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Immigration is an important part of the American story.

Explore a selection of images and texts that trace the history of ideas about immigrant health and immigrants’ and migrants’ experiences with U.S. health care over the last 130 years.

Fourteen women posing as a group, one holding a baby and one with a child in front.
A uniformed, white, female nurse standing next to a table with an audience of seated women in front of her.
A uniformed, white, female nurse tending to a child in a crib.
White, female nurse with a Chinese-American family comprised of a mother and seven children.
Italian-American family, mother with five children.
Smiling white woman holding newborn baby outside.
Woman sitting with a child in a cluttered room with laundry hanging from the ceiling and kitchenware scattered.
Map showing the Bronx and Staten Island covered in dots.
Page from a book showing the items visiting nurses were expected to carry with them.
Front page of the book review section of a nursing service quarterly with text and an image of a white woman.
Cover of a news bulletin with text and a profile view portrait of a white, female nurse.
Drawing of a white man and white woman in hats holding a baby with others looking at them.
Side view of a uniformed, female, white nurse picking through the long curly hair of a woman.
Asian men with bare chests lined up, waiting for inspection by two male medical professionals in white gowns.
White woman in a headscarf completes a puzzle while seated. Two examiners and six women watch.
Four uniformed men inspecting two Cuban children’s arms for vaccination marks. Three women appear in background.
Uniformed white man pointing to an x-ray of a chest next to an elderly white woman in a headscarf.
Three skeleton-faced ghosts with one word—“malarium,” “small-pox” or “leprosy”—on their robes, floating above San Francisco churches, buildings, and waterways.
Street view of buildings on fire with people standing in the street and horse drawn carriages.
Asian women and babies sit on benches in a detention area with one white woman.
Ten men standing behind a chain-link fence with two uniformed men on the opposite side.
White man sitting in a prison cell wearing striped clothing reading a newspaper.
Mexicans of mixed ages wearing hats waiting in a line between a house and a bridge.
Old newspaper with typed text and the headline “Order to Bathe Starts Near Riot Among Juarez Women”.
A boy being sprayed with pesticide by a uniformed woman.
Face of a West African man behind a chain-link, barb wired fence, with poster text.
Sky view of street with a large crowd of people gathered in NYC.
Typed text with an illustration of a Victorian-style hospital.
White female nurse in uniform consulting a notebook while in a patient’s home.
A white, female, uniformed nurse walking into a run-down wooden structure or home.
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