For the Multicultural Experience Project, I will be working with patients at Siloam Family Health Center, a Nashville-based clinic whose patient base is eighty-eight percent foreign-born (Siloam, 2016). Based off this statistic, a large majority of patients I interact with will be immigrants. “Immigrant” is a broad term, and immigrant patients at Siloam include those with refugee, Asylee, or Green Card status, as well as with those who have no legal status at all (W. Harrell, personal communication, November, 1 2015). All patients at Siloam have no insurance options available to them, for legal or financial reasons, and Siloam is thus one of their only options in seeking health care (W. Harrell, personal communication, November, 1 2015).
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I spent six years of my childhood in Germany, and something I noticed was that there are many Turkish-born people who have settled in Germany. Those from Turkish descent have darker skin than the average light-skinned German, and I have strong memories of seeing (who I assumed to be) Turkish mothers and children sitting on the sides of streets in my town. These mothers would often be holding a cup out, a common way in Europe to signal that you are accepting any money a passersby is willing to give. As a child, we would walk past these people and my mother would hold me closer. She would tell me not to give them any change or money, because they might try to grab my purse or steal from me.
The second bias I hold is that immigrants have not acquired a high level of education, leaving them in poverty. My bias here is mainly driven by the portrayal of immigrants, namely those of Hispanic descent, in the media. In particular, I can’t name one Hispanic figure in a television show or movie that is presented as anything other than comic relief. This doesn’t mean that the roles don’t exist, but I haven’t internalized them as a
I spent six years of my childhood in Germany, and something I noticed was that there are many Turkish-born people who have settled in Germany. Those from Turkish descent have darker skin than the average light-skinned German, and I have strong memories of seeing (who I assumed to be) Turkish mothers and children sitting on the sides of streets in my town. These mothers would often be holding a cup out, a common way in Europe to signal that you are accepting any money a passersby is willing to give. As a child, we would walk past these people and my mother would hold me closer. She would tell me not to give them any change or money, because they might try to grab my purse or steal from me.
The second bias I hold is that immigrants have not acquired a high level of education, leaving them in poverty. My bias here is mainly driven by the portrayal of immigrants, namely those of Hispanic descent, in the media. In particular, I can’t name one Hispanic figure in a television show or movie that is presented as anything other than comic relief. This doesn’t mean that the roles don’t exist, but I haven’t internalized them as a