Adding New Lenses: Making Health Equity Work in Immigrant Communities Marked By Various Forms of Violence
Social Sciences
Community Studies
“...He was waiting at a bus stop and a man inside a car told him to get inside the car or else he’d shoot him with a gun if he didn’t.” These were the words of a participant in La Clínica de la Raza’s Youth in Action (YIA) Violence Prevention Program, describing one of the various forms of violence present in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. Witnessing these types of incidents led me to research how “health” and “health equity” are understood by community health organizations like La Clínica, which serves low-income culturally diverse residents of a community marked by violence. Based on literature review and a six-month field study working as the YIA program coordinator in La Clínica’s Community Health Education Department, this research serves to analyze how La Clínica realizes its mission of community health equity. Specifically, I explore how some of the Community Health Education department’s programs improve the health of the ethnically diverse community in the Fruitvale District, and I identify the limitations of their work stemming from its internal structure. Finally, I examine how, regardless of various forms of violence present in the community, health equity can be achieved by adding cultural, linguistic, and ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) lenses to address individual and community health.
