The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #73251

Nayan B. Shah, PhD, History, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, #0104, La Jolla, CA 92093, 858 822 2544, nbshah@ucsd.edu

This presentation puts the contemporary project of smallpox vaccination to combat "Islamic terrorists" and responding to the SARS epidemic emanating from Southern China in the context of a century and a half of public health panics. Drawing from historical research of public health fears and policies to combat bubonic plague in 1900 San Francisco and 1924 Los Angeles, this paper will examine the consequences of public health policy's entanglement with practices of inclusion and exclusion. In both instances, immigrants -- Chinese Americans in San Francisco and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles -- were blamed for the incubation and spread of the epidemic. Non-normative behaviors and domestic living circumstances were the focus of public health officials' disapprobation. However, health strategies to combat the illness were often high-handed and disruptive. Targeted immigrants responded, in turn, with suspicion and fear.

This presentation examines how the objective of "health security" might itself be the source of counterproductive outcomes. Deeply embedded in strategies of health security is a fear of and moral judgment against the ill person. In such a conceptualization, health is a possession and status that must be protected. This vision of health defined the normal body as pure and free of infection, at odds with the contagious bodies of the poor and of immigrants. By questioning the public health creation of race and class categories as well as boundaries that divide bodies, neighborhoods, cities and nations, this presentation will reconsider the role of public health in society.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the historical legacy and contemporary impact of public health policies on Chinese American and Mexican American communities.

Keywords: Asian Americans, Immigrants

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.