The first portion of Fit
to be Citizens? solidifies the argument even that Jim Downs asserts in his
text Sick from Freedom. They both
look at the root of widespread disease amongst the black community in the
United States, however they explore different time periods. Also Natalia
Molina’s primary focus is on how these healthcare issues impacted minorities’
“social membership” within American society. The early assertions made in
Molina’s text resonate with the discussions we have had as a class: it recognizes
the experience for people of color with healthcare, illustrates how policy
failed to aid the problem (i.e. clean water or making a sanitary sewage system),
and shows why such failed policy had existed (entrenched racial assumptions). [1]
Many of
these issues stemmed from the stigmas associated with each minority, and as the
job market began to dwindle as the population grew, the false stigmas grew.
Economic pressures increased the hostility from those in “power” (whites)
toward minority groups. I find it interesting how Molina connects how this type
of hostility reinforced the racialization of these groups, which in turn
impacts their quality of healthcare, no matter their “ranking” in the societal
hierarchy. Going off of this, her explanation of the new portrayal of the
Californian Mexicans as Spanish, created a way to falsely morph these people
into “European”. By doing this, they were closer to making them “white” which
is, historically, the ultimate goal of assimilation here in the US, because
citizenship is equated to whiteness. [2] It
is also interesting to see the deep history behind this sort of discourse—that
minorities are associated with uncleanliness, crime, and disease. Leaders
capable of making improvements to minorities’ living conditions continuously
pushed the agenda that racialized them and portrayed them as inferior.[3]
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