The Stigmatization of Race and Diseases: How America's view on Epidemics have targeted immigrants and racialized minorities

1. Title: The Stigmatization of Race and Diseases: How America's view on Epidemics have targeted
immigrants and racialized minorities

2. Bibliography 

Castro, Arachu and Farmer, Paul 

            2005 Understanding and Addressing AIDS- Related Stigma: From Anthropological Theory                 to Clinical Practice in Haiti. American Journal of Public Heath 95(1): 53-59

Farmer, Paul 

             1996 Social Inequalities and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Emerging Infectious Disease                    2 (4):259-269

Farmer, Paul 

             2006 AIDS & ACCUSTATION: Hati and the Geography of Blame. California: University                  of California Press

Farmer, Paul 

             1999 Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues. California: University of California                  Press 

Ifedi, Rosarie I 

             Situating Our Racialized Beings in the Race Talk in the U.S: African-born Blacks, Our                                 Racializationand Some Implications for Education. Woodring College of Education; Journal of                      Educational Controversy.                                                         http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/v005n002/a003.shtml, 

           Accessed November 7^th, 2014 

Seay, Laura and Yi Dionne, Kim

             The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place. The Washington                       Post:August 25

3. Elevator Pitch

      With the recent media being placed on the Ebola outbreak in West African Countries, the  stigmatization of immigrants entering the United States and some who have already been in the country before the outbreak has caused the disease to become an issue about race instead of health. This stigmatization of diseases in race has occurred before with immigrant populations in the past. For my research presentation I would like to show how  stigmatizing diseases among racial groups has happened multiple times with epidemics causing many to get sick in the United States and how it has created a stigma among racial groups. I will be using much of Paul Farmers publications to compare how AIDS in Haiti caused a racialized stigma among black communities in the United States. Also past epidemics with Irish Immigrants with Tuberculosis, Asian Immigrants and the plague, and  I will compare it to the Ebola outbreak and how even in the past this disease has racialized and stigmatized African immigrants and black communities.

4. Theory


The theories I will be using in my presentation will come from Sociologist Erving Goffman. The social theory between stigma and disease. This theory was found in an article written by Paul Farmer in his own theory of the Stigma of AIDS in Hati."Goffman defined stigma as the identification that a social group creates of a person ( of group of people ) based on some physical, behavioral, or social trait perceived as being divergent from group norms. This  socially constructed identification lays groundwork for subsequent disqualification of membership from a group in which that person was originally included". (Paul 54) I also would like to incorporate the anthropological theories of Clifford Geertz and his study on symbols and meaning in cultures to explain how diseases are viewed in the racialized culture of America where looking at a person of color stigmatizes them for being a conduit of a disease they are less likely to contract. Where it is the study of socioeconomic levels that leave people more susceptible than the color of their skin.
While conducting further research I would like add that I will be including the anthropological theory of Structural Violence to explain how Africa has been racialized and stigmatized.