A Balancing Act

Young Latinos with strong ethnic ties enjoy better mental health. 

For bicultural adolescents, the key to better mental health is to embrace their roots while their parents assimilate, thereby striking a balance between two cultures within the family, say researchers from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The study, part of the UNC-based Latino Acculturation and Health Project, and supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), examined the mental health of bicultural teens in North Carolina and Arizona. About two-thirds of the teens were born abroad, mainly in Mexico and Colombia, with fewer participants from El Salvador, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. The majority of adolescents live in North Carolina, with the remainder residing in Arizona.  T

he research focused on the challenges that teens face as they assimilate into a new culture, and the long-term effects of this process on their mental health. “My research takes a look at acculturation and adolescence and mental health in particular,” Smokowski tells demo dirt. “We look at the overall umbrella of mental health, especially self-esteem, aggressive behavior, hopelessness, anxiety, and social problems.” 

Results did not reveal glaring disparities between boys and girls, but Smokowski says there were notable findings regarding sex differences. “Our model doesn’t show differences between boys and girls, except girls tended to have more difficulties with anxiety,” he says.  

One of the main findings, therefore, showed a stronger effect with females. “Latino parents who were more involved in U.S. culture had adolescents who one year later had fewer social problems, less anxiety, and less aggression,” Smokowski explains. “This was particularly true for females, especially [with regard to] anxiety.” 

Put simply, the researcher says, “Latinas who have parents who are more engaged in the U.S. culture feel less anxiety.” 

Although Smokowski says that it would be interesting to see if there would be differences between various socioeconomic classes, the group of participants, comprised mostly of immigrants, does not lend itself to that type of examination. “It is an important issue but the sample is predominantly low income, so the average income is about $20,000 a year for a family of four, placing them at the brink of poverty,” he explains. “We were not able to look at differences across economic status. We just don’t have enough higher income families.” 

The research did reveal differences between teens who were born in the U.S. and those who were foreign-born.  “Our community in North Carolina is very young, it is practically all immigrants, so they are almost all foreign-born adolescents,” Smokowski explains. “Our adolescents born in the U.S. were all from Arizona, so there was an important effect.” 

“One of the main findings in the study is that adolescents who are more tied to their culture of origin—the Mexican adolescents who had a strong identity as Mexicans, who were not assimilated and maintain that tie—experienced less anxiety and hopelessness, had higher self-esteem, less aggressive behavior, and overall better mental health,” he explains.  

A strong ethnic identity, Smokowski maintains, provides a protective factor that lowers stress levels. “For adolescents who are U.S.-born it is particularly important to have a tie to their culture of origin,” he contends. “They often don’t; that is where this new finding shows that if they get tied into their culture they will have better mental health. They report higher self-esteem, feel better about themselves, report less aggressive behavior, less hopelessness and fewer social problems.  

One of the reasons, he explains, is that when a teen feels tied to his or her ethnicity, acceptance—and therefore, rejection—by the larger group is less central to the teen’s self-esteem. These adolescents, he notes, are less likely to engage in aggressive behavior due to real or perceived discrimination, and are not as likely to get frustrated as peers who want to fully assimilate.  

Notably, total acculturation is not always advantageous, as teens may pick up many bad habits due to an eagerness to fit in. “They sometimes assimilate poor health behavior, such as drinking, substance abuse, and eating fast food,” Smokowski explains. “Then they suffer from obesity, which is a big problem.”  

The study results indicate that adolescents and their parents should strive to go against their impulses, the researcher says. While parents generally prefer to shun mainstream culture, teens are usually anxious to acculturate, which can present unfavorable outcomes in terms of mental health.  

“What we want is for the adolescent to do is slow down, and both maintain their old culture and pick up new cultural ways,” he maintains. “Parents and adolescents do better when they become more bicultural.” 

“Parents and adolescents should strive to do almost the opposite of what comes natural,” Smokowski concludes. “Parents who want to hold too tightly should try to branch out, and adolescents who want to soak up the culture should try to hold onto what they have.”