WASTED LIVES - TUBERCULOSIS AND OTHER HEALTH RISKS OF BEING HAITIAN IN A UNITED-STATES DETENTION CAMP

In 1982, the author interviewed 38 Haitian tuberculosis patients and h ad informal discussions with nonpatients and medical personnel at Krom e, a detention camp for illegal entrants run by the U.S. Immigration a nd Naturalization Service. This article considers health and other con ditions at Krome and the reactions of detainees and medical personnel to those conditions. The patients found life at Krome especially diffi cult. Ambivalent toward their diagnosis of tuberculosis and dissatisfi ed with their therapy, they accused camp officials of trying to justif y exclusionary immigration practices by treating Haitians as disease r idden. But the patients also regarded Krome as an unhealthy environmen t and complained regularly of illnesses to camp physicians. These ofte n accused their patients of malingering in order to obtain release fro m Krome. Neither medical personnel nor detainees agreed on what consti tuted a healthy Haitian. Ultimately, the Haitian desire for freedom an d the opposing purpose of camp officials to dictate the terms of Haiti an confinement found expression in competing definitions of health and illness.