Immigrant Health Messengers Jump the Culture Gaps
By Amy DePaul
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (WOMENSENEWS)—The key chain with hand sanitizer was a hit among the students of the Advance Beauty College here, where guest teacher Lucy Huynh was making a special appearance recently to discuss breast and cervical cancer.
Huynh quizzed students on women’s health topics and passed out prizes, including the popular key chains. Later, silence gripped the classroom when she recalled a local woman who waited too long for cancer treatment, leaving her children behind. Huynh spoke to students in the native language they shared, Vietnamese.
A community health educator for an Asian advocacy organization, Huynh embodies a nationwide trend of deploying specially trained lay people from ethnic enclaves to teach neighbors about health, connect them to available medical services and in some cases support them through the process…Read more
