An Art Therapy Exploration of Immigration With Latino Families

Abstract

This grounded theory study utilized art therapy techniques to explore the experiences of 8 Latino families that had immigrated to the United States. Focus group facilitators invited the parents and adolescent children in the families to share their acculturation experiences verbally and in family drawings. Emergent themes from each of three focus groups were categorized and used to interpret the participants’ drawings, creating consistencies between the sources of data. The results suggested that the fathers struggled with unexpressed anxieties and stressors, the mothers were concerned with holding the family together with traditional values that they feared losing, and the adolescents demonstrated strengths as bilingual, bicultural agents of acculturation for the entire family system. Art therapy can facilitate communication about the complex nature of acculturation and can be incorporated into research methods for understanding family drawings.

Acknowledgments

Editor's Note: Debra Linesch, PhD, MFT, ATR-BC, is a Professor and Chair of the Marital and Family Graduate Program of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. Her coauthors are recent graduates of the program and are employed in agencies serving Los Angeles County, CA. Hilda C. Aceves, MA, is a marriage and family therapy intern and bilingual therapist at D’Veal Family and Youth Services. Paul Quezada, MA, is a clinician at Hollygrove/EMQ Families First. Melissa Trochez, MA, is a marriage and family therapy intern and art therapist at Hollygrove. Elena Zuniga, MA, is a marriage and family intern with the Mental Health Association of Orange County, Choices Full Service Partnership.