Shadow and Act: American Medical Directories and Latina/o Diasporas, 1903-1954

John Mckiernan-Gonzalez, Texas State University

Research into the history of migrant Latina/o American communities has pointed out the deeply undocumented and unarchived nature of the 20th century Latina/o experience. The archives that do appear at the federal level emerge in the context of consular advocacy (Munoz Martinez, 2018; Molina, 2012), criminal appeals (Mitchell, 2016; Lyttle-Hernandez ) and immigration (Sanchez, 1994; Flores, 2018). Using four national medical directories prepared by the American Medical Association, this paper examines the impact of Jim Crow and migration restriction on the historical geography of Latina/o physicians who worked and/or trained in the United States. Tentative findings point to the 19th century importance of East Coast and Midwest medical schools; the post 1922 displacement of Latina/o physicians from medical schools and membership of U.S. physicians in key Latina/o communities across the United States; and the relative persistence and/or appearance of ethnic Latina/o physicians in medical schools in the South and Southwest. The directories point to a broad uncoordinated but national push to remove Latina/o physicians, women and other racial minorities from respectable careers in the interwar years. The paper will also point out the ways the directories obscure other relationships of power in U.S. based Latina/o communities.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 46. Health Crossing Borders and Barriers: Latina/o, Immigrant, and Migrant Access to Health Care