The meanings of words change through time and across space. The meaning of words change based on their contexts, and many words have long histories steeped in oppression.

For example, consider even our unpacking of the term AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander). While geography had one hand in this group coming together for coalition building, the shared nature of discrimination against certain populations and need for visibility has had a far stronger effect.

INSTRUCTION:
Unpack the keyword “health”. Read the three different definitions of “health” provided by the different books below.
-Summarize each definition of “health” supplied by the three books/authors.

-All three definitions should be compared to offer an overview of how the word’s meaning can change based on the context and field of study.

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3 definitions of “health”:

Book1: Asian American Studies
Health is defined as the absence of injury or illness. This definition incorporates multiple spheres of wellness including the physical, mental, spiritual, and social. To understand the wellness of Asian Americans and within Asian American studies, the multiple dimensions of well-being, recovery, and healing need to be considered. Of utmost importance is to hear the voices of diverse Asian American communities in the process of comprehending the true meaning of wellness and health for Asian Americans. Although scholars in various disciplines have argued that race is not a valid biological or scientific concept, “race” and racialization continue to act as important social determinants of quality of life, health status, health care access, and quality of care for Asian Americans. In recent times, a growing number of public health scholars have documented and examined health issues that are critical in the Asian American community (Yoo, Le, and Oda 2013).

Book2: Environmental Studies
Environmental health is increasingly a topic of international sociological research. Although the environment and human health are inextricably connected, the social and environmental contributors to population health, disease, and wellness are too often ignored in the social and medical sciences in favor of a more individualized focus on behaviors and illnesses. This represents a shift from previous modes of inquiry that emphasized environmental links to public health. As early as the nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels connected population health with harsh labor conditions, unfettered industrialization, and capitalist oppression. In the United States in the early twentieth century, urban public health practitioners and activists highlighted the health problems associated with urban environmental conditions and chemical exposure (Gottlieb 1993).

Book3: Latina/o Studies
In 1984, Paul Castro sued ABC News affiliate KGO after the film crew refused to touch him, even to place a microphone on his person, because of their alleged fear of AIDS. In his press release and subsequent interviews, Paul Castro repeatedly emphasized, “I am not a disease, I am a person” (Roque Ramírez 2010, 118). His statement openly challenged disease stigma, as he obstinately refused to accept his expulsion from middle-class America (Moraga and Anzaldúa 1981; Hames- García 2011b). This queer Tejano migrant Reagan-era civil rights strategy at the dawn of the AIDS pandemic brings out the interweaving of health and citizenship, of illness and national expulsion. Defending health and fighting disease in the United States has often implied expelling foreign bodies; Latinas/os—too often visibly foreign bodies in the American body politic— vividly demonstrate the biopolitics of assimilation and exclusion in the racial history of the United States. Latina/o health matters bring out three broad ways American health concerns shape Latina/o and minority communities in the United States (Dubos 1987; Rosenberg 1992, xi; Grob 2002). First, scholars work to expose the medical dimension of racial scripts, denoting the bodies and labor that are valued, devalued, and disposable (Farmer 2006; Brier 2009; Molina 2014). Second, research into health policies and health status brings out the ways “health” provides a measure of critique and a means for social reform. Third, health has been a key analysis in social movements that challenge established and normative—and in 1984 California, homophobic and racist—social mores. These three broad rubrics for health—a racial script, a measure of belonging, a point of volatile contestation—animate scholarly work in Latina/o studies. (Gonzales)