Congress has stalled on immigration reform, but that doesn’t mean the story of the health of immigrants, and the health care needs of immigrants in the country without authorization, goes away.
The Affordable Care Act will make undocumented immigrants a larger proportion of the uninsured, and many undocumented immigrants live in so-called multistatus families, in which some members are citizens and some are undocumented. Evidence shows that the stigma of immigration status pervades immigrant communities, meaning that even people with green cards or citizens sometimes do not pursue the healthcare they need, or the care they’re entitled to.
This panel will describe the issue and help health care reporters cover the immigration effects on health in a balanced, thoughtful way that gets beyond the talking heads and into the communities.
Panelists:
Jirayut New Latthivongskorn is co-founder of Pre-Health Dreamers, a group of young undocumented students interested in working in healthcare. New emigrated from Thailand to the Bay Area when he was 9 and is a recent graduate of the University of California-Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology. His experience in scientific research includes two years at the School of Public Health at Cal, studying the essential genes of the murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) and, most recently, a summer research fellowship in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medical College, examining the kidney’s functions. New aims to become a physician who practices medicine through a public health lens, using primary care, research, and policy to shape health for the individual and the community. He helped start Pre-Health Dreamers in hopes of alleviating the barriers he has faced for future undocumented students pursuing their dreams in the health and sciences.
David Bacon is a veteran reporter and photojournalist and author of Illegal People—How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. According to Beacon Press, Bacon’s publisher, “Bacon powerfully traces the development of illegal status back to slavery and shows the human cost of treating the indispensable labor of millions of migrants-and the migrants themselves-as illegal. Illegal People argues for a sea change in the way we think, debate, and legislate around issues of migration and globalization, making a compelling case for why we need to consider immigration and migration from a globalized human rights perspective.”
Moderator:
Heather Boerner is a freelance health care journalist based in San Francisco. She recently completed the Dennis A. Hunt Grant for Health Journalism through the USC California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships on health care access for undocumented immigrants. Her work appeared as radio/TV/web pieces for KPBS.org and as a feature in National Nurse Magazine. Another article, on the mental health effects of deportation on children, ran on Al Jazeera America.
6-8 p.m. (light refreshments and networking 6-6:30; program begins at 6:30)
Location: New America Media offices, 209 9th Street (near Howard St.), San Francisco
Nearest BART: Civic Center station / street parking
Please RSVP: BayAreaAHCJ@gmail.com
This event is free. You don’t have to be an AHCJ member to attend.