“My Color Doesn’t Lie”: Race, Gender, and Nativism among Nurses in the Netherlands

Abstract

Nursing in white-majority populations tends to be associated with white women. Yet as Western Europe and North America undergo demographic shifts, such associations are challenged as people of different racial and national backgrounds take on positions in nursing and other professional roles in healthcare. This article explores the work experiences of nurses from diverse backgrounds as they confront intersecting forms of sexism, racism, and nativism in the Netherlands. We use the conceptual framework of “appropriate labor” to help explain these experiences in connection with the wider climate of Dutch native homogeneity and race and racism denial. These findings have implications for work policies that might better support minority nurses in contexts of increasing superdiversity while also challenging wider cultural norms in the Netherlands that continue to associate nursing with whiteness and deny the presence of racism.