Objective: Immigrants have been reported as a vulnerable population that has an increased relative risk for poor health. It is argued that this population’s vulnerability is not a static, self-contained entity but produced in ongoing interaction with social, economic, political, and cultural structures of the receiving country. Because economic structure has been studied very little by nurse scientists, the purpose of this presentation is to report findings pertinent to the effects of economic structure on immigrant families’ vulnerability through their everyday lives, psychosocial reactions, and adaptive strategies during resettlement.
Design: A critical ethnography was used. This design allows for an in-depth critical analysis of the immigration experience by a selected diverse group of families.
Sample, Setting, Years: A purposive sample of Taiwanese immigrant families was recruited from the northwest region of the United States (U.S.). Nine families participated in the study during October 1998 through August 1999. They were Chinese descendants and immigrated to the U.S. between 1989 and 1998. They were diverse in many aspects, including immigration mechanisms, motivation for immigration, family structure, length of stay in the U.S. (9 months to 10 years), social economic status, and experience living abroad. Parents (n=13) were in their forties with an average age of 45.31 years; children (n=16) were aged 8 to 21 with an average of 16.06 years.
Methods: Data collection included semi-structured family and individual interviews, participant-observation, and a Demographic and Immigration Questionnaire (DIQ). Questions that arose from the investigator’s participant-observations were used to construct new interview questions or to validate the interpretation of the interview data. The DIQ was completed at the end of the first interview by each participant. Constant comparisons across individual participants and families were made throughout the data collection and analysis process. Riessman’s narrative analysis was the framework used for analyzing the interview data. Several strategies were used to maintain scientific rigor of the study.
Findings: Interpretation of the data revealed that Taiwanese immigrant families’ everyday lives were shaped by four aspects of the U.S. societal context, one of which was the norms, values, and practices defined by U.S. capitalism. Marketing culture, insurance, and credit were three circumstances with which families struggled during their resettlement in the U.S. Economic survival, access to housing and health care, opportunities for loans, stability of life, and daily transactions were hampered by these circumstances. Frustration and distress were greater in families with language barriers, no credit history, novelty about the systems, and/or limited social supports in the area. Multiple strategies were created or adopted by the families to overcome those problems and psychological distress shaped by U.S. capitalism.
Conclusion/Implications: Immigrant families’ health and everyday lives are inseparable from the economic structure of the receiving country. To reduce the vulnerability of immigrant families in the U.S., nurses not only need to help them understand how marketing culture, insurance, and credit function in the society; more importantly, nurses need to be more involved in re-constructing social and health policies that have been driven by U.S. capitalism. Additionally, more societal context-focused research is needed to form the basis for social and health policy decisions related to immigrants’ lives and health.
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