El Silencio: Conceptualizations of Battered Immigrant Latinas about Help-Seeking

Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects millions of women around the world, including Latina immigrants (Dutton, Orloff & Hass, 2000). Many of them do not report the abuse and often do not access help (VanHook, 2000). Consequently, IPV typically remains a secret. Help-seeking among immigrant, Spanish-speaking battered Latinas who live in rural areas and new immigration gateways has been an understudied issue in the last decades. This study examines the experience of help-seeking among battered Latinas in a rural community in the Midwest of the United States.

Methods: A critical ethnographic methodology was used, including observations, informal interviews with community members and service providers, and in-depth interviews with a sample of immigrant, Spanish-speaking battered Latina participants. Fieldnotes and transcriptions of the interviews were analyzed using Carspecken's Five-Stage Critical Qualitative Research Method (1996) and Lincoln and Guba's (1985) guidelines for rigor in qualitative research. Chicana Feminist and Mujerista concepts (Isasi-Diaz, 1996) were central into the analytic approach.

Results: Keeping silent about the abuse emerged as one of the most common theme across all the interviews. Related to that silence many feelings and reactions arose such as desperation, anger, fear and shame. The way that silence took form varied as well as the reasons for keeping silent. “El silencio” was perpetuated not only by the cultural pressures based on marianismo, but also because of the lack of access to information and to resources. Also there was fear of accessing resources due to their status as undocumented immigrants, especially after witnessing numerous deportations and raids in nearby communities. The participants of the study described the issues related to perpetuating the silence affecting different areas of their lives and their relationship with family members and the community.

Conclusions and Implications: Ethnographic methods used provided insight into an issue with multiple layers and subjects of controversy. These findings make clear some of the interventions that are needed in working with battered immigrant Latinas. The participants identified personal factors that contribute to keeping silent, but also larger macro issues that need to be addressed. They experience many obstacles in addition to the traumatic experiences related to victimization. These factors affect them as well as the communities they belong to. There is a need to address the situation of IPV at the public policy level in a way that responds to the needs of battered Latinas without re-victimizing and penalizing them. Extensive revision and modification of policies such as the Violence against Women Act and immigration policies are needed. Social work practice at all levels, including work with individuals, families, groups and communities can assist this population. Social workers need to be aware that social problems take place at multiple system levels (Parsons, Gutiérrez and Cox, 1998). We need to integrate our social work interventions instead of oscillating between the extremes of micro and macro practice. In other words, micro-practitioners need to consider macro-level forces that affect their clients and macro-level practitioners need to consider the individual struggles that result from macro-level forces.