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VI. Cultural
Identity and Cultural Clustering in Communities and Organizations:
Implications for the Health and Mental Health Professional
 Traditionally and
continuing into the present, immigrants and refugees have tended to
settle in
geographically distinct sections of urban areas.
Such practices are completely understandable given the support and identity
functions of people’s cultures.
Enclaves provide
immigrants and refugees the comfort of being near people who share
their values, norms
of behavior, and language. Such cultural concentrations have been given
such names as “Chinatown,” “Little Italy,” or “Little
Saigon.” Often one or several of such cultural enclaves can be
found within the catchment area of a clinic, hospital, or health plan.
Rather than viewing
these communities as made up of persons who resist acculturation to
the language
and culture of the larger society, they
can be seen as protective of individuals in the cultural group, buffering
the effects of the “culture shock” that comes with entering
a new society. These communities are health sustaining, because they
function to prevent the debilitating effects of marginalization.
| A culturally aware health and mental health care
professional, seeking to give effective and appropriate care to all
patients and clients, will see these communities as important resources
and aids to cross-cultural understanding. |
Not all cultural communities
are formed willingly, however. Some communities in the U.S. have been
formed by various types of coercion. Discriminatory
housing policies and poverty have created barrios, ghettos, and slums.
Moreover, indigenous peoples were forced onto reservations.
| Cultural
awareness requires that policy makers and planners as well as service
providers understand the historical basis for cultural group clustering
in their catchment areas, whether it is the result of choice, coercion,
or a combination of both. Such understandings are necessary if health
and mental health care organizations are to engage effectively in cooperative
planning with the cultural groups who they hope will be satisfied consumers
of care. |
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