How Does Latino Threat Narrative Affect Mexican Americans' Psychological Distress?

Background and purpose: Previous studies have linked psychological distress to the effect of labeling–a social process of stigmatizing a group of people by categorizing them with terms that have negative connotation in everyday discourse, e.g., referring to Latinos as “wetbacks”. The Latino threat narrative, as defined by Chavez, labels all Latinos, particularly Mexican-Americans, as a group unwilling or incapable of integrating into the majority society in the U.S., and as an “invading force” destroying the American way of life. Our aims in this study were to construct a mediation model to explain a potential association between Latino threat narrative (LTN) and Mexican-Americans’ psychological distress (MAPD) and to obtain empirical evidence of this association from Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data and media sources of LTN.

Methods: To construct the mediation model, we surveyed terms representing the concepts and assumptions underlying labeling theory and stress and coping theory, described how these concepts could explain LTN and its effect on MAPD, and summarized empirical evidence in support of these theories. We also assessed the suitability of these theories for social work research and practice by using Witkins and Gottschalk’s evaluation criteria. To examine direct association between LTN and MAPD, we first measured the prevalence of MAPD (n = 47,085) in the United States from 1997 to 2011 by analyzing data from NHIS, and applied text-mining techniques to quantify the prevalence of the LTN in newspaper articles (n = 13,039) during the same period by analyzing data from LexisNexis newspaper databases. We then examined the association between the two time series data samples using cross correlation analysis.

Results: We discovered a significant three-year lag time (r = .56, p < .05) associated with the LTN and Mexican-Americans’ moderate psychological distress (MAMPD) wherein MAMPD peaked three years after the LTN peaked in newspaper articles. We also found that the mediation model built upon labeling theory and stress and coping theory provided adequate theoretical support for explaining the LTN and its effect on MAPD. Labeling Mexican Americans with derogatory terms, such as “invaders”, stigmatizes the entire group as enemies. Such narrative can give rise to MAPD (direct effect). The threat narrative can also increase the perceived threats of Mexican-Americans among other racial groups, which may, in turn, lead to hostility, microaggressions and hate crimes towards Mexican-Americans (indirect effect).

Conclusions and implications: Our study discovers a significant three-year time lag effect of LTN on MAMPD. The mediation model provides adequate theoretical support for explaining the mechanism between the LTN and its effect on MAPD. It will be important for future social work researchers to further examine and empirically confirm the model. It will be also important for social work practitioners to address the issue of LTN by dispelling misunderstanding and establishing mutual understanding between Mexican-Americans and other racial groups. The collaboration between social work researchers and practitioners is needed to reduce words with negative connotations to alternatives with more benign connotations describing Mexican-Americans and other groups in U.S. policies and mass media.