“Thank God she’s not sick”: health and disciplinary practice among Salvadoran women in northern New Jersey: Caroline Kerner, Adrian J. Bailey, Alison Mountz, Ines Miyares, and Richard A. Wright

Public health literature suggests that immigrant Latina women and their children have low rates of health care coverage and utilization in the United States (Chavez et al. 1997; Flores and Vega 1998; Guendelman et al. 1995; Halfon et al. 1997; Zambrana et al. 1994). Recent media reports further dramatize this situation in the context of significant declines in rates of benefit receipt for some non-citizens. For example, the share of welfare benefits received by non-citizen households fell at twice the rate for US citizens between 1996 and 1999. In Los Angeles County, applications for public aid by legal immigrants dropped by 71 percent (Brandon 1999).1