“Because That's the Culture”: Providers' Perspectives of the Mental Health of Latino Immigrant Youth

Background and Purpose: The U.S. is experiencing rapid growth in immigrant populations, particularly among Latino youth. Recent research suggests that immigrant youth might be at higher risk for negative mental health outcomes than previously thought. A potential explanation for disproportionate rates of negative mental health outcomes is that immigrant youth experience a combination of stressors—dislocated social support systems, discrimination, socio-economic strain, and failed expectations—that put them at greater risk. In an effort to situate the everyday struggles of immigrant youth and implications for mental health and well-being, this article shifts attention from the experiences of youth to a focus on the providers who serve them. Providers’ perspectives are glaringly absent in research on immigration despite that they often act as initial points of contact for immigrant teens and their families. Given that people from different cultures vary in the ways in which they seek help with problems deemed emotional or psychological in nature, our paper investigates the perspectives of providers from a broad range of professional backgrounds. Our paper is framed within the following research questions: How do providers’ conceptualize and talk about culture? In what ways does culture operate as a guiding framework for professional practice with Latino immigrant youth?

Methods: The data presented draw from individual qualitative interviews conducted with 24 providers who work with Latino immigrant youth. Providers were recruited through purposive and respondent-driven sampling techniques. Most providers were women (75%) and White (58%, Latino/a 33% and Other 8%). Participants represented a variety of professional roles, including mental health counselors, social workers, lawyers, teachers, and youth program workers. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed, and an inductive thematic approach was utilized for analysis.

Results: When providers were asked about the challenges facing Latino immigrant youth, culture emerged as a salient theme. Although providers acknowledged the importance of structural barriers, such as poverty and isolation, many providers drew on discourses that reproduced negative stereotypes, assumptions, and biases against Latino immigrant families. For example, Latino culture—as embodied by youths’ parents—was construed as: 1) a burden that teenagers had to “deal with;” and 2) a source of intergenerational tension that could produce psychological distress. Additionally, providers’ expressed difficulty delivering mental health services to a population perceived as having a cultural tendency to “keep quiet” about mental health problems. In this way, culture was viewed as problematic to the facilitation of mental health and mental health treatment, often in ways that contributed to a process of othering Latino immigrant youth and their families.

Conclusions and Implications: Culture has become a part of the professional discourse, yet the ways in which it is framed often omits the entirety of a person’s lived experience. When immigrant clients are viewed in narrowly defined cultural terms, providers risks pathologizing culture and misplacing the target of interventions. Our findings point to a continued need to build bridges between immigrant communities and providers to enhance authentic intercultural understanding, and we include a discussion of alternative strategies for the promotion of well-being among immigrant youth.