Clifford E. Trafzer. Fighting Invisible Enemies: Health and Medical Transitions among Southern California Indians.

Abstract

If viruses, bacteria, and diseases were the invisible enemies in the title of Trafzer’s new book, then we might assume the fight against them was not helped by the visible enemies who advanced a long history of genocide in California, the site of Trafzer’s study. But this was not the case. Native peoples in Southern California proved deeply and sometimes desperately receptive to Western medicine. They welcomed non-Indian nurses into their homes, followed nurses’ instructions, strategically altered living arrangements and domestic habits, read literature on health care, and creatively collaborated with people who otherwise played the historical role of invader. “While it is true that it was to their advantage to cooperate,” Trafzer writes, “Indian people could have closed their doors and their minds to non-Indian health-care providers” (228). Instead, they established a mutual trust, especially among Native aunts, mothers, and grandmothers and the nurses who genuinely cared for the...