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8. The Future of Curanderismo
- University of Georgia Press
- Chapter
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FUTURE OF CURANDERISMO MOST OFTHIS BOOK has dealt with the current status of the Mexican American folk-healing system in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. We have deliberately avoided bringing interpretive models other than the curanderos' own to bear on this ethnographic data. To have done so would have been to step outside the emic perspective of the healers, although such an approach is important for a social-science understanding of curanderismo. It is quite clear from our evidence that some inaccurate notions have been perpetuated in the scholarly literature. The biggest of these myths, for south Texas, is that curanderismo is dying out (see Crawford 1961, for example).It is not dying out; if anything, it is going through a period of considerable florescence and is gaining public respectability where it earlier had only private acceptance. The research efforts that produced the myth were undertaken at a time when many if not most social scientists contended that assimilation was the best possible alternative for Mexican Americans to take. The assumption , then, was that as Mexican Americans became more assimilated they would lose some of their traditional characteristics, such as their language and their belief in curanderos . Yet curanderismo, like the Mexican culture,continues to exist and to resist total assimilation because it 162 THEĀ£w?/vt X THE The Future of Curanderismo 163 satisfies basic psychological, spiritual, and health needs of the Mexican American communities. At the same time, there is no doubt that curanderismo is changing. Curanderismo is changing because Mexican Americans are changing. They are undergoing cultural, educational, and occupational transformations that are bringing about new knowledge, new opportunities, different needs, and different ways of coping with social and environmental conditions . Also, the suspicion and distrust or avoidance of the medical care system reported by Rubel (1966) and Madsen (1960, 1964) has for all practical purposes disappeared in most of the Mexican American population. Since this negative attitude towards scientific medicine has, in the past, been seen as one element in the perpetuation of curanderismo , many of the interpretations of curanderismo need to be reexamined in light of the evidence that those attitudes have disappeared but curanderismo has not. The isolation of the Mexican American, as far as health care is concerned, is fast dissolving. Educational levels are increasing for the population, and more education generally means better jobs and the ability to pay for private health care. Better jobs with large companies and both federal and state governments mean that health insurance is available for the worker and his or her dependents. The federal government has also done its share of making health care available to the indigent. Health clinics for migrant workers, well-baby clinics, immunizations, prenatal care, and school lunches are now important to the maintenance of health and the delivery of health services in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. This has caused some practices of curanderismo to disappear. For example, Madsen (1964) reports the existence of hueseros (persons who set broken bones) in south Texas in the late 19505. There are no hueseros practicing today, since their function has been taken over by physicians, whose techniques have been proven superior to the old methods. Bylooking only for the practices that no longerex- [54.152.216.170] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:47 GMT) 164 Curanderismo ist, it might be possible to assume that curanderismo is dying out. Using the same logic, it might be assumed that medicine is dying out since there are no longer physicians who specialize in bleeding or using leeches. Evolution is not death. One of the reasons for the continued existence of curanderismo is the curandero's use of natural support systems, especially the family. For most Mexican Americans the social structure of illness and health is determined by the family system. Mexican American families have two salient characteristics: the majority are working-class families, and most are larger than the average American family. Most Mexican American, working-class families are child- and home-centered. These families revolve around the development and activities of their growing children, who are very important to the definition and function of the family system . This type of orientation gives a great deal of power and importance to the role of the woman and mother within the Mexican American family system. This importance is especially crucial in health care, since the woman must look after the sick and amass those resources necessary for successful rehabilitation. Therefore, the illness of a child...