Archive for the 'Immigration & Refugees' Category
Add a comment November 17th, 2009 by bronxdoc
On September 27th 2009, Dr. Joan Beder, Dr. Susan Mason, and Joyce Wong, CSW spoke at Social Medicine Rounds on Community Health Care in Cuba. Drs. Beder and Mason have recently published a book of the same title which we have reviewed on the Portal (see: New Book on the Cuban Health Care System).
Breast Cancer in Cuba
Dr. Joan Beder began with a discussion of her work with breast cancer patients. Dr. Beder is a professor of social work at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. She has an interest in oncology services and specifically services for women with breast cancer. She began her talk by pointing out some of the contradictory aspects of work in Cuba. Cubans have guaranteed rights to health and education; this something that we did not have in the US. Yet it was clear walking around Havana that Cuba is an impoverished country where food was rationed.
Dr. Beder noted that the Cuban system provided essentially the same treatment options – chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery – that were available to patients in the US. But the supply of drugs was quite limited. Breast cancer screening programs had been impacted by the US trade embargo; the Cubans could not obtain the best mammography film and equipment because it was produced in the US. As a consequence higher than necessary doses of radiation were used in mammography.
Dr. Beder was asked by the Cubans to provide some guidance on helping women with the psychosocial consequences of breast cancer. She worked with the Federation of Cuban Women which runs a series of Women’s Centers where breast self-examination and mammography are promoted. Initially they considered setting up a self-help hotline for breast cancer survivors. This turned out to be problematic due to the deficiencies of the Cuban system; people may not always have access to a phone in a private setting. Her work led her to undertake a training program in the special needs of oncology patients for Cuban social workers.
She concluded by pointing out that cancer is now the second leading cause of death in Cuba; cardiovascular disease is number one. Cognizant of this, the Ministry of Health has begun a special national program to train doctors in the prevention and early detection of cancer.
Schizophrenia and Mental Illness
Dr. Susan E. Mason is also a professor of social work at Yeshiva University; in addition she is a professor of sociology and the chair of the college departments of sociology and political science. Her area of expertise is schizophrenia and she is the co-author of Diagnosis Schizophrenia: A Comprehensive Resource for Patients, Families, and Professionals, a fascinating book which uses patient stories to describe what it is like to have schizophrenia.
The Cuban approach to mental illness also has been shaped by a context where resources are limited and medications are in short supply; again, this is due – in part – to the effects of the embargo. Psychosocial treatments have been emphasized and mental health is based on three principles: community, prevention, integration. Arts and music programs are valued and accepted as mental health interventions. She described with a mixture of amusement and admiration how official meetings might be interrupted for a short break allowing the participants (“even the Ministers”) a chance to sing and dance. (It was later suggested that this would be a great idea for hospital rounds).
Care for mentally ill patients was often provided by social workers who live in the same community as the patient and make house calls as needed. When patients needed more supervision, family members were paid to stay at home and care for them. When a family member was not available, patients were placed in a foster home. Since family members (or foster families) were paid, patients with mental illness were not typically viewed as an economic burden for their family or community. Dr. Mason shared some pictures of a day program run from a private home. The atmosphere was quite domestic and she remarked: “It feels like you just want to hang out there.”
Did this model work? Dr. Mason expressed frustration that despite the theoretical advantages of this community model for psychiatric care, there was really no hard outcomes data to demonstrate that it was effective.
A Healing Environment
Joyce Wong is a social worker at a Bronx community health center where she works primarily with South East Asian immigrants. She grew up in Washington Heights in a community that was largely Cuban and later traveled to Cuba to visit Havana’s Chinatown. This had once been one of the largest “Chinatowns” in the Western Hemisphere. With emigration, the population has dwindled considerably and now consisted primarily of the elderly.
In Chinatown, she interviewed elderly men to learn how they had managed to survive in Cuba after leaving their homes in China. She found the men relied on ethnic pride and identity, maintaining their language, and consciously suppressing painful memories. She described this not as a form of repression, but rather as a conscious decision to look for happiness and self-healing.
Ms. Wong made a short film about her trips to Cuba, a place she felt was a “healing environment.” La Magia de Cuba (Cuba’s Magic) is a montage of music and photos and is available on Picasa at this link.
Thoughts
To read more about this work, please consult Drs. Mason and Beder’s book: Community health care in Cuba.
The situation of Cuban patients, denied access to the best possible care because of the US trade embargo was denounced by Amnesty International in September. Readers interested in learning about the health impacts of the embargo should consult their report: The US Embargo against Cuba: Its Impact on Economic and Social Rights.
posted by Matt Anderson, MD
Add a comment August 5th, 2009 by justin
courtesy of wespennest on flickr.com
Daphne Eviatar of the The Washington Independent reported last week on a new piece of legislation designed in response to growing awareness about the poor and even dangerous conditions experienced by detainees held by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency (see original article here).
New York Senator Kirsten Gillebrand, along with Senators Kennedy (D-MA) and Menendez (D-NJ) introduced the “Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act” and the “Prevent Detainee Deaths and Abuse Act”, which would increase government accountability towards suspected undocumented immigrants and protect those already detained. The article cites the recent work of Amnesty International USA, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, the National Immigration Law Center and others in documenting the abuses experienced by detainees.
Media attention on the subject has grown. Recently, the NY Times reported on the death of a detainee at a detention center in a Monmouth County detention facility. Ahmad Tanveer, a Pakistani New Yorker died after exhibiting symptoms consistent with a myocardial infarction (or heart attack). His death would have gone unreported were it not for a scrawled note of another detainee sent to a group who regularly correspond with these individuals. It is still unknown as to why Mr. Tanveer was detained in the first place.
In late July, the Times also reported on a series of three-day hunger-strikes being conducted by immigrant detainees in an ICE facility in Louisana. These men are protesting poor conditions: ”’There are rats, mosquitoes, flies, and spiders inside the cell and inside the dorm. The ventilation is terrible,” [one detainee] said. ‘We have tried to complain about all of these problems, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. They tell us, ‘It’s a jail. This is how it is.””
Immigrant detention affects the communities we serve. I met an elderly women in clinic recently whose symptoms of sleeplessness and anxiety were exacerbated by the recent detention of her oldest son, in his 40s, the father of her five grandchildren. He had been raised in the U.S. since the age of 10 and had been placed in detention after violating parole in relation to an arrest for Marijuana-related drug charges. He was described by his mother as the family’s main support person, both financially and emotionally. Further complicating his detention is a severe acquired hearing deficiency requiring hearing aids for which he had been recently fitted, but had not yet received.
The Social Medicine portal has reported on this subject before (Homer Venters (RPSM IM 2007) On Immigration Detainee Health Care, July 2008; Persistent Concerns over the Health of Immigrant Detainees, April 2009). It is encouraging that the problems outlined in those two articles is being brought to light and addressed by politicians at the national level. Physicians will have to play a role in enforcing new standards of healthcare in ICE facilities.
In the meantime, call your Senators and ask them to support this valuable piece of legislation.
Add a comment July 2nd, 2009 by bronxdoc
As a follow-up to our post last month on the Justice is Healing Campaign we were asked by community organizer Minh Ha Nguyen to post this information about free legal services available to Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants living in the Bronx.
CAAAV and NMCIR-Bronx Project have partnered to provide FREE
Immigration Consultation
US Citizenship Application
Low-cost Adjustment of Status
Low-cost Family-based Petitions
Where: CAAAV Office, 2473 Valentine Ave.
(Fordham Rd. at 188th St.), Bronx, NY 10458
(Available by the BX 12 bus)
When: Last Wednesday of every Month
(July: Wed 28th, August: Wed 26th, Sep Wed 30th)
Time: 10 am- 2pm
Email: ylp@caaav.org
Phone: (718) 220-7391 ext.16,
For Vietnamese: Minh-Hà, For Khmer: Chhaya
Please note that if you are at least 50 years old and have lived in the US as a legal permanent resident for 20 years or if you are at least 55 years old and have lived in the US as a legal permanent resident for 15 years you are eligible to take the Citizenship Exam in your native language and the exam is oral – not written
CAAAV kết hợp NMCIR-Bronx Project
cung cấp dịch vụ
FREE- miễn phí
về
Tư vấn Luật Di trú
Hồ sơ xin Nhập Tịch
Hồ sơ xin Thẻ Xanh (lệ phí thấp)
Hồ sơ xin Bảo Lãnh Thân Nhân (lệ phí thấp)
Địa điểm: Văn phòng CAAAV
2473 Valentine Ave.
(Fordham Rd. và 188th St.), bus Bx12
Bronx, NY 10458
Thời gian: Thứ Tư cuối cùng mỗi tháng
(Tháng 7: ngày 29, Tháng 8: ngày 26, Tháng 9: ngày 30)
10:00 sáng – 2:00 chiều
Email: ylp@caaav.org
Phone: (718) 220-7391 ext.16
Tiếng Việt: Minh-Hà Tiếng Khmer: Chhaya
posted by Matt Anderson, MD
1 Comment June 13th, 2009 by bronxdoc
The following letter is from Chhaya Chhoum one of the organizers of the Justice is Healing campaign, an outgrowth of work by Organizing Asian Communities (formerly the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence):
I want to share some victories we recently had in our Southeast Asian Health Justice Campaign and invite you to a screening of a documentary our Southeast Asian youth made using the theme of justice is healing. Their documentary will be screened as part of the Global Action Project’s end of the year screening on June 18.
We launched the Southeast Asian Health Justice Campaign in 2007 for improved and quality health services at Montefiore Medical Center, a Bronx-based hospital frequented by local Cambodian and Vietnamese refugee communities who continue to suffer from traumas of war and genocide experienced two decades ago from their homelands. Despite the high population of Southeast Asian patients at Montefiore, lack of translation services and cultural competency and the failure of medical staff to link the community’s prevailing health conditions to traumas experienced two decades ago, have led to inadequate provision of health care. Our demands include quality translation services; holistic care that includes alternative treatments, like acupuncture; integration of social services into the health care delivery; cultural competency of medical staff; and increased community outreach and education. Our Southeast Asian youth have been leading this campaign by organizing the community, mobilizing a broad-based support from different sectors, including elected officials, and engaging Montefiore staff for improved health care delivery.
We recently has a victory in the health justice campaign with Montefiore Medical Center hiring a Vietnamese speaking doctor and providing acupuncture free of charge at one of the clinics! While this is a huge victory, we will continue to organize until other important services, such as translation, are implemented. Thank you for all the support that people have given to us that made this victory possible!!
As part of the campaign, three of our youth members participated in the Global Action Project’s documentary making project to document the Southeast Asian community’s health conditions. Please join us in the screening on *June 18, 2009 at 5pm.*
Featuring youth-produced media exploring the impact of racism on self image, the criminalization of immigrant communities, LGBTQ youth responding to hate violence, the work of youth organizers in the Bronx Southeast Asian community and much more!
This event is FREE and open to the community.
Please come support GAP’s youth producers!
5PM – 8PM
JUNE 18, 2009
66 W 12th Street
Tishman Auditorium
at The New School
The Tishman Auditorium is located at 66 W 12th Street, between 5th and 6th Aves
Directions: Take the 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, W to 14th St Union Square, the F, L, V to 6th Ave – 14th St, or the 1,2,3 to 7th Ave – 14 St
RSVP to media@global-action.org <mailto:media@global-action.org>
Also look out for us on these media outlet in the next few months….
Free Speech Radio News, which is broadcast nationally on the Pacifica
network
hyphenmagazine.com/gethyphen
Peace
Chhaya Chhoum
–
Chhaya Chhoum
YLP, Program Director
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities
2473 Valentine Ave. Bronx, NY 10458
Ph. 718.220.7391 ext. 15
cya@caaav.org
chhaya4178@gmail.com
www.caaav.org
2 Comments April 3rd, 2009 by bronxdoc
Rev. Joseph Danticat died in Immigration Detention. Shown here with his wife & niece Edwidge
In July of last year we wrote about the activites of RPSM alumni Dr. Homer Venters to bring attention to the medical conditions in the detention facilities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Two reports issued in March – one from Human Rights Watch and the other from the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center - provide further evidence that ICE is not adequately caring for those in its custody.
A bit of context
To understand the health problems in ICE facilities it is necessary to have some sense of the massive growth in ICE’s detention operations. In March of this year Amnesty International USA produced a report on ICE entitled Jailed without Justice which notes:
More than 300,000 men, women and children are detained by US immigration authorities each year. They include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, longtime lawful permanent residents, and the parents of US citizen children. The use of detention as a tool to combat unauthorized migration falls short of international human rights law, which contains a clear presumption against detention. Everyone has the right to liberty, freedom of movement, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained.
According to the ICE website the average daily number of “detained aliens” in custody rose from 20,838 in 2002-2005 to 31,2345 in 2008 (fiscal years). By contrast the Amnesty reports notes that as recently as 1996 the immigration system had the capacity to detain only 10,000 people a day. While the absolute numbers of detainees has increased, ICE has also decreased time each detainee spends in custody. The result is a massive machine to detain and incarcerate.
It is important to remember that the vast majority of those detained are not criminals. Those who are in the US without authorization have committed a civil violation not a crime. In the language of ICE they are “deportable aliens.” As Human Rights Watch notes it is precisely their status as civil – and not criminal – detainees that deprives them of their right to a lawyer.
In fact, many of those detained are victims of crime themselves. In July of last year our journal, Social Medicine, published an interview with Victor Toro, an immigration activist in the Bronx. Victor, who had been severely tortured in Pinochet’s Chile, described his experience with ICE detention:
On 6 July of 2007, when I was traveling from California to New York in an Amtrak train, when we had just passed the city of Buffalo, in one of the stations, the Immigration service entered the train with dogs producing great alarm and upsetting the English-speaking passengers, asking for papers from everyone and acting especially rude and hateful toward the persons who had Hispanic features or looked as if they were from some other part of the world than the USA. I was among these persons, among them I was traveling and had lived nearly 25 years in this country. Without many questions I was hand-cuffed and forced with blows from the train, then handcuffed to the others and taken to the regional immigration offices, afterwards to the Cayuga jail, where I was stripped and forced to wear the orange prison jump-suits, which are the same that everyone in the world saw on the prisoners tortured and tied-up in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. This squeezed and cramped all the fibers and vibrations of my body, it took me immediately to sessions of torture and mistreatment that I lived through in Chile, in the torture centers and the concentration camps of Pinochet. It was horrible, I cannot even talk about it and just thinking about and seeing the photos of the prisoners in Guantanamo converted into animals by the authorities of the United States, this has no name. It is pure savageness, a total lack of humanity.
Concerns about immigrant health care
Given the rapid expansion of the ICE facilities it is not surprising that health problems have arisen. Indeed the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security had issued a report in December of 2006 noting “instances of non-compliance at four of the five detention facilities, including timely initial and responsive medical care.” Among other concerns the Inspector noted that procedures did not exist for detainees to report abuse or human rights violations.
During May of 2008 the poor care provided in ICE facilities was highlighted in a series of articles in the Washington Post entitled: Careless Detention: Medical Care in Immigrant Prisons. This report drew an angry response from ICE and a careful rebutal by the Washington Post’s Ombudsman.
In November of last year the ICE issued a fact sheet on Detainee Health Care which stated that detainees received care for both acute and chronic medical conditions in accordance with community standards. Further ICE claimed that health care in its facilities was evaluated using “applicable health care standards from the American Correctional Association (ACA), the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), the Joint Commission, and the ICE National Detention Standards to evaluate the care provided to detainees.”
The reports by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center paint a very different picture.
Detained and Dismissed
Detained and Dismissed:Women’s Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration Detention is the title of the report by Human Rights Watch. It is based on a series of interviews & detention facility visits conducted in 2008. The interviewees included 48 women who were either in an ICE facility at the time or had been in the past. The report began by noting that the standards for medical care adopted by ICE were problematic:
Official ICE policy, which focuses on emergency care and keeping the individuals in its custody in deportable condition, effectively discourages the routine provision of some basic women’s health services. ICE’s Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) has chief responsibility for the medical care provided to detained immigrants, whether it provides those services directly or through a contractor at a local facility. The DIHS Medical Dental Detainee Covered Services Package, which governs access to off-site specialists, says that requests for non-emergency care will be considered if going without treatment in custody would “cause deterioration of the detainee’s health or uncontrolled suffering affecting his/her deportation status.” Although, on occasion, officials have offered generous interpretations of this policy in its defense, the message about the scope of care provided remains clear. “We are in the deportation business…. Obviously, our goal is to remove individuals ordered removed from our country,” ICE spokesperson Kelly Nantel told a reporter in June 2008. “We address their health care issues to make sure they are medically able to travel and medically able to return to their country.”
As Human Rights Watch notes, the decision by the US government to deprive someone of their liberty means the government is responsible for their care.
The report documented numerous violations of humane treatment:
- We met women who were denied gynecological care or obtained it only after many requests, including a woman who entered detention shortly after receiving news of an abnormal Pap smear. She told detention authorities that her doctor instructed her to get Pap smears every six months, but after 16 months in detention and many requests, she had still not gotten a Pap smear.
- We met women who complained of inadequate care during pregnancy, including one diagnosed with an ovarian cyst threatening her five-month pregnancy shortly before she was detained. Her doctor said the cyst should be monitored every two to three weeks, but during her stay in detention of more than four weeks, she was never able to see a doctor. The medical staff’s response to her last sick call request read, “be patient.”
- We met women who had to beg, plead, and in some cases work within the facility just to get enough sanitary pads not to bleed through their clothes, and one woman who sat on a toilet for hours when the facility would not give her the pads she needed.
The report concluded with a series of specific recommendations.
Dying for Decent Care
Dying for Decent Care: Bad Medicine in Immigration Custody was released in February by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. It begins with the story of Reverend Joseph Dantica (actually Danticat) who is one of more than 80 people who have died in immigration detention.
Rev. Joseph Dantica, an 81-year-old Baptist minister, fled Haiti after he was targeted for persecution. Gangs had burned and ransacked his home and church. Although Rev. Dantica had a valid visa to enter the United States, where he had traveled many times, he was detained at the Miami airport when he told officials he sought political asylum. At the Krome immigration detention center, he was accused of “faking” his illness and later transferred to the prison ward of Miami’s public hospital in leg restraints. Rev. Dantica died there alone five days after his arrival in October 2004. His family was allowed to see him only after his death.
Danticat’s case gained some public attention from the efforts of his niece Edwidge Danticat, a well-known novelist.
FIAC provides free legal services to detainees in Florida. The organization is, therefore, exposed to the realities of life inside the ICE facilities in Florida. The report provides detailed information on the following health issues:
- Deaths in Detention
- Abuses in Medical Care
- Unacceptable Mental Health Care
- Physcially Disabled Detainees
- Mismanaged Medication
- Forcible drugging to depart
- Language barriers
- Unhealthy living conditions
- Detainees treated like criminals
- Denied medical records
This report closes with a set of specific recommendations. Among these are that independent, external scrutiny needs to be exercised over the work of ICE.
Commentary
Deportable aliens are not criminals and alternatives to incarcerations should be fully utilized before we deprive someone of their liberty. Once someone is incarcerated they should receive humane treatment. ICE’s report of last December seems to say that “everything’s ok.” This is perhaps the most concerning part of the story and justifies FIAC’s claim that in an oversight vacuum “ICE tolerates a culture of cruelty and indifference to human suffering.”
Add a comment March 7th, 2009 by bronxdoc
HealthRight International (formerly Doctors of the World-USA) – https://www.healthright.org/ – offers Human Rights Clinic training sessions for licensed physicians and mental health professionals interested in evaluating torture survivors. The sessions provide volunteers with an understanding of the asylum process in the United States, prepare them to evaluate the effects of torture on survivors, and address the importance of writing effective affidavits. The next session is on Saturday, March 14, 2009 from 8:30 to 1PM. For further information or to register, please contact Lisa Matos Jimenez at lisa.matos@healthright.org or 212-584-4866. The training will take place at HealthRight, 80 Maiden Lane, 6th Fl, NY, NY 10038.
These sessions are offered periodically and interested professionals should consult the HealthRight Interntional website for the most current events -https://www.healthright.org/jobs/volunteers-nyarea.
Commentary:
HealthRight International collaborates with the Human Rights Clinic at the Montefiore Comprehensive Health Care Center. Their evaluation protocols are quite detailed and adopt a holistic approach, evaluating both physical and psychological sequelae of torture. This is excellent training for individuals who work with refugees.
posted by Matt Anderson, MD
2 Comments February 6th, 2009 by bronxdoc
The Youth Leadership Project organizers
There has been snow continuously on the ground in New York since before New Year, a somewhat rare occurrence in these days of global warming. And saturday, January 31st was a particularly cold night. As one approached the basement of the St. Nicholas Tolentine church, a few brave souls stood outside smoking cigarettes and talking on cell phones.
Inside was the first annual fund-raising dinner of the Youth Leadership Project, a South East Asian community group. A dozen or so large round tables were spread around a long white room. At the tables was a happy crowd made up mainly of Cambodian immigrants. The room was filled with the sounds of people greeting friends. They saluted each other by putting their hands together as if in prayer and making a slight bow. Little kids zoomed in and out from a neighboring “children’s” room, mingling briefly with the adults and then returning. A small bar in the corner did a brisk business while people waited for the evening to start.
Chhaya and Khamarin, two of the YLP organizers, started the evening with a brief introduction to the Youth Leadership Project and appeals for help with two current projects. One is the Justice is Healing project (covered in detail in our blog of October 15, 2008); the other is a planned community center (more details below). They spoke in English and then Chhaya’s mother Ousara Phok, got up and translated their speech, a “translation” that involved copious thanks to many of the people sitting in the room.
The speeches were accompanied by a three course meal from Huynh Catering Services. The Huynh family, originally from Cambodia, has a long tradition of catering and Victor, we were informed, “does all the Cambodian weddings.”
With the speeches over, the very serious business of dancing began. Monorom, “one of the best Cambodian bands”, had been invited from Philadelphia and clearly knew what music the audience wanted to hear. Very quickly the dance floor was full. There were several different types of dances. Madison looked something like a line dance and can be seen at this link. Next came the circle dance (ramvong) a slow dance in which the dancers made elaborate movements with their hands as their hips swung slowly from right to left and back. Genders alternated in the circle. It was explained that in the old times unmarried people were not allowed to touch as they danced, thus the physical separation created by the circle. Finally, the Saravan dance which seemed to draw the most enthusiastic crowd.
We found a few minutes to catch up with Khamarin, one of the YLP leaders. He is a 20 year old student at New York College of Technology with plans to become a X-ray technician. He was born in the US and wasn’t entirely sure where in Cambodia his parents were born. His mother, he thought, came from Battambang and his father from a very small village.
Khamarin’s first experience in organizing came in 1999 when his aunt, a YLP
Chhaya and Khamarin
organizer had been campaigning against the welfare reforms of the Guliani administration. (This campaign was the subject of a film “Eating Welfare” made by CAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, the parent of YLP). Khamarin was quite young at the time but could not help being impressed by the fact that his aunt had brought people to the community to help. Thinking back now, he remembers how his elderly grandmother had started doing piecework about the time of the welfare cuts. She sewed small hair bands (scrunchies) in her apartment. He thought she was doing it as a hobby, but later he realized how many women in the community were doing this kind of piece work. “They would do the sewing and then the kids would cut the bands apart and sort them into piles.”
In 2001, 2002 the YLP organized ACE gatherings: Arts, Community, Empowerment. “We would be broken up into little groups and have to cook an entire Asian meal right there,” he said, “You would interact with people who you wouldn’t normally meet.” He learned about “the whole other side of the world.” This led him to training in community organizing and in 2006 he participated in the community health survey that was part of the “Justice is Health” campaign. He would knock on doors and ask questions about health problems and experiences with the medical system. health. He remembered one elderly woman. “My Khmer is not all that good, but it was enough to understand her.” She told him that it had been 5 or 6 years since she had seen a doctor. She had complaints. Back pains, leg pains and recurrent nightmares going back to the war. But it was too much trouble to go to the clinic and have no one there who would understand you. And if she had to take the children to translate, they would miss school.
We discussed YLP’s vision of a community center. The YLP house at 2473 Valentine Ave now serves as an unofficial community center and people gather there for holidays. But it is small for the group’s ambitions. They hope to create a Mekong Center that will serve local southeast Asians, not just Cambodians. It would be place to teach cooking, sewing, gardening, art, and dance. “These are our people’s skills, even though here they are not looked on as skills.” A group of urban planning students from Hunter College had helped them out. As a school project the students had created plans for rebuilding the current house into a real community center. Estimated cost: $2 million. Now it was YLP’s job to figure out what they would do with the plans.
Khamarin said that he had never been to Cambodia. He is afraid of flying. What he knew of Cambodian history he had learned from YLP. His schooling had not taught him much about his parent’s native country.
The Cambodian community in the Bronx has suffered multiple traumas. But this was not in evidence last Saturday night.
posted by Matt Anderson, MD
1 Comment January 7th, 2009 by bronxdoc
As a follow-up to our October 15, 2008 posting on the South-East Asian Community in the Bronx: Justice is Healing, we wanted to share this invitation from the Youth Leadership Project. They will be holding a fund-raising benefit on 1/31/09 at St. Nicholas Tolentine 2345 University Avenue at Fordham Road, Bronx, N.Y. 10468 from 6PM to 1AM. They are hoping to raise money to support a community center.
Support a Vision and Help Build the Southeast Asian Community in the Bronx.
We believe in the healing and building of the Southeast Asian Community in the Bronx- that we will heal and build through the understanding and compassion we show to each other. Build a community center that will link the generations together; it will be a home away from home, a place of knowledge, strength and power.
We believe in the legacy of struggle, strength and resiliency of people– that the community’s history is important in building toward our future. We can share and learn from our history; pass it down through dance, art and activism. And that the young and the old will rebuild and build a sustainable Southeast Asian community.
We believe in changing the conditions and lives of our community with other communities in the Bronx-
With 10,000 Southeast Asian in the Bronx and a borough with so many different cultures and ethnicity we see our vision for change as part of the struggle to all who want to live free of violence. We are committed to building alliance and coalitions.
posted by Matt Anderson
1 Comment December 15th, 2008 by bronxdoc
Girls are not for sale
On Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 Ms. Lori Cohen, a lawyer from Sanctuary for Families spoke at Social Medicine Rounds on “Understanding Human Trafficking.”
Sanctuary for Families is the largest New York State non-profit “dedicated exclusively to serving domestic violence victims and their children.” However, over the past 20 years Sanctuary’s work in domestic violence has led the organization to become increasingly involved in issues of trafficking. DV victims are not uncommonly also victims of trafficking.
And, as Ms. Cohen pointed out, they often first come to the notice of health professionals who see them for the sequelae of their abuse. Clinicians, therefore, can play an important role in identifying and referring victims. A website (http://www.humantraffickinged.com/) has been set up to alert Emergency physicians to the problems of trafficking. This very simple, but quite useful site, is a joint effort by the (NY) Mount Sinai Department of Emergency Medicine, the American Osler Society, AMSA and Brown Medical School.
Much Ms. Cohen’s talk was devoted to sex trafficking, and particularly sex trafficking among minors. About 450,000 children run away from home each year. One out of three are estimated to be lured into prostitution within 48 hours. This may explain why the average age at which prostitution begins is 13. Ms. Cohen showed the beginning of a film (which is currently being aired on Showtime) entitled “Very Young Girls” about tween and teenage prostitutes. This was not a very easy film to watch. However – in a section of the movie we did not see – it traced how Rachel Lloyd, “a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking” established GEMS – Girls Education & Mentoring Services – to help young women who are victims of trafficking and to end commercial sexual exploitation of children. The bracelet pictured in this post is sold by GEMS to raise money.
Whereas most human trafficking is within the United States (state to state and within states) New York City has a large population of immigrant victims of trafficking. Trafficking into the United States comes from Southeast Asia (China, Thailand, Vietnam), followed by Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic), and finally Latin America. As Ms. Cohen noted, whenever there is an important military conflict affecting civilian populations, trafficking from that area increases. She discussed clients of hers from Russia, Venezuela, the Ukraine, Korea and Sri Lanka, as well as locally trafficked victims of abuse. Sometimes women are brought in by organized crime rings, other times by “Mom and Pop” or family operations, such as the infamous Carreto family in New York.
Ms. Cohen emphasized that recognizing that a woman was a victim of trafficking is often difficult. Women are distrustful of government agencies. They often times do not have identification papers and believe that they have committed crimes. Their stories are programmed by the trafficker. Denial or minimization is common, as is shame. Language poses a barrier with abusers often serving as “interpreters.” The Human Trafficking ED site offers recommendations for providers seeing patients who they suspect are victims of trafficking.
The take home message is that clinicians should be aware of this problem, maintain an index of suspicion for abuse and trafficking, know how to sensitively interview a patient and have access to referral sources, such as Sanctuary for Families.
Posted by Matt Anderson, MD
2 Comments November 20th, 2008 by bronxdoc
US Incarceration Rates Stratified by Race
Each October our Residency Program in Social Medicine does something rather unusual. We take our interns off the hospital wards to participate in “Orientation Month.” For four weeks they learn about social medicine and the Bronx, the place in which they are practicing medicine. They are introduced to the philosophy, theoretical framework, and practice of Social Medicine through a curriculum of didactic and experiential learning. The month emphasizes a biopsychosocial perspective that integrates patients, their communities, and the medical system into a holistic view of health problems. At the conclusion of the month residents present a synopsis of the clinical problem they have studied and develop a proposal to address its social determinants.
This year the overall theme of the Orientation month was The Impact of Violence on Clinical Practice. We explored this through three cases: one involved a patient who had been incarcerated, the second a case of domestic violence and the third an immigrant. These cases were tightly integrated into a series of activities that included visits to prisons (Riker’s Island and Sing Sing), community organizations, community centers (e.g. the Bronx Community Pride Center), local businesses (such as botanicas) and Bronx institutions such as the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Museum. The interns also learned practical skills such as how to perform a medical evaluation of an ayslum seeker and how to do community organizing (a workshop taught by Steve Max of the Midwest Academy).
On Tuesday, November 18th the interns presented their work as part of our regularly scheduled Social Medicine Rounds. A standing room only crowd listened as they shared what they had learned and made a a variety of project proposals. Their presentation can be downloaded as a Powerpoint. While the Powerpoint does not capture the richness of their actual presentation, it suggests the themes they explored and learned about.
Posted by Matt Anderson, MD
