Immigrants, Place, and Social Differentiation

This volume draws from the author’s qualitative study of Somali immigrants in Minnesota to explore the issues that surround immigration, race, health and healthcare. Immigrants often bear the unequal burden of structural deficits in the health-care systems of countries they migrate to. They also experience legal, social, cultural, economic, behavioral, and communication barriers which more often than not deter access to and utilization of quality healthcare services and set into motion deep-set socioeconomic inequities in health-care provisioning. Existing literature has explored the question of how immigration affects health and healthcare access, but the question of historical-systemic, socio-economic/socio-structural, political, cultural-behavioral, intersectional, and place-based factors that condition ‘access’ to healthcare unevenly for diverse population groups is as of yet understudied. This book examines this question, as well as issues related to place-based experiential aspects of health and how construction of migrant identities impacts health and healthcare. The book aims to create new, diverse, and adequate knowledge that address critical needs of new immigrant communities towards equitable and culturally competent healthcare service and delivery.