Importing Care, Faithful Service
Filipino and Indian American Nurses at a Veterans Hospital
Published on 17. June 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
254 pages
978-1-9788-2633-5 (ISBN)
Description
Every year thousands of foreign-born Filipino and Indian nurses immigrate to the United States. Despite being well trained and desperately needed, they enter the country at a time, not unlike the past, when the American social and political climate is once again increasingly unwelcoming to them as immigrants. Drawing on rich ethnographic and survey data, collected over a four-year period, this study explores the role Catholicism plays in shaping the professional and community lives of foreign-born Filipino and Indian American nurses in the face of these challenges, while working at a Veterans hospital. Their stories provide unique insights into the often-unseen roles race, religion and gender play in the daily lives of new immigrants employed in American healthcare. In many ways, these nurses find themselves foreign in more ways than just their nativity. Seeing nursing as a religious calling, they care for their patients, both at the hospital and in the wider community, with a sense of divine purpose but must also confront the cultural tensions and disconnects between how they were raised and trained in another country and the legal separation of church and state. How they cope with and engage these tensions and disconnects plays an important role in not only shaping how they see themselves as Catholic nurses but their place in the new American story.
Reviews / Votes
This book is important for its examination of the role of Catholicism within the context of nursing in a U.S. government hospital. It will capture the attention of many audiences as we think about what it means to be Catholic and Asian American in the United States today. How Filipino and Indian American nurses have influenced nursing in America, and how they, in turn, have been challenged by American culture are vital issues of study.- Barbra Mann Wall, author of American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Markets and Missions"Cherry does an excellent job bringing us inside the experiences of nurses working at the Houston VA and putting their work there-and the VA itself-in broader historical contexts. The material gathered and shared is richly descriptive and informative. Every chapter made me think about something I had not before, and to consider the experiences of healthcare providers in new ways."- Wendy Cadge, author of Religion on the Edge: De-centering and Re-centering the Sociology of Religion
"Cherry does an excellent job bringing us inside the experiences of nurses working at the Houston VA and putting their work there-and the VA itself-in broader historical contexts. The material gathered and shared is richly descriptive and informative. Every chapter made me think about something I had not before, and to consider the experiences of healthcare providers in new ways."- Wendy Cadge, author of Religion on the Edge: De-centering and Re-centering the Sociology of Religion
This book is important for its examination of the role of Catholicism within the context of nursing in a U.S. government hospital. It will capture the attention of many audiences as we think about what it means to be Catholic and Asian American in the United States today. How Filipino and Indian American nurses have influenced nursing in America, and how they, in turn, have been challenged by American culture are vital issues of study.- Barbra Mann Wall, author of American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Markets and Missions
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Brunswick NJ
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
13 b&w images
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9788-2633-5 (9781978826335)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
STEPHEN M. CHERRY is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in Texas. He is the author of Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life (Rutgers University Press).
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Content
Chapter One: Veterans and a Crisis of Care
Chapter Two: Colonialism, Christian Culture and Nursing Care
Chapter Three: New American Battlefields
Chapter Four: Understanding and Coping with the Trauma of War
Chapter Five: Faith and the Practice of Care
Chapter Six: Extending Health and Care to Community
Chapter Seven: Who Will Care for America?
Chapter Two: Colonialism, Christian Culture and Nursing Care
Chapter Three: New American Battlefields
Chapter Four: Understanding and Coping with the Trauma of War
Chapter Five: Faith and the Practice of Care
Chapter Six: Extending Health and Care to Community
Chapter Seven: Who Will Care for America?