Vaccination as Arrival: Trust, Care, and Healthcare Navigation for Latine Families in Durham, NC

Abstract

The Latine community in North Carolina is one of the fastest-growing demographics in the state, reflecting broader national trends since the start of the 21st century. This increase challenges existing racial demographics in the U.S. South and presents unique opportunities for this community to access various “arrival infrastructures” upon their (im)migration to North Carolina, such as healthcare spaces. Through quantitative surveys and qualitative open-ended interviews, my research looks at how Latine families engage with, make decisions about, and co-create knowledge surrounding vaccines–a particular medical intervention with increased tensions. This project, however, does not seek to just uncover vaccine decision-making. Rather, it unpacks how biomedicine—through the intervention of vaccines—is a process not only of literal linguistic translation but also of cultural translation mediated through infrastructures and the work of public health workers and those they serve. As Latine (im)migrants experience biomedicine, they also encounter linguistic divides that are not only verbal but embedded in cultures and infrastructures. Thus, this work critically examines how language and translation are navigated at both literal and material scales through infrastructures embedded in histories of migration, violence, and exclusion.