Vietnamese Cultural Health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Vietnamese Cultural Health - Essay Example The vast majority of the approximately 700,000 Vietnam-born persons living in the U.S. arrived here as refugees from 1975 to the present. While there are many shared cultural traits among all the Vietnamese-Americans, such as the Vietnamese language and strong emphasis on the extended family. The first group of refugees to come to the U.S. in 1975 was educated and urban professionals (and their families) who were airlifted directly from Saigon. They were closely associated with American interests in Vietnam, so many spoke English and were familiar with American culture. This group has for the most part gone on to resume their professional lives in the United States, including serving as staff members of social service agencies, which assist more recently arrived Vietnamese. In contrast, the second wave of Vietnamese refugees, arriving from the late 1970's through the mid 1980's, included a much higher proportion of merchants, farmers and other rural Vietnamese who escaped Communist Vietnam in small boats. These "boat people" suffered extreme hardship and loss through the refugee process, often remaining in harsh refugee camps for years. Many who came from rural origins or limited educational backgrounds have had a more difficult time adapting to urban U.S. life - while others from rural backgrounds found that intelligence and persistence are stronger than 100 generations of rural deprivation. This photograph is of a woman and children shortly after being picked up in the South China Sea in 1979. Finally, the third wave, continuing to arrive to the present, come to the U.S. under more "orderly" programs, typically on the basis of their statuses as political prisoners in Vietnam, or offspring of Vietnamese women and American fathers ("Amerasians"), two groups who faced serious discrimination in Vietnam. They come with their families, in the case of Amerasians, more often than not the father is unknown or otherwise out of the picture. Because of their experience as refugees, Vietnamese-Americans on the whole are at high risk for many communicable diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis B and parasitism as they arrive to the U.S. Over time, as many face accessibility barriers to medical care because of such factors as limited English skills, transportation difficulties, and cultural misunderstandings, they are at risk for more chronic problems like hypertension, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. In addition, many Vietnamese refugees also suffer mental health problems like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a result not only of the horrors they experienced as refugees but also due to the adjustment difficulties in attempting to retain their traditional values in the face of the dominant American culture. Traditional Vietnamese perceptions of health Between 1975 and 1995, thousands of refugees left Vietnam to build their new life in the United States. The Vietnamese, with the Cambodians and Laotians, make up the largest group

Rudi Volti's Definition of Technology (History Paper) Essay

Rudi Volti's Definition of Technology (History Paper) - Essay Example . The need based correspondence between knowledge, organizational forms and physical objects to develop innovations are evident from monarchial systems to the agricultural systems as explained in the Volt's theory. Motivated by the urge to irrigate the agricultural fields, the farmer uses his skills to operate the water screw where both knowledge and the organization form is represented. In this case farmer represents the sole operator and the farm fields symbolizes the physical product .By describing how the interconnectedness between the application of knowledge, organizational forms and physical objects pertain to technical innovation Judaeus satisfactorily depicts Volti's definition of technology. The methods for effective transfer of the information related to any technological component are the drawings .All the engineering drawings are considered to constitute a universal language uninfluenced by cultural and societal variations. It is expected that information contained in it need to be comprehensible to all. But the British policy makers had a different opinion to say. According to them even the engineering presentations like drawings and various visual matters were significantly influenced by "culture, values, institutions and social relations of creators and users" (Brown, 2000,1). The effect of the roles played by the drawings in improving the professionalizing the engineering activities are explained from examples from locomotive and car designs in Britain and America. Another reason that is identified for the better capacity in design drafting is the demand exerted by the markets in both Britain and United States. The need for custom based products with emphasis for individual needs is the prime reason for creation of such a demand. The literature available shows conversion of novel designs to drafting , the firms have reduced the risk of failure besides achieving better efficiency and order (Brown, 2000,1). This have helped in the mergence of newer drafting offices that supported the production process in different sectors. Also the regional variation in the technological development is also discussed in the literature. The American approach was by introduction of design elements that are standarized while the british counterparts often worked on design creativity that led to the product development that matched the customer demand. The philosophy here was to have high quality production with very low managerial cost (Brown, 2000,1). The spread of the technology was mostly due to the movement of people who had the information from one place to the other. It was mostly gained from the personal experience guarded by the individual interests. Thus the effective diffusion of technology is dependent on the movement and interaction with the people who possessed it rather than the wide publicizing of the literature related to it (Belfanti, 2004,1). Another important motivation for the increased mobility and assembling of skilled workforce was the institutional innovations proposed in the modern era. The State laws enacted by European countries proposed to "reward and safeguard" the inventions (Belfanti, 2004,1)