Greetings!
Week two of my internship has been a lot of reading, and I think I’m slowly adjusting to the workplace.
As part of my first month tasks, I have to read four books. At this point, I’m almost done with the third, and have yet to begin the fourth. The books have been carefully selected to give me important context about the work Medical Legal Partnership Boston (MLPB) does on a daily basis. I want to take a quick second and share the books and their summaries here before I continue.
The Spirit Catches You and Then You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
“Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: “What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance.” The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, “There are no villains in Fadiman’s tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty—and their nobility.” [from Good Reads]
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
“In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.
Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.
Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.” [from Penguin Books]
The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More is Getting Us Less by Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor
“For decades, experts have puzzled over why the US spends more on health care but suffers poorer outcomes than other industrialized nations. Now Elizabeth H. Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor marshal extensive research, including a comparative study of health care data from thirty countries, and get to the root of this paradox: We’ve left out of our tally the most impactful expenditures countries make to improve the health of their populations—investments in social services.
In The American Health Care Paradox, Bradley and Taylor illuminate how narrow definitions of “health care,” archaic divisions in the distribution of health and social services, and our allergy to government programs combine to create needless suffering in individual lives, even as health care spending continues to soar. They show us how and why the US health care “system” developed as it did; examine the constraints on, and possibilities for, reform; and profile inspiring new initiatives from around the world.
Offering a unique and clarifying perspective on the problems the Affordable Care Act won’t solve, this book also points a new way forward.” [Description from Amazon]
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
“Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.”
As the United States celebrates the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status–much like their grandparents before them.
In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community–and all of us–to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.” [from Good Reads]
MLPB (the organization I’m interning at), focuses on providing high quality legal advocacy services to patients, families, and health care providers. The work they do lies at the intersection between legal and medical services, and aims to integrate health care more directly with social services.
The books provide a perfect backdrop to the work MLPB does. Through them, I’ve learned the importance of cultural humility (through The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down), eviction processes (when I finished reading Evicted, I could not stop thinking about it. It’s written beautifully.), and the deeply flawed American healthcare system (something I never really understood until this summer). I still have one book to go! If any of you reading want some interesting summer reading, I cannot recommend these books enough. All of them are eye-opening and transformative.
At MLPB, I’m learning so much, taking in all the information, and honestly, really enjoying it. This summer has made me reconsider my future plans, in a really beneficial way. Everyone in the office is brilliant and cares deeply about the work they do.
Aside from MLPB, every Friday after work, my suitemates and I visit Haymarket, to go to the farmer’s market! It’s about a five minute walk from MLPB’s office and offers fresh fruit and vegetables for incredible prices. I got the sweetest raspberries and strawberries (summer fruit!) last week, and it was such a treat. I think I might continue going when I come back and start Wellesley again!
Other than that, all is swell. Stay tuned for next week: I’ll be talking about the Lumpkin Institute of Service Learning, the MLPB projects I’ve been working on, my first baseball game at Fenway Park (!!) and adventures getting lost in this lovely city.
Happy weekend!
Shreya