Recent immigration actions and news and the adjustment of U.S. Latino/a adolescents.

Abstract

Objectives: This research describes how family immigrant statuses are related to Latino/a adolescents’ responses to recent immigration actions and news and, in turn, adolescent adjustment. Method: Study 1 included a school-based sample of 11- to 15-year-olds in suburban Atlanta, Georgia (N = 547); Study 2 included a convenience sample of 15- to 18-year-olds in the Washington, DC area (N = 340). Family immigrant status was defined by adolescents’ immigrant generation status in Study 1 and by parent residency status in Study 2. In both studies, a 14-item measure assessed responses to recent immigration actions and news, including psychological worries and behavioral withdrawal. Dependent variables included internalizing and externalizing symptoms, suicidal ideation, e-cigarette use, and alcohol use (Study 1), and alcohol use and depressive symptoms (Study 2). Results: Psychological worry and behavioral withdrawal responses to immigration actions and news were significantly greater among adolescents with foreign-born, compared to U.S.-born, parents (Study 1), and among adolescents with undocumented, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), or permanent resident parents, as compared to citizen parents (Study 2). Results from tests of indirect effects indicated that these worries and behavioral withdrawal responses were, in turn, associated with higher levels of adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms, a higher odds of substance use and suicidal ideation (Study 1), and higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms (Study 2). Conclusions: As 1-quarter of the U.S. child population is Latino/a, there is a need to address immigration threats jeopardizing the adjustment of Latino/a teenagers.

“I am affected in all the ways … ”: A phenomenographic analysis of Latinx adolescents’ perceptions of family separations at the border.

“…Our findings suggest that separations at the border promoted a collective connection to the pain of separated families. Of concern is how these connections might adversely affect Latinx adolescents, as evidenced in an analysis with participants from the present study and in research conducted with younger Latinx adolescents showing positive associations between immigration-related worries, substance use, and mental health problems (Roche, White, et al, 2020). In this vein, it was also apparent that news of immigration actions at the border prompted family members to share their own experiences and memories of enforcement.…”

“…This report details a phenomenographic analysis of textual data derived from a larger study (Roche, White, et al, 2020). Conceptually underpinning the phenomenographic approach is a second-order perspective suggesting that perception and experience are mutually influential (Han & Ellis, 2019).…”

Discrimination in Latinx families’ linked lives: Examining the roles of family process and youth worries.

“…Overlooked by the FSM is the fact that some families may respond to environmental adversity with adjustments or recalibrations in parenting and family routines as a way of coping with and/or mitigating harm from environmental threats (García Coll et al, 1996; White et al, 2018). Emerging evidence documents how threat and chronic uncertainty create challenges (Leidy et al, 2010) that force Latinx families, including participants in the present study (Roche et al, 2021), to alter their daily activities (Berger Cardoso et al, 2018). Forced parent child separation and parental loss represent key traumatic events with documented adverse effects on child functioning (Rojas-Flores et al, 2017).…”

“…Since 2017, U.S. Latinx families have experienced increases in anti-immigrant sentiment, hate crimes (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2020), and restrictive policies (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2018). This context elevates exposure to discrimination, increases worry, and changes family behaviors (Roche et al, 2018(Roche et al, , 2021. Rooted in cultural developmental (García Coll et al, 1996) and family theoretical perspectives (e.g., family stress models [FSM]/life course), we seek to advance the notion that discrimination represents both individual adversity and a form of racialized violence that must be understood within the family.…”

A prospective examination of neighborhood social and cultural cohesion and parenting processes on ethnic-racial identity among U.S. Mexican adolescents.

“…The area of the southwestern United States in which this study was conducted was both an already established immigrant settlement area (making it comparable to other established areas) and also experienced rapid growth in immigrant settlement in the last 20 years (making it comparable to emerging immigrant destination; Singer, 2004). The state's openly hostile political climate at the time of data collection (Romero, 2011) offers some parallels to today's openly hostile anti-immigrant climate (Roche et al, 2018(Roche et al, , 2020; thus, supportive, consonant, and congenial neighborhoods may continue to be important sources of support to U.S. Mexican families, especially mothers' cultural socialization and, in turn, adolescent ERI. Future work should explore such hypotheses.…”