Doing Good: Racial Tensions and Workplace Inequalities at a Community Clinic in El Nuevo South

176 Pages·2013·2.248 MB·English

by  Natalia Deeb-Sossa

Doing Good

Doing Good
Racial Tensions and Workplace
Inequalities at a Community Clinic
in El Nuevo South
Natalia Deeb-Sossa
tucson
© 2013 The Arizona Board of Regents
All rights reserved
www.uapress.arizona.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deeb-Sossa, Natalia.
Doing good : racial tensions and workplace inequalities at a community clinic
in El Nuevo South / Natalia Deeb-Sossa.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8165-2132-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Social status—Health
aspects—North Carolina. 2. Equality—Health aspects—North Carolina.
3. Community health services—North Carolina—Employees. 4. Discrimination
in employment. 5. Hispanic Americans—North Carolina. I. Title.
RA418.5.S63D44 2013
331.7’61362109756—dc23
2012030853
Publication of this book is made possible in part by the proceeds of a permanent
endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency.
Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
containing a minimum of 30% post-consumer waste and processed chlorine free.
18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1
Well, believe it or not, I was sitting in church one Monday night
and I had been praying about a job, been praying and been praying
for a clinical job. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, was
work in the clinic. I always wanted to work with babies. Really with
people, but babies particularly. So, one Monday night at church I
didn’t cut my cell phone off. I normally do. My cell phone rung
and it was a friend of mine called me and says “Look, I got a phone
call from a friend saying her friend has a job opening where she
worked at. If you want the job, you need to go.” And that’s how
I got the job. . . . I got the call that Monday night. I was there on
the Tuesday and hired on Tuesday. . . . And where I work at it’s
mostly Latino, Spanish-speaking people. I do not speak Spanish,
but I understand it very well. And I still enjoy working with them.
A lot of the patients there now have gotten comfortable with me
and they know that I don’t speak it. So, it still makes it all good.
Yeah. . . . And it’s a good place to come to because our doctors
are very good. They’re very good doctors to work for. . . . I think
the clinic is a good clinic. A lot of people that doesn’t have the
money, that can’t afford it, [the clinic] helps those people and I
think that’s a wonderful thing. It’s a wonderful thing to work here
and be a part of this.
—From an interview with African American Medical
Assistant (II), “Eva”

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
1. Introduction: Meaningful Work and Moral Identity 1
2. “El Nuevo South”: The Case of North Carolina and
the Community Health Center Program 21
3. Threats to Moral Identity and Disparity in
“Moral” Wages 44
4. Moral Identity and Racial Solidarity: How Lower-Status
Workers Fashion a Superior Self 61
5. “Neediest of the Needy”: How Midlevel-Status Workers
View Their Work as “Moral” 84
6. “Working in the Trenches”: How “Doing Good” Helps
Higher-Status Staffers Build Their Moral Identity 107
7. Moral Identity Construction and New Ethnic Relations 126
References 145
Index 157

Illustrations
1. Care Inc.’s organizational structure 35
2. Care Inc.’s floor plan 39
ix