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The Other Side of the Healthy Immigrant Paradox: Chinese Sojourners in Ireland and Britain Who Return to China Due to Personal and Familial Health Crises

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Abstract

Based on participant observation and interviews conducted between 2003 and 2006, this paper examines the experiences of three young adult Chinese sojourners in Ireland and the United Kingdom who return to the People’s Republic of China for permanent residence because of personal or familial health crises. Their experiences illustrate the plight of failed sojourners who are part of the little-studied other side of the “healthy immigrant paradox.” The experiences of the sojourners in this case study illustrate factors that tend to prevent less healthy or resourceful sojourner families from even entering the immigrant category, which has been shown to be paradoxically healthier than nonimmigrant native categories in epidemiological studies. This paper’s approach demonstrates how ethnography can contribute to the study of public health by shedding light on the experiences of marginal individuals who fall between the cracks of epidemiological studies.

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Notes

  1. I use the term “host country” to refer to the country where research on immigration takes place; “homeland” to refer to the country where immigrant research subjects come from; “native” to refer to someone who has always been a citizen of the host country; “immigrant” to refer to a nonnative born with citizenship in the homeland who now has citizenship or permanent residency rights in the host country; and “sojourner” to describe a nonnative who does not have such rights.

  2. A study of children in Canada found that immigrant children were developing world but had lower levels of emotional and behavioral problems than their native counterparts (Beiser et al. 2002); a study of Mexican-origin people in Los Angeles found that Mexican-Americans who were U.S. natives were more likely than Mexican immigrants to have phobias, alcohol or drug dependence and depression (Burnam et al. 1987); a study of Vietnamese refugees in Britain found that, despite their much lower socioeconomic status, the Vietnamese refugees had mortality rates that were similar to those of the British population as a whole (Swerdlow 1991); an analysis of datasets from the Canadian Community Health Survey and National Population Survey found that immigrants were less likely than natives of the same age, gender and ethnicity to suffer allergies, asthma, back pain, ulcers, arthritis, bronchitis, heart disease, cancer, Crohn’s disease and thyroid problems (McDonald and Kennedy 2004); a British study found that the close kin of mentally ill Caribbean-origin immigrants in Britain were less likely to be mentally ill than the close kin of mentally ill Caribbean-origin British natives (Hutchinson et al. 1996); an analysis of census and death registry data in Germany found that the age-adjusted mortality rates of Turkish citizens in Germany were about half those of German citizens of the same gender in Germany (Razum et al. 1998a); a study of new mothers in France and Belgium found that North African immigrants in France and Belgium were less likely to have preterm low-birth-weight babies than French and Belgian citizens living in their own countries (Guendelman et al. 1999); and an analysis of datasets from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that immigrant women in the U.S. were less likely than U.S.-born women of the same ethnicity to smoke or drink during pregnancy, give birth as a teenager or out of wedlock or have preterm babies with low birth weights or high rates of infant mortality (Landale et al. 1999a).

  3. All quotes in this article are from conversations I observed or participated in and jotted down either when they were spoken or several hours afterward. Most of the original conversations were conducted in Chinese: even though some of the youth I studied were proficient in English, they preferred speaking in Chinese during informal social occasions.

  4. China’s one-child policy began in 1979 and continues to the present, at least in urban areas.

  5. All names in this article are pseudonyms.

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  1. Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Larsen Hall 401, 14 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Vanessa L. Fong

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Fong, V.L. The Other Side of the Healthy Immigrant Paradox: Chinese Sojourners in Ireland and Britain Who Return to China Due to Personal and Familial Health Crises. Cult Med Psychiatry 32, 627–641 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-008-9112-4

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