“Culture as Cure”

Bearing in mind the consequences of LYIA youth coming of age within the LGBTQA, Hispanic and Anglo cultures of New York City, I thought Vilma Santiago-Irizarry’s article “Culture as Cure” might be an appropriate antidote to consider. Although the author analyzes a process of Hispanic professionals integrating “cultural sensitivity” into institutionalized psychiatric programs, several of the issues she brings to light seemed relevant in the realm of social marketing for a group such as LYIA.

Initially summarizing Santiago-Irizarry’s analysis from a political point of view, the driving motivation behind the “ethnicization” of mental health care was an approach by medical activists to gain leverage for a more equitable distribution of public health resources. These health care workers could advocate specialized programs and needs for ethnic groups by positioning the issue and utilizing the Hispanic’s population designation “at risk”.

Considering the implications of an “at risk” designation for HIV/AIDs, I wonder about the disadvantages for LYIA and the Hispanic LGBTQA population. The designation seems to exacerbate the social stigmas unfortunately associated with these groups. However, LYIA’s social marketing “Gozala” campaign, which emphasizes the positive and celebratory aspects of living, seems on target for reaching Hispanic communities and countering stigmata. The focus on celebrating culture and its healing aspects is also a large part of Irizarry’s article.

Referencing programs the author evaluated, she explains how staff used cultural identifiers and aspects throughout the internal environments, and they incorporated those attributes into their therapeutic practices as well. The representations of culture helped bond patients and staff. This medicalizing of culture provided a crux for patients understanding their own cultural behaviors and the perspectives of those outside their culture of origin.

Although youth from LYIA don’t necessarily suffer from mental illness, they are confronted and victims of homophobias, social stereotyping, stigmatization and other pathologies from cultures they live amongst. In a role reversal, the youth engage in self understanding and acceptance while educating and raising awareness in cultures riddled with illnesses. In a sense, LYIA youth could be considered mental health care practitioners in their line of work as social marketers.

In the conclusion of “Culture as Cure”, the author takes into account the notion of culture, services and opportunities and raises an important juxtaposition in the arena of policy-making and anthropology. These are tricky waters we tread when we try to create policies which purport equitable opportunities in the domains of rich ethnic diversity and hegemony. After working with various cultures and ethnicities including LYIA, I would conclude with saying we have a monolithic gap of cross cultural understanding. In order to begin navigating this complex territory of egalitarian treatment of others, we have a lot of social marketing work to do.