Objectives: Cultural value endorsement and ethnic-racial identity promote Latino/a adolescent positive adaptation and mitigate the negative impacts of perceived ethnic-racial discrimination. This study explored the intergenerational process of how adolescents develop these cultural characteristics in concert with their experiences of discrimination, focusing on the role of youth-reported maternal ethnic-racial socialization processes. Method: Participants included 175 Latino/a adolescent-mother dyads recruited from the 7th and 8th grades in an understudied emerging immigrant destination. We tested the effects of maternal cultural characteristics (i.e., familism, private regard, and perceived discrimination) on the same adolescent outcomes through youth-reported maternal ethnic-racial socialization practices (i.e., cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and familism socialization, a novel construct introduced in this study). Results: Three significant indirect pathways were identified. Higher maternal private regard was associated with both higher youth familism and higher youth private regard through greater youth-reported familism socialization, and higher maternal private regard was associated with more perceived youth discrimination through greater youth-reported preparation for bias. Conclusion: Our results highlight maternal private regard as particularly important for understanding how youth perceptions of socialization processes encourage the development of adolescent cultural characteristics and the benefit of using specific assessment tools, such as a familism socialization measure, to identify how ethnic-racial socialization processes serve as intergenerational links. Directions for future research and implications for intervention are discussed.

Familism values promote the positive adaptation of Latinx youth, but few studies have examined potential indirect effects associated with these positive effects. In emerging immigrant communities, where fewer resources are available to youth and families to maintain cultural values and ties, familism may be especially important. In this study of 175 primarily second-generation Latinx youth in such a community, we tested whether familism values were indirectly associated with adolescent outcomes through positive parent-child relationships, private racial/ethnic regard, meaning in life, and support seeking coping. Familism values were associated with greater academic motivation. Additionally, there were significant indirect effects in terms of positive parent-child relationships explaining the links between familism and fewer parent-reported externalizing symptoms, and for meaning in life explaining the links between familism and fewer depressive symptoms and greater academic motivation. Familism was also associated with greater support seeking coping, but this was associated with greater depressive symptoms. Our study suggests that in an emerging immigrant community familism values are primarily associated with positive adaptation through distinct mechanisms.

The literature on parental racial–ethnic socialization (RES) has established the multiple protective effects of RES on developmental outcomes. Although the majority of this literature examines RES processes in adolescence, with the exception of identity processes this literature has not specifically tackled how these messages intersect with specific adolescent developmental processes. We review the literature on RES processes in non‐White adolescents with a focus on the parent–adolescent relationship, risk‐taking behaviors, romantic relationships, and different contexts (i.e., extracurricular, work, and social media settings). We propose that developmental science needs to account for how parental RES may not only change in adolescence, but in particular responds to the perceived risks associated with this developmental period and interacts with normative developmental tasks and milestones.

, S. (2019). Making my family proud: The unique contribution of familism pride to the psychological adjustment of Latinx emerging adults. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 25(2), 188-198.

Life course models of the impact of discrimination on health and mental health outcomes posit that the pernicious effects of discrimination may not be immediate, but instead may become apparent at later stages in development. This study tests whether peer discrimination changes at particular transition points (i.e., transition to middle and high school) predict subsequent internalizing symptoms in Mexican-origin youth. In a sample of 674 Mexican-origin youth (50% female), this study used a latent change score framework to model changes in peer discrimination across time and to test whether changes in peer discrimination at 7th and 9th grades predicted greater depressive and anxiety symptoms in 12th grade controlling for 5th grade symptoms. Irrespective of longitudinal changes, greater peer discrimination in 5th grade predicted greater depressive and anxiety symptoms in 12th grade. Further, significant increases in peer discrimination from 7th to 8th grade and in 9th to 10th grade uniquely predicted greater anxiety symptoms in 12th grade. These findings suggest that longitudinal research on peer discrimination needs to take into account unique periods of risk. Future research implications are discussed.