Winner, 2025 Thomas & Znaniecki Best Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association International Migration Section
Reveals the presence of an informal system of valuable support and care for marginalized migrants
The United States’ health care system not only consists of a formal safety net, but also an informal and disjointed network of organizations that offer basic care to millions of migrants. This “Third Net” provides free or low-cost health care for the undocumented, low-income, and uninsured migrants who are excluded from the formal system. This groundbreaking study sheds light on the existence of the Third Net and its implications for the overall inequalities in the US health care system.
The Third Net is made up of diverse providers with varying levels of service, organizational culture, and mission. These providers operate in unconventional settings, such as mobile clinics on wheels; pop-up clinics in repurposed spaces; and unlicensed, makeshift clinics run by health activists. Despite their unassuming appearances, these clinics are vital resources for marginalized populations that often go unnoticed by the general public, revealing the shortcomings of our formal health care system.
By examining these alternative health care spaces, the authors expose the inequities entrenched in the broader health care system and urge a reevaluation of it entirely in order to address these injustices.
Lisa Sun-Hee Park is Professor and Chair of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of
Entitled to Nothing: The Struggle for Immigrant Health Care in the Age of Welfare Reform as well as co-author of
The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy and
The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden.
Erin Hoekstra is an independent scholar. Her work has been published in Social Science & Medicine,
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, City & Community, and Health Tomorrow: Interdisciplinarity and
Internationality.
Anthony M. Jimenez is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work has appeared in
Social Science & Medicine, City, the
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the
Journal of Asthma, the
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, and
Health Tomorrow: Interdisciplinarity and Internationality.
