonal work that has low wages. Some people do not know how to read or speak english well, so that also causes issues when finding work. In the video, they are all migrant farm workers, some who have been working the farms most of their lives, stuck in that lifestyle (i.e. underclass). Others such as the children and younger adults in the video are currently working one farm until that season of picking is up, then it is time to move to another farm to find new work to be done. The farm work only lasts until the season of the fruit or vegetable they are hired for is over. Being at this level of poverty, and actually below the U.S. poverty line, their day to day resources are scarce. One man talked about how himself and some of the other workers in his family missed out on a meal the previous day. Another spoke about the difficulty of being able to maintain the vehicle. Their truck required repairs and according to the repair shop it needed a new transmission which would be very costly. No vehicle, no work. On average, migrant farmworker families make less than $17,500/year. Their poverty level requires the budget of low cost food options that will satisfy their hunger, yet maybe not provide proper nutrition. One family ate pure sugar and starch for their dinner in one of the scenes (pancakes and syrup, very inexpensive). Supposedly only 20% of poor families wages are spent towards food, and for one family they are only making $32,000/year from the combined effort of ~6 people.

c. Disabling environments, page 570: An environment that is harmful to health

A mother with her daughter and her son were working on a field laying down plastic over the planted vegetation and clearing debris out of those areas. The soil between each row of planted vegetation were barren containing not one single weed or form of growth. It is obvious by the lack of vegetation in between the rows that heavily concentrated pesticides are used. And according to the son, the plastic is also coated with those or similar chemicals. The farm obviously doesn’t want weeds or pests to harm the growth, but does not consider the reproductions which is absurd. Both the son and mother spoke of the fumes being strong and highly toxic to them. The son said he became very ill once as his skin began to literally fall off his body. This is obviously a perfect example of a disabling environment. It does nothing beneficial to those working in it. It harms their health and constantly makes them get ill from the job. I was quite surprised some farms are allowed to do this knowing there are young workers handling the material they knowingly sprayed. It appears as though this should be something that is banned or illegal in the agriculture industry. Years ago it was much more common to find these type of environments. Asbestos was a major issue that caused thousands of people to develop cancer and die. The U.S. government changed many work safety policies since then but it appears there are still some that are overlooked, and of course some are just that way due to the nature of the work (lumberjacking, mining, or working with dangerous animals). But farming does not come across as a hazardous area of work. Yes there is heavy machinery which could lead to an injury, but to just be tilling soil or picking vegetation is not right.

d. Social Inequality, page 555: The existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.

Health care has been one of the most talked about items over the past decade.

The goal of trying to make health care something that everyone can obtain instead of it being for those who can afford it. This is why our current president, Barack Obama, instituted “Obamacare” or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The goal is to give affordable health care and quality health insurance to more Americans while reducing the U.S. health care spending. This is fairly new, so all depending on the completion of the video, this act may not have been available to those migrant workers at that time. The mother of the girl in the video started to have pains and feel sick. Her husband was worried and so husband and daughter and other family members took her to the hospital. They discovered if she hadn’t been treated, blood would have clogged parts of her body and cause her to die. Its reasons like that why health care is very important. The cost would have been high for them to have to have their mother, and wife, operated on. Yet it was necessary. Even for the young boy working with the toxic chemicals, when his skin was falling off he would have needed a medical professional to provide him with aid. These migrant workers at least have the accessibility to medical care but only an inferior care due to their social class. Those with more income in a higher class would receive a superior level of medical care. This is the inequality structure that is very common even still to today now that “Obamacare” has passed. It at least reduces the level of inequality as many who could not afford it now can and will. The video stated that roughly 300,000 farmworkers suffer from pesticide poisoning per year, so they would require some sort of medical

assistance.

e. Religion, page 514: Beliefs and practices that separate the profane from the sacred and unite its adherents into a moral community.

In the video, the migrant families visited church, which they most likely did when they lived in Mexico. Except it was something they were able to bring with them and take wherever they want to go. Religion has many functions that help support those who follow it. The emotional comfort given from religion help when times are rough, it provides its followers with purpose in life or suffering. This is why religion is always involved in death, to provide support. As when the mother had to be taken to the hospital and the news came back that she had to be operated on, the family looked towards their religion. To my understanding, Catholicism is the common religion in Mexico, which is also very popular here in the United States. Having religion also provides their families with practical guidelines, such as the Ten Commandments which are for Christianity. Things like be kind to others, do not steal, do not lie, and go to church. And according to page 515 in our book, “churchgoers follow a healthier lifestyle than people who don’t go to church-and they live longer”. These migrant families also have spiritual areas set up in their living arrangements. The young girl who went to live with her grandmother in Florida can be seen in her home praying at what appeared to be a place of worship. This might be the case if they do not have a church near where they live or if the church they could have gone do doesn’t have a Spanish sermon for anyone in the migrant family that doesn’t speak or understand English. Overall, the greatest function of religion is the community it creates. It brings people together creating unity, through good and bad times. This is like their families, they stick together like those in religion.

Assimilation: The process of being absorbed into the mainstream culture
Poverty Line: The official measure of poverty; calculated to include income that are less than three times a low-cost food budget
Medicalization: The transformation of a human condition into a matter to be treated by physicians

Questions

1. Culture is based on materials:
a. It is natural
b. Only for those who are not ethnocentric
c. Beliefs are natural in culture
d. Nothing is natural

“d” is correct as can be read on page 35. Both material and non-material (beliefs) cultures are not natural because each culture is different than the one the observer is from.

2. Which class does the average migrant farmworker fall under?
a. Working Class
b. Underclass
c. Working Poor
d. None of the above

“c” is the correct answer as can be read on page 268. “Members of this class, about 15% of the population, work at unskilled, low-paying, temporary and seasonal jobs, such as sharecropping, migrant farm work…”

3. The functions of religion include all but:
a. Exclusion
b. Emotional Comfort
c.Support for the Government
d. Adaptation

“a” is the correct answer as can be read on page 515. Exclusion can be found on page 521 and is the meaning of denying membership which is not an official function of religion.

4. Disabling Environments:
a. Are the cause of poor farm land
b. Can be a harmful environment to health
c. Grow the most productive vegetation
d. Workers prefer this environment over others

“b” is the correct answer as can be read on page 570. “Disabling environment is an environment that is harmful to health”