Session: Crisis Migration and Cultural Stress: Exploring the Experiences of Hurricane Maria Migrants on the United States Mainland (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Following the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017, several hundred thousand Puerto Ricans fled the island territory to seek safe haven on the mainland United States (U.S.). Five years later, although a proportion of displaced Puerto Ricans have returned to the island, many "Maria-migrants" have remained as long-term residents of communities across the mainland U.S. To varying degrees, Maria migrants are tasked with navigating new cultural contexts, confronting identity-based stressors, and managing the enduring impact of hurricane trauma exposure.

The papers in this symposium focus on the experiences of Puerto Ricans who relocated to the U.S. mainland from Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Specifically, drawing from four distinct research methodologies, the papers examine: motivations for emigration (Paper 1, using a qualitative approach), the interplay between hurricane trauma and migration-related cultural stress as related to mental health (Papers 2 and 3, using multivariate regression and machine learning approaches, respectively), and the cultural stress experiences of U.S. citizen migrants (Paper 4, using a sequential-explanatory mixed methods approach). Taken together, these papers offer insights regarding crisis migration and the ways in which pre- and post-migration factors interrelate in the wake of one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history.

Drawing from a qualitative approach, Paper 1 provides rich insights into the reasons for leaving among post-hurricane Maria migrant families. Study findings challenge the common assumptions that disaster events are best understood as singular or predominant impetuses for leaving, and that most crisis migrants never seriously consider relocating prior to disaster. Findings cohere with crisis migration theory which posits that large-scale migrations typically take place in the context of myriad social, political, and economic challenges, although they may be precipitated by a single "tipping point" event such as a hurricane.

Rooted in distinct quantitative methodologies, Papers 2 and 3 aim to model the ways in which pre-migration hurricane trauma exposure and post-migration cultural stress experiences - such as discrimination and negative context of reception - relate to key mental health outcomes. Paper 2 suggests that, even accounting for hurricane trauma, post-migration cultural stress experiences are strongly related with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Paper 3 uses machine learning to examine the demographic, hurricane-related, and migration-related factors that are most relevant to PTSD and depression. Findings underscore the primacy of post-migration discrimination as a driver of mental health problems among crisis migrants.

Finally, Paper 3 draws from latent profile analysis to model distinct subtypes of post-migration cultural stress experiences, providing compelling evidence that discrimination, negative context of reception, and language stress impact Maria migrants in ways that are qualitatively distinct. In-depth qualitative interviews provide richness and texture to the person-centered modeling in ways that both "bring the data to life" and provide key details to inform social work practice.

In all, this symposium aims to shed light on the experiences of Maria migrants in order to support this population on the individual, family, community, and societal levels, and in order to be better prepared to support future crisis migrant populations displaced by climate-related disasters.