The Ongoing fight for racial equity and Immigrant rights within the Health Care System

By: Kayla Edwards

The other day in my HTH 422 Health Policy class, we were looking at ways to advocate for patients as health care workers. The first thought to my mind, since I’m a policy-oriented person, was helping write policies that are equitable for everyone. One of my major interests in health care is Black women and their interaction and knowledge with the US health care system. In my POSC 341 Social Movements class, I’ve been focusing on immigrant rights in America and ways to advocate, get involved, and what has been happening currently with immigration laws and movements. Then a thought dawned on me: what is it like for immigrant women to get access to health care and health education, and what is their interaction with it since some of them are not US citizens? Are their challenges similar to what Black women have been facing in the system? Between these two groups of women, there are many parallels that seemed to pop up before even starting to research them. However, before comparing these groups, we must recognize that immigrants consist of all people coming to the US from another country; it is not just people from Latinx and Hispanic backgrounds. This group consists of people from all over the world that are struggling to gain citizenship which prevents access to resources we have like health care in fear they will be deported. Now, we can compare some parallels. Black women in the US have historically been neglected in all efforts for racial equity due to sexism and misogyny within the Black community which is something many immigrant women face within some of their cultures.

Black women are the most underrepresented in datasets and have worse health outcomes. We have to do better. - Dr. Piraye Yurttas Beim

This also goes without mentioning the history of how Black women were treated in the past with non-consensual hysterectomies and the story of using Henrietta Lacks’ cancer cells without her consent. This is similar to the treatment of immigrant women at the borders of the US being held in detention centers with stories of the violence occurring, especially the most recent headline with Haitian immigrants being whipped by ICE officials. In mid-July 2021, the Biden administration reversed the policy that allowed detainment of pregnant women and infants, but there is still a risk of separation and deportation despite this policy.

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The next question I asked myself is why are there no resources for women to gain access and get a health education? I started digging and found a number of resources such as United We Dream providing resources for each state to gain the health care and Black Women for Wellness which educates Black women on health. However, do people know about these resources? Is the word getting out? Is it in a language that immigrants will be able to read and understand? How would it feel if you did not trust medicine because the system put in place is not meant to help people that look like you? What is it like to not be able to pay for a medical procedure you need because you can’t afford it and are afraid of being kicked out of the country? We must advocate in ways we have never thought before to ensure that immigrants are given a chance to receive the same care Americans have access to. With that, we must acknowledge that there are people who are neglected in the health care system. We can use this as an opportunity to fight for equity in the health care system. And we must do it now.

Sources: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/immigration-detention-pregnant-women/index. html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/us/undocumented-immigrants-pregnant-prenatal.h tml