Culture in the Clinic: Miami and the Making of Modern Medicine

Author/Contributor(s):	Mas, Catherine
Publisher:	University of North Carolina Press
Date:	11/22/2022
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

"After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees came to Miami. With this influx, the city's health-care system was overwhelmed not just by the number of patients but also by the differences in culture. Mainstream medicine was often inaccessible or inadequate to Miami's growing community of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants. Instead, many sought care from alternative, often unlicensed health practitioners. During the 1960s, a recently arrived Cuban feeling ill might have visited a local clâinica, a quasi-legal storefront doctor's office, or a santero, a priest in the Afro-Cuban religion of Lukumâi or Santerâia. Catherine Mas shows how immigrants reshaped American medicine while the clinic became a crucial site for navigating questions of wellness, citizenship, and culture"--