Stress and Coping: Latino Youth Coming of Age in a New Latino Destination

Abstract

Previous research has linked stress to adverse mental health outcomes among Latino adolescents living in the United States. The mechanism through which this process operates continues to be explored, especially in regions of the country where Latin American immigrants and their children have only recently begun to migrate. Our study aimed to contextualize the processes of stress and coping among Latino adolescents growing up in an emerging Latino destination in the United States—North Carolina. All adolescents in our study were either the first- or second-generation children of immigrants from Latin American countries, including Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico. We used a longitudinal qualitative design, conducting in-depth interviews with 12 parent-adolescent dyads during each adolescent’s first year of high school (2006-2007) and approximately 4 years later (2009-2010). We identified four stress-coping trajectories that varied on the following dimensions: primary sources of stress, buffers countering these stressors, coping approaches, and the effects of these processes on adolescents’ striving for socioeconomic mobility. Our findings underscore the interplay between family, school, and community environments within an emerging Latino destination.