Discusses the culture, language, and traditional medicine practices of 4 ethnic groups and provides guidelines for effective cross-cultural and cross-ethnic interviewing. While focusing on Asian Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans, the chapter also addresses the unique challenges facing ethnic minority groups living in the United States as refugees or immigrants. Among the topics addressed are: family structure, roles, and values; educational issues; interpersonal relations; language considerations; traditional medicine beliefs and treatments, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, and spirituality; attitudes toward mental health; and problems of assimilation, including prejudice. Additional considerations when interviewing refugees include recognition of past trauma and present difficulty adjusting to a new culture. Recommendations for interviewing ethnic minority children and families urge investigators to: (1) learn about the family’s ethnic identification and particular cultural patterns related to child rearing; (2) consider how the family’s socioeconomic status affects its values and worldview; (3) discover how the family treats illness or disability; (4) determine the psychological and social needs of the child and the family; (5) recognize that acculturation, and the accompanying stress, will take different forms among different ethnic groups; (6) build on the child’s and family’s strengths; and (7) establish mutual trust.
