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Tajah Foster-Walker and Gabi Wasikowski The Dean, medical students, and assistant (front right) poses with black cadaver In today's society, there is an abundance of ways for one to willingly donate their bodies for the use of science. But what if those bodies were used against their will? How would that affect the value of the human body? How would society respond?  The thefts and selling of deceased slave bodies became a hidden in plain sight black market that medical professionals and even one of our most notable societal figures played crucial parts in these acts. The reckless use of black cadavers by medical students and professionals tells another story of being enslaved, formerly enslaved, free-born, dead or alive and black in America. References: Berry, D. R. (2018, February 3).…

Sanjana Sharma & Austin Pettay Slave Healer creating a natural remedy for patient (2019) In the early 1800s, during the midst of global slave trade, the primary goal for the plantations was to create as much profit as possible. Unfortunately, this created extremely harsh health issues for the enslaved people working on these plantations. Genuine illnesses the slaves came down with were viewed as them making excuses, being inherently lazy and simply not wanting to work. In addition to that, they were punished for being sick and were given quick-fix medical help. When the slaves were moved to America, they brought over their native roots, plants, and herbs that were used as natural healing remedies. These native roots and plants were brought over for the white healers. So how did…

D'Antony Hernandez and Julia Brannon Image from: Filtermag.org During the summer of 1970, the Young Lords, a primarily Puerto Rican militant group with a radical reputation, seized an X-ray unit and took over Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx for 12 hours in response to the many unanswered calls for action to the city of New York. They used the X-ray unit to conduct door‐to‐door TB screenings, examining more than 900 people in East Harlem within the first 3 months and finding positive reactions to one in three tests. Lincoln Hospital itself was condemned by the rich and left open to abysmally treat the poor. The Young Lords took the needs of their community into their own hands after being continually denied access to proper public health care. Begging the questions…

Emma Fulton & Graham DeSanto An old metal fence cuts a path through the desert in what is now Southern and Central Arizona, but is more importantly the ancestral lands of the Tohono O'odham Nation In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and set the groundwork for the original border between the two countries. One thing this treaty did not consider was the 29 indigenous tribes along the borderlands. But it didn’t stop there… both countries have continued to marginalize their indigenous peoples and threaten their ancestral lands. For the Tohono O’odham people, this fact has never been more apparent than as the United States began trying to build a physical wall through the middle of their lands. Throughout history, the American indigenous peoples have had…

Colin McGregor and Joyce Hughes Mexican immigrants waiting to be disinfected on International Bridge in El Paso, Texas - 1917 Beginning in early 2020, the world was shaken and shut down by Covid-19, instilling the fear of disease at the forefront of everyone’s lives. However, for many, this pandemic not only endangered lives through the threat of infection but also by racist narratives that arose alongside the virus. Racism mobilized by political leaders towards Asians in connection to Covid-19 resulted in a huge spike in hate crimes. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve seen this happen. In order to understand the events that put the lives of Asian people in danger, we can reflect on medicalized racism endured by Mexican immigrants during the early 1900s to see how…

Kaylee Acevedo & Rory Edwards Advocates of a universal healthcare system in the U.S. protesting. In the United States, millions of Latinos have been diagnosed with diabetes. Mexican Americans represent the largest subset of this community and have been diagnosed at nearly twice the rate of non-Hispanic white Americans. However, diagnosis is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many factors that contribute to the high rates of diabetic Mexican Americans in the United States, but depending on who you ask, different explanations compete to assign blame for this problem. In this podcast, we explore the institutions, physicians, and patients that intertwine amongst an epidemic of diabetes and contrast two narratives as they try to decipher it. Why is this such a prevalent issue in the Mexican American community?…

Tristan Leopold and Cameron Gantz Eugenesia Journals advertised the development of the Eugenics and other movements throughout Mexico between the late 1920's to mid 1950's Identity: who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group, and what makes them different from others. This definition of identity demonstrates how individuals or a group seek to stand out from the rest. By establishing differences and furthering yourself away from others, you are able to establish who you truly are. Or so that's what the people of Mexico believed following the Mexican Revolution. During the 1920s Mexico established itself and its freedom. Through a sense of nationalism, the Mexican people wanted their voices to be heard around the world, they wanted everyone to know that they were Mexican. Though, in…

Breanna Bernal, Gabe Rust, Latavonia Belcher Image Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images COVID-19 is not the first case where an increased sentiment of xenophobia has impacted public health policy at the US-Mexico border. In this podcast, we will go over the Typhus outbreak of 1916 and draw similarities between COVID-19 and how these policies tend to negatively impact those most vulnerable. We will give an expansive description of the conditions immigrants were and still are subjected to and how it relates to medicalized racism. Further Readings: Andersson, H., & Bettiza, S. (2021). US migrant camp 'kids feel like they're in prison'. BBC News. broadcast, BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-57576306. Markel, H. (2005). Lice, Typhus, and Riots on the Texas-Mexico Border. In When germs travel: Six major epidemics that have invaded America since…

By Regan Coleman and Chloe Kerpius Overcrowded hospitals in Brazil during the pandemic.  https://fortune.com/2021/04/23/brazil-covid-vaccine-jair-bolsonaro/ Discrimination has increased in Brazil with the COVID-19 pandemic and the elderly community. This has led to many issues for all individuals in the country, but the largest group of individuals being affected by this would be older persons. The country has struggled with this disease like many others however, they are still at a very high risk level for COVID-19. Elderly persons are at a higher risk of more severe symptoms that could lead to bigger issues and more severe illnesses that last longer upon contracting this disease. This podcast will examine why Brazil has failed to provide adequate care during the pandemic, specifically to its elderly population by ignoring health recommendations when around this…

Kailee Conradi & Elise Hokr In “A License to Kill,” the horrors of the CIA project MKUltra are revealed to acknowledge the consequences of these experiments. This project was conducted by Sidney Gottlieb and the goal was to find a way to gain mind control. This goal was the product of the Cold War, when the fear of mind control from other countries loomed in America’s eyes. Gottlieb tried numerous mind control techniques from noninvasive hypnosis to heavy drug inducing, and this was mainly conducted on unknowing patients. American men, women, prostitutes, Canadian mental institution patients, Nazi camp inhabitants, and even children were the main subjects of these experiments. The CIA’s agenda was to find a way to break the mind and then wire the brain to carry out the…