How California’s Immigrants Have Expanded Our Definition of Wellness How California’s Immigrants Have Expanded Our Definition of Wellness
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Are Immigrants California’s Secret to Healthy Living?

From Sushi to Sriracha to Schwarzenegger, Newcomers Have Redefined the Good Life

What makes California the very picture of healthy living? It’s neither sunshine nor silicone implants.

Our health secret is actually immigration.

While the President and others falsely blame immigrants for being sources of disease (including smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980), Californians have long known that immigrants make us healthier.

And those health benefits go far beyond the so-called “immigrant health advantage,” the term for the research finding that new arrivals to this country are healthier than those of us born here. Throughout our state’s history, immigrants have adapted cultural practices and introduced …

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More and More Californians Are Living with Their Grandmas

Once Mostly an Immigrant Practice, Multigenerational Living Reduces Stress and Lengthens Lives

Thump-thump-thump! Thump-thump-thump!

Out on the deck one morning, my 80-year-old mother dribbles her basketball. It’s a pastime she picked up in recent years to maintain her agility. My 7-year-old twins join her. …

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The Healthiest Californians Are the Ones Who Are Healthy Together

Immigrants Live Longer and Better Than the Native Born Because Community Heals in Ways Medicine Does Not

    Immigrants bring cultural practices that could improve our health systems and the health of all Californians—if we do more to understand and deploy the advantages of cultural diversity, said …

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The Historical Nexus Between Immigration and Health

Despite Being Blamed for Bringing Diseases, Immigrants Have Always Brought New Understandings of Health to America

Alan Kraut is a historian at American University who has studied the nexus of immigration and health for many years. Zócalo spoke to Professor Kraut to understand the role history plays in our current understanding of the subject, as well as how he himself has absorbed …

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