ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the health and social issue of problem drinking among Puerto Rican men. Over the years, medical anthropologists have exhibited a growing interest in substance use and abuse, with attention being especially concentrated since the early 1970s. The chapter argues that the holistic model of critical medical anthropology advances our understanding beyond narrow psychologistic or other approaches commonly employed in social scientific alcohol research. It presents the case of Juan Garcia a Puerto Rican man who in 1971 died with a bottle in his hand and booze in his belly. The "personal problems" of the unemployed workers of Barberton, like the problems experienced by Juan Garcia constitute part of the human fallout of so-called economic development. From the perspective of critical medical anthropology, the conventional disease model of alcoholism must be understood as an ideological construct comprehensible only in terms of the historic and political-economic contexts of its origin.
