Objective of this Project
This project seeks to examine and explore how the way we define geographical and occupational positions comes from an inherently racist set of principles
This project seeks to deconstruct the false perception a homogenous Latin American culture
This project exists to examine healthcare systems in the Americas and our attitudes toward them.
The project seeks to examine the culture impact of US imperialism in the 1900s on modern Latin American health system
This project seeks to explore how false perceptions of health in the Americas are harmful to all
This project seeks to have readers question their own personal biases surrounding race and health care
This project seeks to address the racist origins of American perspectives on global health
This project centers accessibility of knowledge and interaction with knowledge.
Why I am doing it
This project is my final assignment for my Core III class Landscapes of Plunder at Scripps College. Throughout the class we examined physical and societal landscapes and the origins of them. I initially set out to do this project because I was curious about why American think there are no doctors in Latin America, especially because I have friends who are currently studying medicine in Mexico and other places. I put out a survey to understand people’s varying perspectives on health in Latin America, and the responses generally showed the belief that the US has better health care than Latin America with many people rightfully noting that Latin America is a large area and that kind of comparison doesn’t really work. If you would like to see the survey responses for yourself, here are the US responses, and here are all of the responses. After doing some researched I recognized there were parts of Latin America that had really good health resources (Cuba) but weren’t presented as such and parts that didn’t. I wanted to examine what role, if any, imperialism had in creating these disparities. I also wanted to examine how our understanding of public health comes from bias. Through this project, I learned a lot about health care resources. While this is not comprehensive, I do believe that this is a good and accessible starting point for people who are trying to learn about public health as a product of colonialist plunder in Latin America.
Landscapes of Health 