Emerald Nguyen received her Ph.D. in sociology at UC
Davis. Her research interests include immigration, immigrant
incorporation, marriage and family, adolescent development and
well-being, and health outcomes and behaviors. Her
dissertation addresses how immigrant family structures change
over time, and how these same structures influence the mobility
outcomes of individual family members.
Hospitals and clinics frequently rely on bicultural healthcare
workers as cultural brokers to offer translation and other
assistance to help low-income immigrant patients overcome
cultural barriers to healthcare. In a new study, we find that
Spanish-bilingual nurses navigate complex relationships with
their Latino patients in medical institutions with assorted
regulations and often limited resources. They do so by developing
diverse care strategies.
