ABSTRACT
Tome Tanaka, a Japanese man in his sixties, was a patient in the rehabilitation unit. A stroke had left him with significant weakness on his left side. Self-care was an important part of his therapy. He had to relearn to feed himself, dress, shave, use the bathroom, and do other daily activities. Kathy, his nurse, spent a great deal of time carefully explaining to Mr. Tanaka how the staff would work with him on these tasks. The patient and his wife listened passively… Several hours later … Kathy came into the room and discovered Mrs. Tanaka waiting on her husband as though he were an invalid. —Galanti (1991, p. 57)
[Vietnamese] words that translate “feeling hot” don’t mean “fever.” What they mean is “I don’t feel well” and generalized malaise. And if you should ask your Vietnamese patients, “Have you ever had hepatitis?” the translator [may] translate that into “liver disease,” and liver disease in Vietnam means itching. —Fitzgerald (1988, p. 67)
“Asian and Pacific Islander Americans”1 are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States (Mineta, 1994; Takeuchi & Young, 1994; Yep, 1993; Yu &
Liu, 1992). As a result of this growth, the health care system is providing services to an increasing number of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans with a variety of illnesses-cancer, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and health-related conditions like obesity, diabetes, and substance use and abuse. However, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans do not constitute a homogeneous ethnic category; there are many different ethnic groups within this cultural classification, including Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Thai, Tongan, and Vietnamese, among many others (Takeuchi & Young, 1994; Yu & Liu, 1992).
