Acculturative Stress, Violence, and Resilience in the lives of Mexican-American Youth

ABSTRACT

This article explores how Mexican-American youth experience stress and trauma in a variety of arenas. Such youth utilize their energy, creativity, and resilience in order to cope with cultural tensions that arise from acculturative processes, role conflicts with family and peers, school challenges, and identity formation processes. Violence, in the form of internalized colonialism, external oppression, and actual violent acts (e.g., gang fights, suicides, and physical and/or sexual abuse), can be a major risk factor for negative outcomes such as substance abuse. However, this ethnographic study demonstrates that many Mexican-American adolescents navigate stressors and traumas in such a way that transforms the potentially distressing events into life-affirming rites of passage. This article explores these issues through qualitative data analyses from a study of Mexican-American youth in a Southwestern city.

Keywords:

• latino
• adolescence
• violence
• acculturative stress
• trauma
• ethnic identity
• resilience
• Mexican American

Notes

¹Cruising is a culturally-based tradition which enables Chicanos and Chicanas to spend time together, explore territories, and display pride in being Mexican American (Hunt, Joe, & Waldorf, 1996; Rodriguez, 2000). The informants describe taking their cars, which they shine and adorn, dress up, and drive up and down major roads downtown. While the word cruise at times is associated with ”joy riding,” there are a number of factors that have made this action much more multidimensional in the lives of the youth. For example, cruising means stepping outside of the familiar territory, often being exposed to violence and tensions. Outside of their own homes and neighborhoods they described how this expression of culture is scrutinized and regulated.