a doorway to ethnic media in the american heartland
Archive for reporting on the ethnic elderly
February 22, 2010 at 3:05 pm · Filed under reporting on mental health, reporting on the ethnic elderly
So much tears at their hearts. They are alone. They lost what they had years ago. They never got back on their feet.
They can’t seem to find friends, find a place for themselves, find their voices, find a way to feel at ease, at home, at rest, at last, at rest.
The elderly suffer from depression, but the ethnic elderly endure it even more greatly.
This is one of the topics we’ll talk about at our meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 23rda in a briefing for the ethnic news media from 10 am to noon at Age Options, 1048 Lake St. Suite 300, Oak Park.
And here is a story from New America Media that precisely makes the point about the mental health of the ethnic elderly.
See you there, Steve, steve@newstips.org or 773 595 8667
Managing her diabetes day-to-day is a constant struggle for Maria Carr. Like so many black elders, the 68-year-old San Franciscan must wrestle so much with the debilitating effects of chronic illness—the neuropathy that weakens her ability to walk or the continual pin pricks to test for blood sugar levels—that it gets her down.
It’s in those low hours that Carr’s thoughts often drift back to her “rotten childhood” on a farm in her native Jamaica and the constant verbal abuse she endured from her stepfather.
“People think about their past history,” said Carr. “I’m prepared for the worst. I’m not in the best health, but my mind is still okay. When I get depressed, though, it’s very difficult. Sometimes I wish I could die.”
Study: Ethnic Differences Suggest How Mental Health Services Can Better Serve Elders
“Racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive lower overall mental health care,” including less outpatient care and fewer visits to mental health specialists, said Daniel E. Jimenez, a research associate at Dartmouth Medical School.
But ending disparities in mental health care between ethnic elders and non-Latino Whites, Jimenez said, isn’t a simple matter of improving access to care. At the Gerontological Society of America conference last fall, Jimenez and colleagues at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research showed that mental health care providers need to better understand differences among various groups to realize how to treat each more effectively.
Their analysis of data on almost 3,000 people ages 50 and older reveals patterns that can help mental health professionals reach out to ethnic seniors better. For example, although many Latinos generally have access to mental health care similar to that of non-Latino whites, older Hispanics are more apt to discuss mental health issues with their doctor than seek psychological counseling
Asian seniors in the study also had good access to mental health services but were deterred from seeking help by intense social stigma, which “carries with it a high level of shame and embarrassment.”
Furthermore, Jimenez and his co-researchers found, “The American health care system focuses on individual ailments, rather than taking a holistic approach.” Asian elders are frequently wary of Western medicine, and only use it as a last resort, when traditional folk remedies are not working,” they added.
The study did expose access disparities between older whites and Africa Americans, but Jimenez and colleagues noted that many blacks refrain from seeking mental health services because of significant distrust of health and mental health professionals, due to widespread discrimination over the years.
Jimenez and his co-researchers added, “Cultural differences may go unaddressed, which can lead to African American patients feeling underappreciated, misunderstood and less engaged in treatment.”
In another recent study in the January 2010 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Hector Gonzalez and colleagues at Wayne State University in Detroit found that mental health researchers need to end the common practice of lumping people together as Asians, African Americans and so on, and do more to differentiate, say, between, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans or African Americans and black Caribbean.
Carr is among the four in 10 black older women who live alone in the United States. She is philosophical about her condition and knows that chronic illness can set off bouts with depression.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), depression is the most prevalent mental health problem among older adults.
Although groups of ethnic elders experience percentages of serious depression similar to that of older whites (about one in six people ages 50 or older at some point) mental health experts say that African-American, Latino, Asian and Native-American seniors are less apt to get treated. That’s because of their higher levels of poverty, lack of insurance or access to treatment and the pervasive stigma of mental illness in many cultures.
http://tinyurl.com/yg7su6d
February 18, 2010 at 4:22 pm · Filed under Reporting on ethnic communities, reporting on the ethnic elderly
The struggle is almost gone from them. They worked. They saved. They did the best they could. But now the days are tough days.
These are the ethnic elderly who are just getting by, who are alone, and who fear their tomorrows.
This too is a story that we need to tell about the immigrant and minority elderly: the story of those elderly who are alone and struggling.
Here, for example, is some recent research on Latino boomers and elderly from the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA.
“Many aging Latinos have minimal
pension and health care benefits or
no benefits at all, a result of their
unmet needs in regard to education:
in 2006, for example, only 59 percent
of Latinos over age twenty-five had
obtained a high school diploma,
compared to 90 percent of non-
Latino whites (Gassoumis, Wilber,
and Torres-Gil 2008). In California,
Latino elders who lived alone or with
only a spouse had the highest rates
of economic insecurity among all
elders age sixty-five and older. About
three-fourths of Latino elders who
lived alone and almost half of those
who lived with only a spouse could
not cover their basic costs of living.”
These are some of the issues we will be dealing with at our news briefing for the ethnic news media from 10 am to noon Tuesday, Feb. 23, 
at Age Options in Oak Park. We will talk about sources, contacts, new ways of reporting. I hope you can join us there.
Steve
, steve@newstips.org
February 17, 2010 at 9:07 am · Filed under reporting on the ethnic elderly
They buy the newspapers and listen to the radio shows that have talked to them for years. The voices they trust first. They listen to the radio shows in the languages they learned as children. They watch the TV shows that remind of their different lives in the places where they come from.
They are the ethnic elderly.
And because of their role in their communities, because of their loyalty to the news media and because of the problems and gifts that they bring to their communities, their stories must be told.
Also because of their growing numbers, they can’t be ignored.
According to the American Geriatics Society:
Currently, the senior US population is mostly white, but the fraction from other races is growing rapidly. Within the next 50 years, the number of elderly black Americans is expected to triple. The elderly Hispanic American population is growing at an even faster rate and may exceed that of the elderly black population within 30 years.
At our background briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, from 10 a.m. to noon at the offices of Age Options in Oak Park we will talk about this and other ways of doing the best job possible of reporting on the issues of the elderly.
See you there.
saludos,
Steve, steve@newstips.org, 312 369-6400
February 16, 2010 at 4:06 pm · Filed under Indian community reporting, reporting on the ethnic elderly
They made a new life, a life unlike the one before. Was it better? Hard to say. But they kept their roots. They tried to pass them on, too.
And now in their later years where do they go? Where is their home? Where are their roots?
And what do they pass on to their children?
This is one of the many stories to be told about the ethnic elderly. And here is a good example of one telling from New America Media.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f96efd5bba8a30ba0d2861525459197f
We will talk about this at our upcoming session on reporting on the ethnic elderly on Tuesday, Feb. 23.
Let me know if you can make it.
saludos,
Steve
February 15, 2010 at 10:31 am · Filed under Asian immigrants, reporting on mental health, reporting on the ethnic elderly
What are the stories we need to tell?
One of them is about becoming a citizen despite their age and despite the challenges they face.
Here is a story from a Seattle newspaper, carried by New America Media that tells this story. If there are any stories you have done like this, I would gladly add them here.
saludos,
Steve
Stories of Hard-Won Citizenship
IExaminer, News report, Vivian Luu, Posted: Feb 07, 2010 
Tran Tran is 75 years-old. He lives in Renton and enjoys shopping and visiting with friends in the Phuc Loc Tho mini-mall in Seattle.
Tran emigrated from Vietnam in 2002 after his son sponsored him, but didn’t become a U.S. citizen until Jan. 5. Tran had been trying to become an American for three years.
“I feel liberated, free,” Tran said. He was a telegraph operator for the U.S. military, but speaks very little English. We conversed in Vietnamese.
This is a feeling shared by many other Asian immigrants who come from hardship and, like Tran, seek solace in the United States. Obtaining citizenship means freedom from oppressive governments and a chance to start over.
More people are seeking U.S. citizenship than ever. More than 744,000 people were naturalized last year while just over a century ago, fewer than 8,000 people had that privilege, according to the US federal Web site.
Tran tried fleeing to the United States with his son in the early 90s. As father and son ran toward a small boat that would take them away, his son, Quoc, made it onto the boat. Tran was caught and imprisoned for two months.
“Quoc was young,” Tran said. “He was faster. He got away.”
It is no surprise, then, why he was determined to become an American. He took the naturalization exam in 2007 and failed. His application was rejected when he tried again because of speculation his roommate was a family member.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=bc024f9390fae1ddb470145d48f2323c
February 14, 2010 at 5:00 pm · Filed under reporting on the ethnic elderly
Here’s a good reminder of how important reporting on the elderly is for the ethnic news media.
These are projects that will be carried out by many different kinds of publications produced by immigrant or black or Latino publications at a fellowship held by New America Media.
These are the kinds of stories will be talk about our own briefing on Tuesday Feb. 23 at the office of Age Options in Oak Park. Folks from the AARP will also take part. If you signed up, there’s room. Let me know if you are coming.
Steve Franklin, steve@newstips.org, 312 369 6400
These are the projects:
New America Media is proud to present the Ethnic Elders: Today and Tomorrow Fellows for 2010
The New America Media 2010 Ethnic Elders Fellowship is sponsored by The Atlantic Philanthropies.
Lotus Chau, Sing Tao Daily New York, New York, NY.
Project: A three-part series in Chinese and English translation on major challenges for Chinese and other Asian elders, including being exploited by Chinese casino companies, which all but entrap them on Casino buses; being increasingly isolated home alone because their children cannot care for them; and the stresses caused when elder reach the language barrier.
Maricar Hampton, Reporter, Philippine News, Laurel, MD.
Project: Major article on how the large influx of nurses and other health care workers from the Philippines are coping and how they may be affecting the quality of care in a range of U.S. long-term care settings.
Karen Holish, Contributing Writer/Editor, News from Indian Country, Minneapolis, MN.
Project: A magazine length report for national distribution on the scourge of diabetes among the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and others causing older Native Americans to die before their time.
Kausar Javaid, Washington Bureau Chief, Pakistan Post Weekly Newspaper, Alexandria, VA.
Project: Two-part series in Urdu and English translation on economic, health and family-conflict challenges of older Pakistani immigrants.
Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Nowy Dziennik/Polish Daily News and Feet in Two Worlds, New York, NY.
Project: an in-depth news feature in Polish and English on how Polish elders are weathering the effects of the recession and the role of government service organizations in helping them face todays touch choices.
Araceli Martínez Ortega, Northern California Correspondent, La Opinión, (Los Angeles) Sacramento Bureau.
Project: Investigative article in Spanish and English translation on Latino elders facing poverty in the recession, often having to break from tradition and enter nursing homes because their children are under stress to make ends meet
Julie Pham, Publisher/Producer, Nguoi Viet Tay Bac/Northwest Vietnamese News, Seattle, WA.
Project: Series of articles examining euthanasia in three ethnic communities in Washington, only one of two states to legalize physician assisted suicide. The articles will also be published translated into Spanish in El Mundo and into Somali in Runta, as well as in English.
Rebecca Rivas, Staff Reporter/Web video Producer, St. Louis American Newspaper, St. Louis, MO.
Project: A three-part series on housing challenges for older African American seeking affordable senior living and often running into de factor redlining that aims to ignore or discourage them from moving in. This series will continue an investigation Rivas began last year.
DeVaun Sanders, Contributor, PhxSoul.com, Phoenix, AZ.
Project: Three-part series on assimilation challenges for Somali and other African immigrants in Arizona, struggles of African American, and how African immigrants and African Americans relate to one another.
M. Kay Siblani, Executive Editor, The Arab American News, Dearborn, MI.
Project: A major article in Arabic and English editions aimed at informing the nations largest Arab community about the difficulties of older Arabs and their families in Post-9/11 America, ranging from health care disparities to caregiving to financial challenges in the recession.
Sunita Sohrabji , Staff Reporter, India West, San Leandro, CA
Project: An investigative article in English about the army of elderly women from India services as nannies and domestics in prosperous Silicon Valley, often under brutish conditions
Abu Taher, Editor, Bangla Patrika, New York, NY.
Project: Two-part series on struggles of older Bangladeshi immigrants to the United States. The articles will be published in Bangla and English translation.
Nahmyo Thomas, Contributor, RedWoodAge.com/Newswire21.org, San Francisco, CA.
Project: Three-part series on the impact of poor environmental living conditions on the health and welfare of ethnic elders.
