This study investigated whether impostor feelings would both moderate and mediate the relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health in a sample of diverse ethnic minority college students (106 African Americans, 102 Asian Americans, 108 Latino/a Americans) at an urban public university. African American students reported higher perceived discrimination than Asian American and Latino/a American students, while no racial/ethnic group differences were reported for impostor feelings. Analyses revealed that among African American students, high levels of impostor feelings moderated the perceived discrimination and depression relationship and mediated the perceived discrimination and anxiety relationship. Among Asian American students, impostor feelings mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and both depression and anxiety. Among Latino/a American students low levels of impostor feelings moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and both depression and anxiety, and partially mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety. Multigroup path analyses revealed a significantly stronger impact of impostor feelings on depression among African American students and a stronger impact of perceived discrimination on impostor feelings among African American and Latino/a American students. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

This article focuses on the construction of homes and families within the ballroom community, a prominent feature of urban GLBTQ communities of color in cities across the United States. Based on two ethnographic studies with ballroom communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and Detroit, Michigan, we explore the importance of gender and sexual identity in informing community practice around HIV prevention and treatment. As a community, the ballroom scene provides African American queer youth with support for same-sex desire and identity, along with multiple forms of support for HIV prevention. Our study of the ballroom community documents current forms of “intravention” occurring within the community and the importance of the gender-sex system in organizing these practices. We also offer recommendations for community-based organizations to partner with the ballroom community, making use of existing social structures within the community and the salient concepts of home and family, to provide HIV-related services and support. We argue for HIV-prevention interventions to take a more culturally appropriate, nuanced approach to reaching African American youth at risk, utilizing community and family structures, in whatever forms these may take.

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This study presents a culturally informed model of the impostor phenomenon construct for Black graduate students who attend predominantly White universities. The impostor phenomenon is an internal sense of intellectual fraudulence and a tendency to attribute success to external factors, such as luck. However, the original construct was conceptualized with a sample of White individuals and may not capture the culturally relevant factors for Black graduate students such as race or racial discrimination. Furthermore, only one empirical study investigates impostor feelings in Black graduate students. The current study addresses these gaps by using focus groups to qualitatively investigate the impostor phenomenon in 12 Black graduate students. Inductive thematic analysis revealed five themes (Awareness of Low Racial Representation, Questioning Intelligence, Expectations, Psychosocial Costs, and Explaining Success Externally) and multiple subthemes. The findings extend the original construct, contribute to a culturally informed framework

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