Carolina Talavera
Post-doctoral Fellow, Anthropology Department
Jimena Romano-Silva, Undergraduate Research Fellow
Documenting Latinx Civil Movement Contributions to Health Care Access and Services
Project Abstract
While there have been important academic contributions to understanding the impact and legacy of Chicanx/Latinx social justice struggles, their impact and significance in addressing health inequities have been overlooked or marginalized within this literature. The twentieth century witnessed an efflorescence of efforts by social movements to press for real reforms and to create often alternative ways of providing care that did not depend on governmental or corporate decisions. Significantly, these social movements launched a broad critique of ways that racial oppression and profit motives undermine health care for racialized and poor populations. Chicanx/Latinx social movements also played an important role in challenging racialized health inequities while exploring alternatives. Our project builds on preliminary archival and qualitative research carried out through the Center for the Critical Study of the Health of Latinx Communities (Critical Study HLC) with founders and current employees of La Clínica de la Raza in Oakland, CA, an important organization that emerged from the Chicanx movement. Drawing on this preliminary research, our project aims to explore how alternative forms of health care and access were envisioned, and implemented, in Chicanx/Latinx social justice struggles. This research is an intrinsic part of the work carried out by the Center for the Critical Study of the Health of Latinx Communities which proposes to make an important contribution to academic discussions of Latinx/Chicanx social movements by focusing on an overlooked aspect of their legacies—struggles for health care and access.