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Coloniality and Ethnic Variation in Psychological Distress Among US Latinx Immigrants

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Abstract

To address ethnic variation and potential cross-cultural measurement error in diagnostic criteria, this study extends on the racialized ethnicities framework to examine how Latinxs’ self-reported psychological distress differ among ethnic groups. Utilizing data from the National Health Interview Survey, logistic regression models and partial proportional odds models assessed differences in likelihood of self-reporting frequent anxiety, depression, and psychological distress among Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and Central and South American immigrants. Membership in Caribbean Latinx ethnic groups, and the Puerto Rican ethnic group in particular, was significantly associated with higher predicted probabilities of frequent anxious and depressive feelings, and severe psychological distress, relative to membership in non-Caribbean Latinx ethnic groups. This work highlights the need for research on Latinxs to disaggregate among ethnic groups, and proposes the existence of a gradient of exposure to the psychosocial consequences of US coloniality that might explain some of these variations.

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Notes

  1. Coloniality here refers to the persistence of cultural, political, and economic power differences between subordinated racialized ethnic groups and dominant racial/ethnic groups in the present period where formal colonial administrations are mostly eradicated [21].

  2. Colonial administration is here defined as the cultural, political, and economic oppression of subordinated racialized ethnic groups by dominant racial/ethnic groups, enforced by the presence of formal corporate and governmental administrative structures ([21], Quijano 1998).

  3. Figueroa and Calvo (2022) provide a thorough examination of the methodological challenges of measuring race and psychological distress particularly within the Caribbean Latinx immigrant population in this dataset, where they share similar findings of a lack of relationship between self-identified race and moderate or severe distress among Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who reported the highest percentage of respondents self-identifying as Black [7].

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  1. Sociology Department, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, USA

    Lorraine Torres Colón

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Colón, L.T. Coloniality and Ethnic Variation in Psychological Distress Among US Latinx Immigrants. J Immigrant Minority Health 25, 1374–1381 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-023-01481-6

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