Mexican American Research Paper

Abstract
This paper is intended to explain a short history of Mexican Americans living in the United States of America, traditional health care that some have chosen, and also a multitude of holistic medical treatments that some Mexican Americans believe in and use. This paper will include research conducted online (internet) and off-line (non internet) and personal interactions (self).

Mexican Americans / Health Care As of the 2009 U.S. Census, Mexican Americans represent approximately 10.3 percent, 31.7 million, of the US population. By the year 2040, the Census Bureau projects that there will be 87.5 million Mexican Americans making up 22.3 percent of the nation’s total population. A majority of Mexican Americans relied most frequently
The United States is home to the second largest Mexican community in the world second only to Mexico itself comprising nearly 22% of the entire Mexican origin population of the world. In addition, as of 2008 there were approximately 7,000,000 undocumented Mexicans living in the United States which if included in the count would increase the US share to over 28% of the world's Mexican origin population (some of the undocumented would be captured in the US Census count depending on their willingness to provide information). Most Mexican Americans live in the five southwestern states of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma, but there are large populations in cities throughout the country. In New Mexico one third of the population is Hispanic, in both Texas and California over one quarter, and Los Angeles has the world’s third largest group of urban Mexicans, after Mexico City and Guadalahara. Mexican Americans have a relatively high prevalence of conditions and risk factors including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and obesity. According to the Office of Minority Health & Health Disparities the number 1 killer of Mexican Americans in 2007 was heart
On those occasions in which relief from a specific affliction was not achieved through home remedies, however, individuals or families might solicit the assistance of a curandero. According to Wikipedia a curandero is a traditional folk healer or shaman in Latin America, who is dedicated to curing physical or spiritual illnesses. The role of a curandero can also incorporate the roles of psychiatrist along with that of doctor and healer. Many curanderos use Catholic elements, such as holy water and saint pictures. In general, all folk healers possessed a certain God-given gift or ability that provided them the power to restore the health of others. They might accomplish this through the use of herbs, massages or oils, and/or the aid of the spirit of another more powerful healer serving as a medium between this more potent spirit and the afflicted person. Alternatively, some used cards to divine an illness or to prescribe a remedy. As more Mexican Americans have immigrated to large cities and greater numbers moved into more integrated settings, a higher percentage of them came to depend on practitioners and services of the U.S. medical community, occasioned either by easier access to these facilities, by the availability of medical insurance through