Social and Cultural Determinants of Depression Among Indigenous Mexican Migrant Farmworkers

Purpose:

Indigenous Mexican migrants constitute a rapidly growing proportion of the U.S. agricultural workforce. After a period of acculturation, many of these migrants transition into other low-wage sectors of the U.S. workforce and establish permanent residence. Despite their steadily increasing numbers, indigenous Mexicans continue to be relatively hidden, as their cultural uniqueness is often unrecognized by social workers who lump them with other Mexican nationals. As a result of their historical experience of oppression in Mexico, indigenous Mexicans are minimally integrated with non-indigenous Mexicans in Mexico, and this pattern is reproduced in the U.S. where indigenous Mexicans experience a dual marginality, since they are typically not integrated into mainstream U.S. culture, or the culture of non-indigenous Mexican immigrants. Migration can produce significant levels of acculturative stress that can affect mental health, which can be mediated by a complex array of sociocultural factors. This study seeks to illuminate this process by identifying effects of cultural identification and related perceived discrimination on depression among indigenous Mexican migrant farmworkers.

Methods:

During health promotion activities in migrant farmworker camps, 123 indigenous Mexican-origin migrants were interviewed in Spanish. Indigenous status was determined by asking respondents if they self-identified as indigenous, or if they, their parents or grandparents, spoke indigenous languages. The PHQ-9 was used to measure depression severity as the dependent variable.

Independent variables were categorized and entered into four nested OLS regression models. Each model was built hierarchically, beginning with sociodemographic variables that were entered first (Model 1), followed by health-related indicators including self-reported physical and emotional/mental health, and culture-bound syndromes (“coraje,” “nervios,” “susto”) (Model 2). Model 3 was developed to test effects of a range of psychosocial indicators including legal status stress, worrying about family, isolation, camp conditions, and perceived social support. Model 4 included an orthogonal measure of respondents' identification with mainstream and indigenous Mexican cultures, and a measure of perceived discrimination attributed to indigenous racial/cultural identity, to test for effects of cultural identification on depression severity, after controlling for confounding risk factors.

Results:

In all research models, level of education and self-rated physical health were negatively associated with depression, and self-reported culture-bound syndromes and difficult camp living conditions were positively associated with depression. In Model 4, mainstream Mexican cultural identification and perceived discrimination attributed to indigenous racial/cultural identity were positively associated with depression. Indigenous cultural identification was not found to be associated with depression. Perceived discrimination and self-reported culture-bound syndromes were found to have the strongest magnitude of association with depression.

Conclusions/Implications:

Findings provide much needed evidence on social and cultural determinants of depression among indigenous Mexican-origin migrants in the U.S. These indigenous migrants report high levels of perceived discrimination attributed to their racial/cultural identities, which along with the presence of certain culture-bound syndromes places them significantly at risk for depression. Results provide insight into why social workers need to learn how to differentiate among Mexican-origin individuals, and to recognize that the mental health of indigenous Mexicans is subject to risk factors that may not be present among non-indigenous Mexican-origin populations.