Enacting resilience at multiple levels during the COVID-19 pandemic: exploring communication theory of resilience for U.S. undocumented college students

ABSTRACT

During the COVID-19 pandemic, college students faced a number of stressors that threatened their health and well-being. Undocumented college students faced similar stressors and additional ones that were unique to their immigration status. Drawing from communication theory of resilience, we conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with Mexican-origin undocumented college students in California. Our findings extended past research on the communication theory of resilience by identifying triggers that motivated undocumented students to enact resilience at multiple levels. Undocumented students reported (a) individual, interpersonal, institutional, and policy-level constraints that constantly threatened their health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic; (b) how they enacted resilience at those multiple levels; and (c) how their undocumented status was a source of stress but also a source of empowerment.

KEYWORDS:

• Undocumented
• immigration
• communication theory of resilience
• COVID-19

Acknowledgements

We thank Bridget Rios and Evelyn Chairez for their assistance with this study, and we extend our deepest gratitude to the 30 undocumented college students who participated in our study. We also thank everyone who distributed and posted our information flyer and helped us recruit students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Undocumented immigrants are people who have no legal authorization to reside in the United States but who continue to remain in the United States’ (Kam et al., 2022, p. 1644).

2 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive order that allows some undocumented youth to obtain a social security number and a work permit, while having temporary relief from deportation (Cornejo & Kam, 2021).

3 On 19 March 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order for Californians, and universities transitioned to remote learning. On 27 March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act); however, undocumented immigrants were ineligible to receive the federal assistance. On 15 April 2020, California Governor Newsom announced that undocumented immigrants could apply for “a one-time cash benefit of $500 per adult with a cap of $1000 per household” in May 2020 (15 April 2020, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom). A COVID-19 vaccine was not available when the interviews were conducted.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research Small Research Grant at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The small grant was awarded to the Principal Investigator, Dr Jennifer Kam, and Co-Investigator, Monica Cornejo, the latter of whom was a CARE-University of California Innovation Fellow [RCF-20-715276] during the data collection period.