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Latinx/Hispanic Youths’ Experiences of Cultural Stressors, Emotional Reactions, and Coping Within the Family Context

Authors:
Kimberly Henriquez at University of Texas at Austin
Kimberly Henriquez
Elma I Lorenzo-Blanco at University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
Elma I Lorenzo-Blanco
  • University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
Michelle Y. Martin Romero at University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Michelle Y. Martin Romero
Gabriela L Stein at University of Texas at Austin
Gabriela L Stein
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Abstract

Objectives: This qualitative investigation examined how Latinx/Hispanic youth experience cultural stressors, emotionally react to, and cope with these stressors within the family context. Method: Forty-five youth participated in six focus groups (51% female; 49% male; 0% nonbinary; Mage = 15.26; SD = 0.79). Results: Using reflexive thematic analysis, we constructed two themes with four accompanying subthemes centering on (a) observing family members experience cultural stressors and (b) experiencing cultural stressors together with family members. Conclusions: Findings highlight the need for cultural stress theory to focus on the family context in Latinx/Hispanic youths’ experiences of cultural stressors, their emotional reactions and coping responses to these stressors.
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Latinx/Hispanic Youths’Experiences of Cultural Stressors, Emotional
Reactions, and Coping Within the Family Context
Kimberly L. Henriquez
1
, Elma I. Lorenzo-Blanco
1
, Michelle Y. Martin Romero
2
, and Gabriela Livas Stein
1
1
Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin
2
Department of Public Health Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Objectives: This qualitative investigation examined how Latinx/Hispanic youth experience cultural
stressors, emotionally react to, and cope with these stressors within the family context. Method: Forty-five
youth participated in six focus groups (51% female; 49% male; 0% nonbinary; M
age
=15.26; SD =0.79).
Results: Using reflexive thematic analysis, we constructed two themes with four accompanying subthemes
centering on (a) observing family members experience cultural stressors and (b) experiencing cultural
stressors together with family members. Conclusions: Findings highlight the need for cultural stress theory
to focus on the family context in Latinx/Hispanic youths’experiences of cultural stressors, their emotional
reactions and coping responses to these stressors.
Public Significance Statement
This study suggests that the family context plays an important role in shaping how Latinx/Hispanic
youth experience, emotionally react to, and cope with cultural stressors. The findings provide evidence
to an existing family-level vicarious model but also stress the need for a more comprehensive cultural
stress theory to guide future research in examining the effects of cultural stressors on Latinx/Hispanic
youths’adjustment within context.
Keywords: Latinx/Hispanic youth, cultural stressors, emotional reactions, coping, family context
Latinx/Hispanic youth experience a range of cultural stressors due
to racism, xenophobia, and navigation of bicultural contexts
(Schwartz et al., 2015) that can compromise their adjustment (Huq et
al., 2016). Models of Latinx/Hispanic youth development describe
coping processes that attenuate the pernicious effects of cultural
stressors on youths’healthy development (García Coll et al., 1996).
Latinx/Hispanic youths’various coping strategies (e.g., shift-and-
persist) may alleviate the negative effects of cultural stressors on
youth mental health (e.g., higher depression; Stein et al., 2022).
However, scholarship on cultural stress and coping has largely
centered on youths’individual experiences (i.e., stressors, emotional
reactions, or coping strategies youth themselves experience),
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This article was published Online First April 1, 2024.
Kimberly L. Henriquez https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4277-9894
This research was supported by Grants K01AA028057 (National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) and P2CHD042849 (National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development) awarded to Elma I. Lorenzo-
Blanco. The authors report no conflict of interests.
Youth are a vulnerable population, all of whom are racial/ethnic minorities
(i.e., Latinx), and some may be vulnerable due to their immigration/
documentation status in the present study. All participating youth were
digitally recorded and asked to share sensitive information, including
experiences with prejudice, discrimination, and racism; engagement in health
risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use); and demographic data. Youth were
recruited from a very specific geographic region in the United States and
enrolled as ninth and 10th grade students within six high schools in the
Austin Independent School District. There is some chance given the small
number of participants (45) of deductive identification in this population.
Additionally, responsible analysis of focus group data requires researchers to
be familiar with the context and group dynamics of focus groups.
Researchers’familiarity with the context and focus group dynamics helps
to ensure understanding of discussion topics and to avoid misinterpretation.
Moreover, focus group data are very specific to this study and will be used to
help inform the development of a family-based preventive intervention. Last,
the authors do not believe sharing the focus group data will be helpful to the
goal and mission of the funding agencies who provided funding for the
present study. As such, the authors will not be sharing focus group data.
However, the authors can share data with interested researchers upon their
request.
The focus group data have been used in two separate articles currently
under review: Lorenzo-Blanco et al. (2024a,2024b). However, the authors
do not believe there exists overlap across the articles as research aims,
analysis and interpretation of youths’quotes, and contributions to the
literature all significantly differed.
Kimberly L. Henriquez played a lead role in conceptualization, formal
analysis, methodology, writing–original draft, and writing–review and
editing. Elma I. Lorenzo-Blanco played a lead role in funding acquisition and
investigation and a supporting role in conceptualization, formal analysis,
methodology, and writing–review and editing. Michelle Y. Martin Romero
played a supporting role in conceptualization and writing–review and
editing. Gabriela Livas Stein played a supporting role in conceptualization
and writing–review and editing.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kimberly
L. Henriquez, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences,
University of Texas at Austin, 108 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712,
United States. Email: khenriquez@utexas.edu
Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology
© 2024 American Psychological Association 2024, Vol. 30, No. 4, 637–646
ISSN: 1099-9809 https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000664
637
... Barrita et al. (2024) also expanded our conceptualization of cultural stress to include immigration status microaggressions which was found to be significantly associated with psychological stress among a sample of Hispanic and Asian U.S. college students. Henriquez et al. (2024) conducted a qualitative investigation into family-based cultural stressors and found that many Latin American descent youth in the United States experienced cultural stressors vicariously through family members, highlighting the need for future operationalizations of cultural stress to take into account vicarious experiences of cultural stress. In expanding the operationalization of cultural stress, Rodriguez et al. (2024) developed and validated the Ethnic-Racial Discrimination Stress Inventory for Mexican Americans and Turkish Germans to capture experiences with discrimination within both of these groups. ...
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