Surviving the Distance: The Transnational Utilization of Traditional Medicine Among Oaxacan Migrants in the US
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Surviving the Distance: The Transnational Utilization of Traditional Medicine Among Oaxacan Migrants in the US Tonatiuh Gonza´lez-Va´zquez1 • Blanca Estela Pelcastre-Villafuerte1 Arianna Taboada2
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Published online: 10 July 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Transnational health practices are an emergent and understudied phenomenon, which provide insight into how migrants seek care and tend to their health care needs in receiving communities. We conducted in depth interviews with return migrants (N = 21) and traditional healers (N = 11) to explore transnational health practices among Mixtec migrants from Oaxaca, specifically in relation to their utilization of traditional healers, medicinal plants, and folk remedies. In established migrant destination points, folk remedies and plants are readily available, and furthermore, these resources often travel alongside migrants. Traditional healers are integral to transnational networks, whether they migrate and provide services in the destination point, or are providing services from communities of origin. Findings encourage us to rethink migrants’ communities of origin typically thought of as ‘‘left behind,’’ and instead reposition them as inherently connected by transnational channels. Implications for transnational health care theory and practice are addressed. Keywords Transnational Migrants Oaxaca Mexico Traditional medicine
& Blanca Estela Pelcastre-Villafuerte [email protected] 1
Centre for Health Systems Research of the National Institute of Public Health, Av. Universidad 655, Col. Santa Marı´a Ahuacatitla´n, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
2
Art and Global Health Center of the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Introduction Mexican migration to the United States is one of the oldest migration phenomena, with origins dating back to the end of the nineteenth century [1]. Approximately 12 million Mexican migrants resided in the US in 2010, 6.5 million of which were estimated to be undocumented [2, 3]. Beginning in the 1980’s indigenous migration from Mexican increased, particularly among the Zapotec, Mixtec, and Triqui from Oaxaca [4, 5]. The most recent data available indicates that Oaxaca is home to half of the estimated 444,498 Mixtec-speaking indigenous people in Mexico, with the remaining half distributed primarily between the states of Puebla and Guerrero [6]. Small Mixtec communities have also formed in Baja California, Sinaloa, the Federal District, and the surrounding Mexico State, indicating the route of migration through the center and up into the northern part of the country. As of 1994 there were an estimated 50,000 Mixtec migrants from Oaxaca in the state of California [6]. Given lack of insurance, and confounding factors such as legal status, language, discrimination, transportation, and social isolation that impact access to health services [7–10], these migrants have relied on alternative ways of seeking care and tending to their health needs, including transna
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