Bureaucratic Incorporation or Abdication? Public Health with Latinx Immigrants in New Destinations

ABSTRACT

Latinx immigrants in new destinations – small communities with fast-growing immigrant populations – present challenges for human service agencies lacking the bilingual professionals and experience required to serve them. This study examined public health administrators’ efforts to serve Latinx immigrants by relying upon dedicated, but overwhelmed, para- and non-professional bilingual staff. Administrators, led by their professional values, spurred agency responses in spite of local leaders’ limited support for immigrants. These findings suggest that administrators in new destinations lead the way in serving new Latinx residents. Yet, administrators’ reliance on para-and non-professional bilingual staff to meet the needs of this vulnerable population generates questions about the quality of care immigrants received from a largely non-professional workforce.

KEYWORDS:

• public health administrators
• Latinx immigrants
• bilingual human services
• bureaucratic incorporation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ We use the term Latinx as a gender-neutral term to refer to people of Latin American ethnic identity living in the United States. This neologism is meant to be inclusive and accepting of non-binary individuals, and is increasingly used in scholarship.