UA Open Access Publishing Fund / It is increasingly argued that social and economic inequities poorly affect overall health.
One of the means through which these inequities are translated to the body is via negative
emotions, which carry known psychological and physiological responses. This paper
examines migration-related psychosocial stressors impacting first-generation Mexican
immigrants in southern Arizona, and reports on the primary emotional experiences immigrants
associate with these stressors. Data were drawn from a qualitative, ethnographic
study conducted over the course of 14 months during 2013–2014 with first-generation
Mexican immigrants (N = 40) residing in Tucson Arizona and service providers working
directly in the immigrant community (N = 32). Results indicate that the primary structural
vulnerabilities that cause emotional hardship among immigrants are pre-migration stressors
and adversity, dangerous border crossings, detention and deportation, undocumented
citizenship status, family separation, and extreme poverty. Many of these factors have
intensified over the past decade due to increased border security and state level anti-immigrant
legislation in Arizona. Immigrants connected these hardships to the emotions of
trauma (50%), fear (65%), depression (75%), loneliness (75%), sadness (80%), and stress
(85%), and most respondents reported suffering from three or more of these emotions.
Given the heavy emotional toll of migration and the direct impact that regional legislation
and border security had on well-being, this paper argues that emotion be considered an
important mechanism for health declines in the immigrant community. In order to stem
the frequency and intensity of emotional stress in the Mexican immigrant community in
Tucson, it is imperative to support organizations and policies that promote community
building and support networks and also expand access to and availability of mental health
services for immigrants regardless of documentation status.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/621247 |
| Date | 13 July 2015 |
| Creators | Crocker, Rebecca |
| Contributors | School of Anthropology, University of Arizona |
| Publisher | Frontiers |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | Copyright © 2015 Crocker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). |
| Relation | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Article/10.3389/fpubh.2015.00177/abstract |
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