Healthy Immigrant Effect

“The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope” Book Review

Immigrants take up a decent portion of the population in the united stated. People from near and far flock over to American to try to achieve the American dream. This basically means they are trying to obtain better opportunities found in the United States that cannot be acquired in their home countries. In the short film “Becoming American” we learn that the main reason why immigrants, especially Latinos go to American is to work to support their large families. Coming from a family immigrants, I know that concept family is everything and like the people in the film demonstrate important measures should be done to support your family. However one important fact that I didn’t know prior to seeing the film was the idea that most immigrants are quite healthy.

Being an immigrant in the United States is hard. People come here to work and bring their children, because there’s more opportunities here and the country is known for being a free land. But they are being sent back to a place where they don’t get the same things as they do here.Immigrants are also a big part of the U.S because most are in the fields,construction,landscaping, and all these jobs that are hard. Immigrants shouldn’t be deported because they are here to work hard, to help out their families and also live the American dream like any other.

Recently the United States has experienced a large number of immigrants coming over to the country within the 2000s. In recent studies, there are about 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The undocumented immigrant population has grown 27% between 2000 to 2009. Immigrants from Mexico make up 59% of the undocumented immigrants in the United States. These undocumented immigrants can help the economy and country grow. These undocumented immigrants do have some downside to them, which makes people question do they really help this country. Many people question if this is a good or bad thing for the U.S. economy or the country. Immigrants have helped the U.S. economy out a lot and propose more positives then negatives on

America has been a melting pot of cultures for many centuries, with the number of immigrants continually rising every year. Most of these immigrants come into the country with nothing at all except for the clothes on their backs and a few English words. But they also bring with them something special – their cultures and traditions from their homeland. In the Immigrant Advantage, readers can see that these specific traditions that they bring with them give them an advantage because they tend to have better mental and physical health than their native born American counterparts (5).

Immigration Helps America Immigration can be defined as passing foreigners to a country and making it their permanent residence. Reasons ranging from politics, economy, natural disasters, wish to change ones surroundings and poverty are in the list of the major causes of immigration in both history and today. In untied states, immigration comes with complexities in its demographic nature. A lot of cultural and population growth changes have been witnessed as a result of immigration. In the following paper, I will focus on how immigration helps United States as compared to the mostly held view that it hurts America.

The United States of America has the largest foreign-born population in the world. With nearly thirteen percent of the total population being foreign-born, one may find it hard to imagine an immigrant-free country (U.S. Bureau of the Census). Immigration has been an integral part of the United States’ overall success and the country’s economy since it was established and without it, would have never been founded at all. Although there are some negative issues associated with immigration and many native-born Americans believe to be more of a problem than a solution, overall it actually has a positive effect. Immigrants in America, among other things, fill jobs where native-born Americans may not want to work or cannot work, they contribute

One way that immigration affects the human experience is by impacting people physically. My interviewee witnessed immigrants being affected physically in her journey. Although her journey wasn’t that hard she said that “some women would be raped” during her journey (Zuñiga). She also said she “was afraid of being killed” because of the threats they received from other migrants and “some people were shot” if they didn’t give up their money or belongings (Zuñiga). Immigration can be dangerous because it affects you physically and scars you forever. In the book Enrique’s Journey he explains his experience with immigration and describes how other migrants were affected physically because of immigration. A quote that showed physical effects by immigration is “... severe internal hemorrhaging and long scratch marks on their buttocks, some get pregnant” (Nazario 77). This shows how women are affected physically because some are raped during the journey and are left with physical and emotional scars. These examples show how immigration affects people physically because both quotes show that women and men can get raped on their search for a better life. Not only are they affected physically but they are also affected emotionally and mentally because events like this affect how you see other people and the world.

The United States is a melting pot of cultures from around the globe. Many immigrants acclimate to American culture and customs while retaining many of their native culture and customs. However, much of their culture places these immigrants at risk for health disparities. Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing racial and ethnic in the United States (cardiosmart.org, 2014). According to CDC.gov (2004), compared to non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics experienced chronic liver disease 62% more, diabetes 41% more, HIV 168% more and cancer of the cervix 152% and stomach 63% more for males and 150% more for females.

An interesting phenomenon – the First, they must pass a health-screening process beforehand. In Canada, health screening was implemented to ensure that no immigrant becomes a burden on health or social services or “is a danger to public health or safety” (Government of Canada, 2002:np). Canada has no list of diseases that will automatically disqualify would-be immigrants, but infectious conditions such as HIV-AIDS can decrease their chances of acceptance (Zencovich, Kennedy, MacPherson, & Gushulak 2006). Screening does not guarantee that the host country will receive immigrants that are healthier than its own citizens, but it does ensure that people with serious health problems are not allowed to immigrate; consequently, the cohort of immigrants coming to North America tends to be healthy.

Juana Mora in “Acculturation Is Bad for Our Health: Eat More Nopalitos” argues that the United States offers many job and educational opportunities for Latinos, but acculturation in America negatively impacts their health. Mora offers research and statistics, most of which I find compelling, to explain that these illnesses are primarily due to the immigrants’ new “daily habits and environment changes” (Mora 660). After arriving in America, immigrants often live in crime-ridden, low income neighborhoods, rely on fast food, abuse alcohol and tobacco products, and have fewer safe areas for exercise. Additionally, the stress caused “by learning a new language and culture” and “living in new and sometimes dangerous environments” causes illnesses such as post-traumatic

Although some argue otherwise, immigrants have a positive impact on our society. It is ironic how "within the country founded by Immigrants- Immigrant somehow become a bad word" (K'Naan). Although statistics prove that immigrants do bring overcrowding, drug trafficking, and diseases, they also impact positively on our economy and bring cultural knowledge. Being an immigrant in America is no easy task, they work long hours and most of the time have multiple jobs. Because the American dollar has greater value, immigrants will take any job that pays better than their home country. This often means they do the unwanted jobs of Americans. Immigrants fight hard to work their way to America with the American dream in mind, but once here that dream becomes very distant due to unexpected challenges they faced. In Valeria Luiselli book "Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions", she addresses her experience as an interpreter for immigration court of the state of New York, discussing the stories she has heard with the immigration process. Throughout the book, she explains her view of the lack of sympathy and protection the United States has for the young immigrants. Her purpose to show the difficulties the immigrants go through - their sacrifice, resilience, and strength as they fight to survive and obtain a better life in America can also be seen in K'naan video - "The Hamilton Mixtape: Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)", through his use of symbolism everywhere in the music.

Immigrants not only have to adapt to a new culture, language, and social and economic systems that may be very diverse from their countries of origin, they also have to overcome many prior complications. Some immigrants and refugees arrive with infectious diseases; others with untreated chronic diseases such as vitamin deficiencies, diabetes and or hypertension. The health status of many immigrants in the United States varies upon lifestyle choices and the availability of resources that can be used to receive the appropriate care for these conditions. African and Latin immigrants represent the largest and fastest group of immigrants in the United States. The largest geographic areas of concentration are Washington D.C., New York City, Texas, California and Atlanta. Most public health reports involving theses immigrants have focused on infectious

In "Health Assimilation among Hispanic Immigrants in the United States: The Impact of Ignoring Arrival-cohort Effects," Tod G. Hamilton, Tia Palermo, and Tiffany L. Green set out to add a meaningful contribution to the literature tackling the "healthy immigrant effect," a phenomenon where the initial health advantage of Hispanic immigrants

Canada has always been recognized as a multicultural country with a diversity of ethnic groups. According to the 2006 census (Statistics Canada, 2006), there was a total of 1,109,980 new immigrants arriving Canada from various countries between 2001 and 2006. The Multiculturalism Act (1988) is adopted to encourage ethnic groups to preserve their own languages and cultural heritages while integrating into the Canadian culture (Minster of Justice, 1984). Despite that, constant barriers remain in immigrants’ experiences of acculturation. Newcomers who failed to acculturate into the host country may experience social exclusion, which could result in a reduction in their health statuses. Although recent immigrants are often healthier than the general Canadian population, their health status tend to converge to the Canadian-born population with increased length of residence; for instance, statistics revealed worsening immigrant health in chronic conditions like diabetes and tuberculosis (Statistics Canada, 2002). This is referred as the “healthy immigrant effect”. Immigrants’ initial healthy status is explained by self-selection reasons, and screenings that are regulated by the Immigration Act (Statistics Canada, 2002). However, it is more crucial to understand the reasons for their deterioration in health over time. In this paper, we will explore a framework that explains the pathway between social exclusion, an important social determinant of health, and the deterioration in the