Latino Families in Later Life

Jacqueline L. Angel is the Wilbur J. Cohen Professor of Health and Social Policy and Professor of Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Her research examines health and retirement issues in the U.S., with a focus on older minorities and the impact of social policy on the Hispanic population and Mexican American families. Dr. Angel is the author, co-author, or editor of over 100 journal articles connected to her research, 40 book chapters, and more than a dozen books.Sunshine Rote is Associate Dean of Research and Associate Professor in the Raymond A. Kent School of Social Work and Family Science at the University of Louisville. Her research addresses health and aging, race and ethnicity, and caregiving broadly. In particular, she explores the social, economic, and health challenges related to the care of a rapidly aging and ethnically diverse population. Dr. Rote has published widely on these topics, with her work appearing in a number of prominent peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes.

'The book consistently returns to a core insight: that caregiving is both universal and uneven, both sacred and strained [...] Ultimately, this is not just a book about Latino families, it is a book about the future of care in a multiracial, aging society.'Rogelio Sáenz, from the Foreword.'Latino Families in Later Life: A New Caregiver Paradigm provides a rich and nuanced portrait of the challenges and joys of late-life caregiving among older Latino families. The book expertly weaves together three decades of state-of-the-art survey data and evocative interviews with older Latino caregivers and care recipients to show how cultural, economic, and structural factors shape their everyday lives. Yet the authors do more than describe what is, they show what can be. By offering innovative recommendations for community, state, and national policy innovations, they show that the very private act of caregiving can and must be supported by public investments.'Deborah Carr, A&S Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for Innovation in Social Science, Boston University'This prescient text sounds an urgent call about the crisis of elder care underway in America, with focus on specific strengths and vulnerabilities within the large and growing Latino community. Angel and Rote pose incisive questions about the sustainability of the current ecology of support for aging families, including the social networks, public institutions, and community organizations that families rely upon to maintain their members’ health and well-being. Envisioning a reclaimed future in which all levels of society value caregiving as a public good, they endorse a framework of care justice, emphasizing principles of accountability, equity, and shared responsibility.'Sara M. Moorman, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Boston College'Latino Families in Later Life by Drs. Jacqueline L. Angel and Sunshine M. Rote accurately portrays the challenges and opportunities for families and society to thrive in the context of longevity. They arrest a longstanding assumption that families carry the sole responsibility of care and offer a compelling alternative for social policies to take action. The book is compelling, accurate, timely, and is a 'must read' for scholars, policymakers, practitioners and the public.'Ernest Gonzales, James Weldon Johnson Professor; Associate Professor of Social Work; Director, The Center for Health and Aging Innovation, NYU'Caregiving policy debates too often proceed from fragments providing a statistic here, an anecdote there. Latino Families in Later Life is something rarer: a sustained, rigorous account that doesn't let the specificity of the Latino caregiving experience stay siloed. Angel and Rote build a data-rich portrait of the structural, cultural, and economic pressures facing Latino families, but then do the harder work of translating that granularity into a policy architecture — their 'New Caregiver Contract' — spanning government, market, nonprofit, and family sectors, built to serve all caregivers, not only the population that motivated it. The result is a book precise enough to name what's unique about the Latino experience, and ambitious enough to use that precision as the foundation for solutions that could remake long-term care policy for the whole country.'Stipica Mudrazija, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Systems and Population Health, University of Washington

• Foreword by Rogelio Sáenz Part 1: Setting the Stage 1. Latino Families in Later Life: A New Caregiver Paradigm 2. Extending the Epidemiological Paradigm 3. Contextualizing Living Alone and Loneliness in Late Life Part 2: Caregiving and the Ecology of Support 4. Who Will Care for Us? 5. The Story of Mexican Americans and the Ecology of Support Part 3: Solutions and Next Directions 6. Dementia Interventions and the Ecology of Support 7. Increasing Options in Community-Based Care: Tradition and Change 8. Reimagining An Ecology of Support: The New Caregiver Contract