Latino Immigrant Parents

year. The study revolved around a total 1,500 Latino immigrants who migrated into the United States. The researchers operationally defined transnational ties into a percentage of how much the total of the remittances amounted to and how often it was sent to their family members. They diagnosed Major Depressive Episodes by interviewing participants with trained interviewers using the World Mental Health-Composite International Diagnostics Interview. This interview diagnoses Major Depressive Episodes based on the criteria used in the DSM-IV-TR (pg. 4-p). It was found that higher cases of transnational ties were associated with Major Depressive Episodes, and this was present in the many different countries they studied.
Though this study did
not focus on children it does display how many sacrifices are made by parents in order to keep the smallest sense of normalcy for the children who are back home. The study did a good job in showing the number of people that leave behind families and how the reality of life in the United States can truly impact a person’s psychological welfare.
A study with a much higher sample size of almost 200,000 participants analyzed data taken from the Mexican Family Life Survey-a household survey that was done in Mexico. It also showed that separation caused family members to have lower levels of emotional well-being. What was discovered in the study was that there is in fact a significant increase in depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness in family members that have been left behind in Mexico (Silver pg. 201). Along with the study’s high sample size, other benefits of the study include that it provides a lot of information on the subject such as parental perspectives and statistics about immigration. The results of this study show how separation can truly impact the emotional well-being of the children separated from their families.
Carolina Suarez-Orozco (2002), studied not only the impact of child separation during the migration process, but also the experience of reunification and the impact that it has on the minors. The two theoretical frameworks that they focused their study around were the object relations theory and the attachment theory. The study included much literature based off of clinical research for immigrant children suffering from depression. They used these theories in order to predict the child’s behaviors after separation from parents or guardians. Through these theoretical frameworks, they theorized that the emotional impact caused from separation would result in the reunification process being problematic (pg. 629). They studied 385 children between the ages 9 and 14 who recently immigrated from either China, Central America, Haiti, Mexico or the Dominican Republic. This was a longitudinal study of children from Boston and San Francisco using interview questions in order to retrieve data. The interview questions consisted of open ended questions, forced choice and some narratives. The questions were not limited to solely the children; parents were also involved in the study in order to gain a deeper perspective on the children’s behaviors. Out of the 385 participants, 85% of the children had been separated from their parents during any time in the migration process. There were significantly higher reports of depressive symptoms from the children who were separated from their parents during migration than those who were not. The data also indicated that the reunification process was a difficult adjustment for family members to make after much time being separated (page 635).
A study done by Sandy P.
Rubio-Hernandez and Cecilia Ayón called “Pobrecitos los Niños: The Emotional Impact of Anti-Immigration Policies on Latino Children” was published in 2015. This report focused solely on qualitative data regarding the impact that immigration policies have on children that came strictly from immigrant parents. The study involved 54 Latino immigrant parents. There was a coding system that was used in order to be able to categorize the information received from in-depth interviews with the parents. Through this coding system, they discovered four themes: Concern and sense of responsibility, fear and hypervigilance, sadness and crying. These themes became the theoretical framework for their study. The study provided a lot of original account from parents that did indeed show that immigration policies hurt their children. It was reported that depression was a significant finding in the children whose parents were deported. This supports the belief that separation due to immigration policies impacts the psyche of the
children.
I think this study was a very good example of using a coding system in order to categorize qualitative data.
They used a constructivist grounded theory method in order to provide guidelines for the coding system. It allowed for the categories to be built around the data that was collected. I think that this is a better method than developing the categories before collecting the data because the categories are now more specific and accurate. The data was analyzed and coded twice over. The coding was done by an immigrant from Mexico and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, which ensured that the data received through interviews from the Spanish speaking parents were accurately
understood.
There are many policies and laws that keep immigrant families at the bottom of the barrel. It has been found time and time again that recently arrived immigrants start at the bottom of the Socio-Economic status. An inability to work legally, having to send remittances to family back home and a multitude of other factors lead to this low SES for immigrants and their families. The report “Relative Impact of Violence Exposure and Immigrant Stressors on Latino Youth Psychopathology” by Gudiño et al. (2011) shows how these policies and its relation to low SES leads to higher rates of exposure to violence for Latino youth. This article was one of the most informative and the results do suggest a cause for concern and a need for policy changes in order to help youth. The study measured “demographic variables, separation from parents, English language proficiency, acculturation/enculturation, acculturation stress and exposure to violence” (pg. 327). The 164 participants were measured through the use of interviews. Though there were many results the results that are most relevant revealed that children who had been separated from their parents were significantly more likely to externalize problems and show signs of posttraumatic stress (page 328).
Immigration policies in the United States are laws that determine what punishment occurs when a person is found to be living in the country undocumented. Deportation and detention centers are common for many parents of first generation US citizens. Clements et al. studied the distress that children experience due to parental detention and deportation. They presented their results in their paper: “Trauma and Psychological Distress in Latino Citizen Children Following Parental Detention and Deportation.” The study’s participants were children between the ages of 6 and 12 who were from mixed-status families. A mixed-status family is one where at least one parent of a US born child is a not a legal resident. It was found that there were higher rates of PTSD symptoms from children whose parents were detained or deported (pgs 2 & 7). This study provided much empirical data to support their results and used very reliable tests that were backed by the DSM-IV. It calls for more empirical research which I agree since this is a very important topic in the present time.
Santa-Maria and Cornille (2007) published a study consisting of 82 Latin American Immigrants; of those 82 participants, 30 had been separated from their families. They were surveyed in order to measure levels of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) a Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale was used and a self-report were analyzed in order to determine both the presence and severity of PTSD. Results were based off of classifications from the DSM-IV. Participants also filled out a questionnaire that measured Attachment Anxiety and Attachment Avoidance. The findings showed that compared to 15% of a diagnosis rate for children who were not separated, those who were separated from their families showed a significantly higher rate of PTSD diagnoses, and an even higher percentage of PTSD diagnosis rate was given to children who had been separated from their families at one point when they were younger. This shows that familial separation, especially at younger ages may make children more susceptible to trauma. Dealing with Trauma is a very difficult situation that can have many causes; of some of the triggers mentioned in the study, 45% of participants mentioned government intimidation and oppression (pg. 28). It was also mentioned that family separations due to immigration can cause attachment anxiety and even attachment avoidance (pg. 29). This shows the link that immigration policies and the fear of them has in developing emotional disturbances for the children.
The theoretical framework used in this study relating to PTSD and Attachment allow for a clear understanding of what cognitive and behavioral abilities are being affected by familial separation. This study was done in solely American cities which represents a very small number of immigrant children separated by their families. The data was found using reliable scales and sources, and the information provided gives light to the severity of the issue. The study was conducted in 2007, so it would be beneficial to see an updated version of this study done.