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Research Article
Open Access

Caring and Carrying the Cost: Bicultural Latina Nurses’ Challenges and Strategies for Working with Coethnic Patients

Ming-Cheng M. Lo, Emerald T. Nguyen
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences January 2018, 4 (1) 149-171; DOI: https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2018.4.1.09
Ming-Cheng M. Lo
aProfessor of sociology at the University of California–Davis
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Emerald T. Nguyen
bPhD in sociology from the University of California–Davis and was a 2016–2017 American Sociological Association Congressional Fellow
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Abstract

In an emergent type of labor market niche, bicultural immigrants serve as cultural brokers between clients and workers and among different groups of workers whose communications are hindered by cultural and language barriers. We focus on the bicultural Latino nurses who are recruited as cultural brokers to facilitate “culturally competent care” in a predominantly white institution that serves an increasingly diverse patient population, with Hispanics being the majority-minority group. Through a qualitative study based on twenty-six in-depth interviews in Northern California, we find that these nurses adopt “code hybridization” strategies to manage their roles as cultural brokers. We discuss the larger institutional contexts that shape the successes and impacts of these strategies, as well as the theoretical implications for assimilation theories.

  • nurses
  • Latino immigrants
  • cultural brokers
  • health care
  • immigrant assimilation
  • © 2018 Russell Sage Foundation. Lo, Ming-Cheng M., and Emerald T. Nguyen. 2018. “Caring and Carrying the Cost: Bicultural Latina Nurses’ Challenges and Strategies for Working with Coethnic Patients.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(1): 149–71. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.1.09. We would like to acknowledge the financial support we received from the University of California–Davis Center for Poverty Research. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2016 American Sociological Association annual meetings. We are grateful for the comments from the discussant and other participants on our panel. Direct correspondence to: Ming-Cheng M. Lo at mmlo{at}ucdavis.edu, Department of Sociology, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616; and Emerald T. Nguyen at etnguyen{at}ucdavis.edu.

Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: 4 (1)
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Vol. 4, Issue 1
1 Jan 2018
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Caring and Carrying the Cost: Bicultural Latina Nurses’ Challenges and Strategies for Working with Coethnic Patients
Ming-Cheng M. Lo, Emerald T. Nguyen
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Jan 2018, 4 (1) 149-171; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.1.09

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Caring and Carrying the Cost: Bicultural Latina Nurses’ Challenges and Strategies for Working with Coethnic Patients
Ming-Cheng M. Lo, Emerald T. Nguyen
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Jan 2018, 4 (1) 149-171; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.1.09
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Keywords

  • nurses
  • Latino immigrants
  • cultural brokers
  • health care
  • immigrant assimilation

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