Books

.....Ronald Angel and Jaqueline Angel. Who Will Care for Us? Aging and Long-term Care in a Multicultural Society. New York: NYU Press. (1997). Examines the issues around providing long-term care with particular attention to the consequences of racial and ethnic diversity. An excellent summary of existing research on the topic and forward thinking ideas about how diversity will affect the need for long-term care in the future. Full summary.

.....Charles Barresi and Donald Stull (Eds.) Ethnic Elderly and Long Term Care. New York: Springer, 1993. A collection of articles focusing on utilization of different types of long term care services by specific ethnic populations, preferences and attitudes toward specific long term care services, and models of long term care successfully serving elders from particular ethnic backgrounds.

.....Elisa Facio. Understanding Older Chicanas: Sociological and Policy Perspectives. Newbury Park: Sage. 1996. A shorter work (about 100 pages) that provides one view of the lives of older Chicanas, drawn from qualitative research of a group of low-income elders in a senior center. The book has a tendency to overgeneralize given its focused sample.

.....Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. 1998. A gripping, meticulously researched description of the true experiences of a Hmong family's interaction with their health care providers as all involved tried to treat a child with severe epilepsy, and the cultural chasm that separated them. Good descriptions of history of Hmong people and their culture in the U.S., especially their health beliefs and practices. Includes insights into the role of elders and clan leaders.

.....Donald E. Gelfand. Aging and Ethnicity: Knowledge and Services. New York: Springer. 1994. This book gives a theoretical overview and focuses on service delivery to ethnic aged. Somewhat weak and broad overview of ethnicity and social service use, most appropriate for undergraduate social work students. Good chapter on immigration history and the aged.

.....Gerontological Society of America. Minority Elders: Five Goals Toward Building a Public Policy Base. 2nd Edition. Washington, DC: GSA. 1994. Brief book with background papers on minority elders' demography, economics, longevity, and family support, plus a paper on American Indians. Includes an annotated bibliography of all pertinent articles in the Journals of Gerontology and Gerontologist from 1991-1994.

.....James S. Jackson, Linda M. Chatters, Robert J. Taylor. Aging in Black America. Newbury Park: Sage. 1993. An edited series of empirical analyses from the survey of black Americans, provides a good overview and original research on a number of topics. Some chapters are excellent.

.....Jennie Keith, Christine L. Fry, et al. The Aging Experience: Diversity and Commonality Across Cultures. Newbury Park: Sage. 1994. Well written and carefully researched cross-national, anthropological work on aging in Botswana, Ireland, U.S., and Hong Kong. One of the best cross-national studies on aging available.

.....Kitano, H. H. L., & Daniels, R. (1988). Asian Americans. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. A classic description of history and experiences of major Asian American populations.

.....Lin, K.-M., Poland, R. E., & Nakasaki, G. (Eds.). (1993). Psychopharmocology and Psychobiology of Ethnicity. Washington, DC: American Psychiatry Press. Articles from research on differential response to medications by different racial and ethnic populations. Excellent reviews of the literature as well.

.....Kyriakos Markides and Manuel Miranda, eds. Minorities, Aging, and Health. Newbury Park: Sage, 1997. Divided into five sections: mortality, chronic disease, diet/nutrition, mental health, health services/LTC, plus a chapter on public policy. Most chapters are review articles that cover a specific group (African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and American Indians). Not all groups are covered in each section. Provides a good and relatively sophisticated state of the art overview of issues in aging & minority health.

.....Linda G. Martin and Beth J. Soldo, eds. Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Health of Older Americans. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997. This Institute of Medicine book differs from the Markides and Miranda collection above in presenting more original research and less review of existing knowledge. Chapters often, but not always, cover multiple groups. There is no information on American Indians.

.....Meredith Minkler and Kathleen M. Roe. Grandmothers as Caregivers: Raising Children of the Crack Epidemic. Newbury Park: Sage. 1993. Insightful qualitative study of African-American grandmothers whose children cannot parent because of drug dependence, and their lives raising their grandchildren.

.....Bonnie Blair O'Connor. Healing Traditions: Alternative Medicines and the Health Professions.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.

.....Ellen Rhoads and Lowell D. Holmes. Other Cultures, Elder Years. 2nd edition. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1995. An excellent summary of secondary sources for undergraduates, avoiding extensive review of primary research, complicated theory, and methodological issues. Includes extended case descriptions of Inuit, Samoan, and white American aged.

.....Jay Sokolovsky, ed. The Cultural Context of Aging: Worldwide Perspectives. New York: Greenwood. Second edition. 1997. Probably the best anthropology of aging reader overall. Half of the readings include material on the U.S., the other half focus exclusively on international settings.

.....Marta Sotomayor and Alejandro Garcia. Elderly Latinos: Issues and Solutions for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Hispanic Council on Aging. 1993. A modest collection of essays on health and social welfare issues facing older Latinos. Good general overview.

.....Eleanor Palo Stoller & Rose Campbell Gibson, eds. Worlds of Difference: Inequality in the Aging Experience. Second edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 1996. Excellent reader for undergraduate level courses. Lots of material on racial & ethnic diversity. Makes superb use of short stories as well as academic research articles.

.....Fernando M. Torres-Gil. The New Aging: Politics and Change in America. New York: Auburn House. 1992. Excellent look at health and social policy and the forces that will shape it in the future. Three themes that organize the book are diversity, longevity, and generational claims. While the statistics in this book are now a bit dated, the general analysis of public policy remains appropriate.

.....Ramon Valle and Helen Cook Gait. Caregiving Across Cultures: Working with Dementing Illness and Ethnically Diverse Populations. Washington, DC: Taylor and Francis. (1998). More clinically oriented, this book helps professionals and care providers develop culturally-based techniques for the care of dementia-afflicted elders. It presents the need for culturally sensitive care, then goes on to describe how this method of care may be utilized, developed, approved, and evaluated. The book includes numerous case studies, and highlights the author model. For more information

.....Gwen Yeo and Dolores Gallagher-Thompson (Eds.) Ethnicity and the Dementias. Washington DC: Taylor and Francis, 1996. Contributions from scholars and providers on the epidemiology of dementia among ethnic populations, assessment of dementia with specific language and cultural groups, working with families of dementia patients from eight different ethnic groups (by authors from those ethnic populations), and policy issues. For more information