Crossing the border to find home: A gendered perspective on the separation and reunification experiences of Mexican immigrant young adults in the United States

Abstract

For many Latino immigrants, family separation due to migration is common. Children who experience family separation and reunify with their parents in the United States experience profound outcomes. Research is limited in understanding how these youth adjust to life in the host country. Through in-depth interviews, this study investigated the adjustment processes of 10 Mexican immigrant youth who reunified with their parents. Findings indicated that male participants experienced low levels of familial, social support and had low academic achievement. Female participants received greater familial, social support and had high academic achievement. Recommendations for research and social work practice are provided.

Keywords

Family separation gender Mexico reunification transnational immigration

In the United States today, one in five children of school age is an immigrant or is the child of immigrant parents (The Urban Institute, 2006). Mexico is the leading country of origin among the foreign born in the United States, with an estimated 5.1 million children living in the United States (Migration Policy Institute, 2010). Mexican families commonly migrate in a segmented fashion, wherein the initial migration wave is followed by subsequent family members and extended kin (Dreby, 2010; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997). The demand for female service workers in the United States has resulted in more Latinas joining their husbands in the journey, although, increasingly, limited economic opportunities have prompted single mothers to initiate family migrations alone (Dreby, 2010; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Parrenas, 2005).

The prevalence of Mexican parent–child separations is between 75 and 85 percent (Potochnick and Perreira, 2010; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2002). Researchers have linked a host of negative outcomes to children of immigrants who experience transnational family separations, including behavioral problems, academic difficulties, and family conflict (Artico, 2003; Pottinger, 2005; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2002). Although many families experience transnational migrations, this article focuses on Mexican young adults who are the largest Hispanic-immigrant origin group in the United States (Pew Hispanic Center, 2013). The emergence of families who live their lives across transnational borders is particularly pertinent to social work research and practice and must be explored so that social workers may understand the specialized needs of this vulnerable population in order to intervene with effective services. In an effort to address this gap in the literature, this study examines Mexican immigrant young adults, aged 18–25 years, who narrate their reunification and adjustment experiences and seeks to answer the following questions:

How do these young adults describe their adjustment process to their family upon reunification in the United States?

How do these young adults describe their adjustment to their new educational setting and social relationships in the host country?

How do these experiences differ by gender?

Literature review

The field of social work has been relatively slow to examine transnational family dynamics (Furman et al., 2010). Other disciplines such as sociology and clinical psychology have explored this phenomenon more robustly over the past decade (Mazzucato and Schans, 2011). This body of research has revealed that the separation and reunification phases of migration-related separations disrupt family relations and often result in conflict. Moreover, research has found that children and youth who experience migration-related separations experience a range of psychosocial outcomes, impacting their overall well-being, educational outcomes, and social relations (Levitt, 2005; Portes and Rumbaut, 2001; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2001).

With respect to family adjustments, the literature points to a significant amount of family conflict during the reunification phase of migration (Glasgow and Gouse-Sheese, 1995; Sciarra, 1999; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2011). Children and parents report feeling like strangers and often have little to share as a family (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2011). Dreby (2010) found that family reunifications can be stressful due to unrealistic expectations or hurt feelings that parents and children have of each other. Parrenas (2005) examined transnational separations among Filipino families and noted that children often reproach their mothers for having left them ‘neglected’. Children have also been found to experience secondary loss from their surrogate caregiver from whom they separated from (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2001).

Some transnational family members form new partnerships in the United States and create blended families. Suárez-Orozco et al. (2011) found that immigrant youth experienced difficulties integrating into a blended home and felt tension toward their new siblings, which can create ambivalent family relations. Similarly, Arnold (2006) found that the presence of siblings born to parents in the new country or of new spouses may complicate reunions. Strained relations between the child and new family members may contribute to a difficult reunion.

In addition to issues related to familial adjustments, youth acculturate to the US context vis-a-vis continual interactions at school and with peers. Factors such as educational preparation (Rumbaut, 2005), parental involvement, and social support have profound effects on performance and adaption to school culture (Henderson and Mapp, 2002). Scholars have also argued that young adults who experienced separation during their childhood tend to be at higher risk of academic and behavioral problems in school (Dreby, 2007; Lashley, 2000; Smith, 2006). Social support in educational settings plays a major role in the academic adaptation of students in general and immigrant students in particular (Levitt, 2005; Suárez-Orozco, 2001). These relationships offer emotional support, tangible assistance and information, cognitive guidance, and positive feedback (Fuligni, 2006; Sarason et al., 1990).

According to Berry (1997, 2005), the process of acculturation may lead to acculturative stress. He argues that learning a new language and culture may be stressful and impact immigrant youths’ sense of self-worth and their adjustment process. In addition, reconciling the norms and values of the new and old culture may be difficult for one’s adjustment process particularly when they conflict (Berry, 1997, 2005; Lazarus, 2008).

Youths’ adjustment to family separations may vary by gender. In the Harvard LISA study, Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard (2004) noted that boys from various backgrounds including Central America, Puerto Rico, China, Haiti, and Mexico had poorer educational outcomes upon reunification than girls who were more able to connect to helpful peers and school personnel making their transition to a new school easier. Similarly, in a retrospective study of Caribbean youths, young adult women showed higher self-esteem, lower rates of deviant behavior such as truancy, and more conformity to parental wishes than young men upon reunification (Liu et al., 2009). Suárez-Orozco et al. (2002) and Pribilsky (2001) argue that Latino males may be at higher risk than Latinas during the reunification process due to pressures to work and their decreased propensity to seek and receive helpful mentoring. Given the scant qualitative research that explores the influence of gender on transnational youths’ adjustment experience, more exploration is warranted.

Method

Study sample and sites

The guiding methodological approach of this study was phenomenology, a fieldwork strategy that seeks to understand the essence of a phenomenon by examining the views of people who have experienced that phenomenon (Creswell, 2007). Phenomenology is not only a description, but it is also seen as an interpretive process in which the researcher makes an interpretation of the meaning of the lived experiences.

A purposive sample of 10 transnational Mexican young adults who had experienced family separation and reunification participated in this phenomenological study. I recruited five female participants and five male participants, between the ages of 18 and 25 years who lived in Los Angeles and/or the surrounding area. Of the five female participants in this study, two were high school seniors who planned to attend college in the fall and three attended a 4-year public university in Los Angeles. Of the male participants, three were expected to graduate high school in the spring of 2014, one attended community college, and the last graduated high school but did not pursue further education. All participants were fluent in English and Spanish.

To identify and recruit participants for this study, I utilized email listservs, social media, flyers, and facilitated recruitment presentations at various local high schools and college campuses in Los Angeles. Once respondents were identified, I conducted one-on-one screening interviews by phone with participants to ensure that they met the inclusion criteria. The criteria stated that participants must be (1) of Mexican descent, (2) between the ages of 18 and 25 years, (3) experienced an immigration-related family separation from their mother for more than 1 year, and (4) reunified with their mother in the United States. After obtaining approval from the Institutional Review Board Human Subjects Review committee at the sponsoring institutions, individuals who met inclusion criteria were asked to participate. Participants were informed that their participation in the study was voluntary and that any information that they provided would be kept confidential. Details regarding participant’s age, gender, the length of separation, with whom they resided with during the separation, and their family composition upon reunification are provided in Table 1 in Appendix 1.

Data collection

During the spring of 2014, I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews in English with bilingual participants in confidential office spaces at participants’ high school and college campuses in order to understand how they made meaning of their experiences (Creswell, 2007). These single session interviews lasted approximately 2 hours. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The interview protocol was developed based upon the research questions and based upon the researcher’s knowledge of this population. The interview protocol explored participants’ adjustment experience through three domains of psychosocial adjustment: family relations, educational relations, and social relations (see Appendix 2). In-depth interviews enabled the researcher to utilize a range of open-ended and probing questions to capture an in-depth account of young adult’s separation and reunification experiences. Participants received a US$20.00 incentive for participating in the study.

Data analysis

Colaizzi’s (1978) phenomenological method was employed in analyzing participants’ data. In this method, I read transcripts several times to obtain an overall analysis for them. I pulled significant phrases from each transcript that pertained directly to the lived experience of transnational young adults. I then developed clusters of meanings from these statements, which were grouped into themes allowing for the emergence of themes common to all of the participant’s experiences. I integrated these results into an in-depth, exhaustive description of participant’s reunification process. These themes were used to write a description of how participants experienced the phenomenon of transnational separation. As recommended by Creswell (2007), I used the analytic codes to create thick descriptions to give readers a more vivid perspective of the data. Throughout the data, I let the participant’s voices guide the narrative. As such, I was intentional about including multiple quotes from participants to create descriptive and rich stories.

To determine the accuracy of my analysis, multiple methods were used to ensure validity and reliability of the study findings. I used member checks by soliciting feedback from participants on the accuracy of interpretations gathered from interviews (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). I shared with participants my interpretations of what I learned through the interviews. Participants provided comments on the accuracy of my interpretations. Finally, throughout the process I was cognizant about my potential biases (i.e. positionality) and made concerted efforts to minimize preconceived ideas I held about the participants to guide my data collection and analysis. I utilized Dedoose data analysis software to manage the large quantity of data (Kelle and Laurie, 1995) and ensure a systematic approach to the coding of each interview (Lee and Fielding, 1996). Upon the completion of coding the data, I created a table to help facilitate data interpretation. All participants were assigned pseudonyms for research purposes.

Results

Although most families who have been separated by migration often describe the moment of reunification as one filled with joy and excitement, for most transnational youth in this study, the process of adjusting to their new country and family was often wrought with confusion and conflict. In this section, I present the participants’ adjustment processes through three psychosocial domains: family relations, educational relations, and social relations. Although not anticipated, the data also suggested that gender may have played a role in participants’ adjustment experience. Table 2 in Appendix 3 displays these three categories and their properties.

Adjustment to new family relations

‘Where do I belong?’

For immigrant youth who had to negotiate a variety of new relationships, the experience of ‘not fitting in at home’ often accompanied their adjustment process. This was particularly the case for the young adults who experienced a protracted separation from their family members during the separation. Many parents began new lives in the United States, formed new relationships, married, and produced children, who became the step-siblings to these participants. Participants shared feelings of discomfort in having to live with step-siblings and share the attention of their mothers. For example, Stephanie, an 18-year-old participant who was separated from her mother for 11 years, shared,

At first, I resented my ‘new’ family. My mom remarried, had kids and treated them better than me. My siblings all got along with each other. It took me awhile to feel like I belonged there. I didn’t really fit in to their world and thought it would be different.

While participants expressed resentment toward having to compete among their new siblings for their mother’s attention, they also had to contend with their mothers’ new partners for time as well. For example, Cristian, a 21-year-old community college transfer student who was separated from his mother for 5 years, admitted that he was fearful of coming to the United States to live with his mother and her new husband. He said,

When I arrived, I had no idea that my mom had a new husband. Between my mom’s job as a nanny, and caring for my half-sister, I rarely saw her. I even wondered why she had me move to the U.S., if she really didn’t have time for me.

Like Cristian, other participants in the study felt surprised by the lack of availability their parents had for them in the United States. They remembered feeling a sense of ‘invisibility’ in their new family arrangements where they felt that they had to compete for the attention of their mothers who had new responsibilities.

‘Missing grandma back home’

While participants experienced a great deal of challenges adjusting to new family dynamics, they also wrestled with grief they felt as a result of having to leave behind their beloved family members who cared for them in their home countries. Miguel, a 20-year-old participant who lived with his grandmother during the 6 years he was separated from his mother, shared,

I know my mom brought us here to have more educational opportunities. But I miss my grandma back home in Guadalajara. She was the one who raised me. She was always there for me, not my mom.

Within this theme of ‘missing grandma back home’, participants shared that they felt conflicted about leaving their caretakers (aunts and grandparents) behind because they knew it would be hard to maintain contact. Enduring two separations, once from the parent and then again from the caregiver, was confusing for some participants. Liliana, a 21-year-old college student who experienced a 7-year-long separation from her mother, shared, ‘When I was with my grandma, I missed my mom. Now that I am with my mom, I miss my grandma’. They also expressed sadness and frustration about the loss of their caretaker in their country of origin and were bittersweet about reunifying with their parents due to the close attachments they felt with other caregivers.

‘Becoming a parent while still a child’

Male and female participants tended to narrate the adjustment process a bit differently due to the unique roles that they were each assigned in their new families. For example, female participants reported that they were often assigned a caretaker role within the home, which included taking on domestic chores and babysitting their siblings. They were privy to the family’s financial information and served as translators during their parents’ important business interactions. While these added responsibilities left female participants feeling overburdened and at times physically and emotionally overwhelmed, female participants shared that these responsibilities gave them a sense of purpose in their new setting. When asked about the adjustment to her family upon reunification, Marivel, a 22-year-old college student who experienced a 4-year separation from her mother, shared,

My mom and dad worked late and each held two jobs. I ran the household while they were away. I was eight years old and learned to cook and clean for my family. I translated for my parents and dealt with the medical and legal appointments. Looking back on it, it was a lot of responsibility. Like, I felt like I was becoming a parent, while I was still just a kid.

Similarly, Janet, 25, shared how being responsible for upholding familial traditions kept her ‘on track’. She said,

I could never relate to how much freedom my Americano friends had. They had the luxury of free time. As the eldest daughter of a large immigrant family, I was expected to pick my siblings up from school each day, get them ready in the morning and take care of them while my parents worked. I resented it at the time because I felt it was ‘unfair’. But, now, I feel like it kept me out of trouble since most of those girls didn’t even end up graduating from high school.

‘I come and go as I please’

Because immigrant parents are often busy working additional jobs to provide for their family, female participants had to fill in at home. Male participants had a vastly different experience in this regard. Compared to the female participants in this study, the male participants were not under the same pressure to assume a larger role in the home. Cristian, 23, reported,

I don’t really have any responsibilities, chores, or even a curfew at home. I come and go as I please. My parents rely on my older sister to help out with translating at the bank, and taking care of my younger sister. They keep more of an eye on her. I feel free, but sometimes I wish that they acted like they cared about me too.

Male participants expressed that they had a lack of parental oversight and/or a designated role with the family. They felt unburdened by household duties compared to their own sisters. The lack of oversight and role in the household may have led these male participants to seek out alternative attachment family structures.

Adjustment to a new school setting

School experiences also emerged as an important factor in the adjustment process of these young adults. According to these participants, three aspects seemed to contribute to their educational adjustment process: (1) participant’s educational preparation prior to arriving to the United States, (2) the level of participant’s parental involvement in their schooling, and (3) the availability of school resources, such as bilingual counselors and school tutors.

‘I thought I was smarter than this’

For various reasons, many participants arrived ill-prepared to succeed in the US educational system. A majority of the participants experienced some time away from the formal school setting due to the migration journey and the high mobility associated with the immigrant experience. They also reported that they arrived to the United States with limited English proficiency, which caused barriers in understanding their school work and instruction. Eduardo, a 19-year-old male who lived in Mexico during his childhood and experienced an 8-year separation from his parents, discussed the lack of educational opportunities in his hometown of Sinaloa, Mexico. He shared,

I missed a lot of school growing up. There was so much violence in my neighborhood back home that I skipped a lot of school. I was held back a grade level when I moved to La Puente (California) and never caught up.

Cristian, 23, shared a similar experience of feeling unprepared for school in the United States. He said,

I remember the first few months of school, I didn’t know anything. I had trouble understanding English. It was hard because in Mexico, among my friends, I was considered the smart one. But when I came here I was really behind and my mom couldn’t help me with any homework. It was frustrating.

These participants revealed the immense difficulty associated with adjusting to their new environments upon reunification. Because schooling is a significant aspect of adolescence in the US society, participants who lacked the linguistic proficiency and academic preparation had a difficult time adjusting. They expressed feeling frustrated by their US peers who they felt had more attention and help from school staff and administrators.

The majority of the participants reported that their parents did not understand the educational system in the new land, were ‘too busy’ to assist them, and did not possess the language proficiency to advocate for their educational needs, although they desired to be of support. Stephanie, an 18-year-old high school senior who lived apart from her mother for 11 years, shared,

I struggled throughout my entire school career. I thought it was just the language barrier. My parents did not know what to do for me; they didn’t speak English and couldn’t communicate with the school. It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that one of my teachers recommended that I get tested for a learning disability. I was diagnosed with dyslexia and a math learning disability and was finally assigned a tutor and extra help. My parents felt bad that they couldn’t help me. It was a turning point though, because since then, I’ve learned to ask for help. My tutors and teachers have encouraged and motivated me to become a better student.

‘My parents are my advocates’

In one notable exception, Liliana, a 21-year-old who attends a 4-year college, reported that her educational adjustment was made easier because her parents were available to support her with school work and navigate the school system. Liliana lives in Los Angeles and shared that her mother was a child care provider and her father worked as a cook at a local restaurant; although these were not high-paying jobs, they allowed her mother some flexibility during her workday to be available to Liliana, who shared,

When I arrived in the U.S. my school wanted me to repeat second grade. My mom went with her broken English skills to the principal’s office and requested that I be placed in the 3rd grade. I’m glad she did because I went on to do well in school. I took honors classes, received mentorship from the high school Dean, joined school clubs and now I’m in attending college. I never imagined achieving so much.

Liliana’s adjustment in school was made easier by the academic support and advocacy she received from both her mom and the academic school community. She felt a sense of belonging which boosted her academic confidence and engagement.

‘I needed more support’

To further complicate these educational challenges, participants tended to remember minimum support in easing into new schools. In the theme of ‘I needed more support’, there was a core experience of feeling lost at school. A good example of this core experience was Miguel, a 20-year-old, who ‘felt like he did not belong’ as a result of the language barrier. Cristian, 23, also experienced multiple school moves due to the transient nature of his mother’s employment as a nanny and also dealt with a language barrier which left him feeling isolated. He shared,

My family and I moved around a lot and the schools I went to never had any bilingual classes. In elementary school, there were only three immigrant kids; one who spoke Cantonese, the other who spoke Tagalog, and then me. They put us together in a room, and we basically had to teach each other English. We needed more support.

Similarly, Marivel, 22, an undergraduate at a 4-year college in Los Angeles, shared,

Since my English wasn’t very good they placed me a grade behind. It was devastating, because I knew I was smart, but when I came here I was really behind. I remember having a hard time understanding the assignments and my parents weren’t able to help me.

‘Lacking role models in school’

Most participants faced serious obstacles in their schooling. Many lacked parent involvement, bilingual education, and as newcomers, they reported a lukewarm reception from their peers at school. However, as in the previous section where all participants, across the board, reported experiencing difficulty adjusting to family dynamics, similarly in the school context, there were also discernible differences between how male participants and their female counterparts experienced their schooling experiences.

In contrast to Liliana’s experience, Christian shared, ‘I didn’t have role models around me who did well in school. The more I acted like I didn’t care about school, the more my friends liked me’. In general, males experienced fewer meaningful relationships with their teachers and perceived their school environments to be less supportive. Female participants received more academic support and less conflicting messages from their peers about the value of education.

Adjustment to social relations

The social sphere represented another important area shaping participants’ adjustment process. In this sense, female participants described a sense of gratitude for neighbors and mentors who looked after them during their adjustment to their communities.

‘People in the community watch out for me’

The female participants were similar in that they had formed a peer support system to motivate them academically and provide a sense of belonging and guidance when their parents were unavailable to support them with their schooling due to work obligations. For example, Marivel, 22, shared,

At first, I didn’t know anyone in my neighborhood. I then found a friend who lived in my neighborhood. She migrated from El Salvador, spoke Spanish and helped me find my way around. It was so helpful to have a friend who also spoke Spanish and understood what it was like to live in-between two worlds; the U.S. and Latin America.

Female participants found support and guidance among their peers, church community, and employers. This support afforded them guidance and opportunities for employment that male participants lacked. Similarly, Janet, a 25-year-old, shared,

My friends from church connected me to a support group at the community center called, Hermanas Unidas. I met other girls like me who were also from Mexico. We shared tips on how to apply for college and we helped each other find jobs too. These friends still mean so much to me today.

Janet and Marivel’s involvement in community resources gave them access to tangible support and served to promote their cultural heritage.

From male participants’ purview, their core social experience was that they lacked positive and supportive relationships with adults and peers. They shared that their social relations were not as closely scrutinized compared to the female participants. In this sense, their parents did not monitor whom they spent time with and had a lot of social freedom.

‘The streets will take care of me’

One significant experience among male participants is that they had to contend with peer pressure and negative influences such as gang recruitment. Eduardo, 19, admitted he had been heavily recruited to join a neighborhood gang. He shared,

In my neighborhood there were people around pressuring me to join a clique/gang and get in trouble. I didn’t think it mattered since I felt so free living in the U.S. Then I found out the hard way; that as an immigrant, police treat you differently than others.

Similarly, Juan, a 20-year-old participant who lived in a blended household upon reunification, shared frustrations of peer pressure and police scrutiny. He shared,

I wasn’t close to my half-siblings and my parents were always at work. I didn’t really care about making friends outside of my clique (gang) because they were like my family. The only adults that actually noticed me, were the police. They kept close tabs on me.

Similarly, Mario, 21, shared,

I was bored and just started hanging out with some Surenos from my neighborhood in La Puente. (Gang members from Southern California). When I migrated to LA, it was hard to avoid. They were cool and we had each other’s back when no one else did.

Miguel, a 20-year-old, also reported feeling disengaged from his family life. He shared,

My father worked a lot, my mom passed away when I was a teen. So I was unsupervised. Fools on the street where I lived looked after me. At first it was cool, we’d just kick it; smoking, drinking, and then they had me stealing for them and I got caught and spent time in Juvie (Juvenile Detention Center). My dad just told me it was my own fault for being a follower.

Male participants experienced a lack of adult mentors, parental supervision, and were thus drawn to negative peer influences among peers in their communities. In contrast, female participants felt supported by their social networks, which were distinguished by a supportive web of family members, peers, neighbors, and teachers.

Discussion

This study builds upon previous research on transnational youth by examining how these youth adjusted to their new families, school, and social settings upon reunification with their biological mothers in the United States. This study gives voice to young people who have experienced long-term separations which may help to understand why they have a disruptive impact on immigrant youths’ emotional, educational, and social well-being (Glasgow and Gouse-Sheese, 1995; Lashley, 2000; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2011). This study also provides a unique contribution to the literature as gender emerged as a significant factor in shaping patterns of adjustment among immigrant young adults.

Phenomenology seeks to understand core or essential experiences among a group that has shared a similar experience, such as transnational separation from family members. One of the core experiences discovered here was that these young adults felt uneasy with their parents during the initial stages of the adjustment process. They were homesick and found it difficult to relate to their parents that they felt that they hardly knew. Participants who had been raised by their grandparents and/or aunts since infancy found the transition extremely painful. These young adults became accustomed to life without their parents, and most experienced very little attachment to them. Prior research has suggested that relational challenges between parents and their children may be due to disruptions in attachment bonds with parental figures, which can have profound psychological and developmental implications (Bowlby, 1973). Boss’ (2007) theory on ambiguous loss is more relevant to immigration-related parent–child separations. Ambiguous losses – when a loved one is either physically present but psychologically unavailable or when they are physically unavailable but psychologically present – may lead to complications in the resolution of grief. For transnational youth in this study, during immigrant family separations, secondary losses of caregivers, routines, and their emotional security played a significant role in their adaptation and acculturation process as they initially felt a lack of connection to their parents. Furthermore, the addition of new members to the family unit was challenging. The young adults who had encountered new family members reported conflict and questions regarding family roles and loyalty arose. These findings are not surprising considering research from Arnold (2006) who claimed that new unions may complicate youth’s relationship with their step-parents and half-siblings.

This study highlights the vulnerabilities of transnational immigrant young adults in schools. Research suggests that educational preparation, parental involvement, and social support have profound effects on transnational youth’s performance and adaption to school culture (Henderson and Mapp, 2002). In this study, female participants experienced school as a positive outlet in which they grew to feel supported by staff and peers. Although this study precludes the possibility of concrete gender comparisons, the male participants had core experiences of being unsupported in their school environments. These findings may help to better understand and explain previous research (Henderson and Mapp, 2002; Portes and Rumbaut, 2001; Suárez-Orozco and Qin, 2006), which found strong gender differences among males and females in grades, academic engagement, high school completion, and future aspirations. This study adds voices of young men who expressed that their poor academic achievement may be a result of factors such as low social support, negative peer pressure, and low expectations from their parents and teachers.

Findings from this study speak to the relationship between how youths’ gender influenced their social adjustment process. For males, their gender seemed to expose them to more precarious risk factors, such as community violence and gang recruitment. These young men described that they were for the most part marginalized from the school experience and from other positive social networks and thus not able to access opportunities or avenues for social and academic enrichment. These findings are well supported in the literature which defines that a well-functioning social support network is closely linked to better adjustment to the new environment (Rios, 2010; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2001).

Female participants, on the other hand, had a common experience of forging social support vis-a-vis their social networks at school, their peers at school, and in their community. These findings suggest that because migration often results in the loss of social capital (Zhou and Bankston, 1998), female participants’ ability to establish and maintain social support within and outside their own communities was extremely beneficial because these networks served to protect against the negative effects of discrimination, marginalization, and challenges posed by difficult reunifications.

Limitations

This study is subject to key limitations. First, the sample size was small and one of convenience. However, this study did not directly seek to examine issues of prevalence, but rather attempted to provide a rich indication into the complex lives of transnational immigrant families who experienced separations and were attempting to navigate through complex reunifications. Phenomenology is usually conducted with 8–12 participants because the idea is to gain depth of experience, not broad generalizations. Second, participants were recruited from public high schools, community colleges, and local universities. This sample is not inclusive of a variation of economic backgrounds, in which middle and upper economic status youth may attend private schooling, but it does reflect the kinds of students who typically enter the country (Pew Hispanic Center, 2013). Finally, this study is preliminary and as such remains more descriptive than theoretical.

Implications for research and practice

This study leads to several implications for social work research. To advance the scholarship on transnational youth and families, several areas of investigation may further contextualize and enrich the understanding of this phenomenon. Specifically, multi-site research is needed in the countries of origin and with input from surrogate caregivers, educators, and professionals working with children who have been separated from their parents as a result of migration. Future research should continue to evaluate gender differences in immigrant young adult’s adjustment process. We should search for the commonalities, as well as challenges and protective factors that are relevant to the lives of immigrant young adults. Interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary, triangulated research is essential to begin to understand the lived experiences of this understudied population.

There are several implications for social work practice. While migration seems to be increasingly normative events in the lives of Latino and other immigrant families, it nonetheless poses a number of challenges to youth and their families and requires that practitioners develop specific skills related to cultural attunement. Evidence-based intervention studies should be developed with the aim of understanding the effects of family separation in order to develop strategies to assist families manage the reunification process.

In order to assist these youth in successfully adjusting to their new families and communities, practitioners should be aware of the phenomenon of separation in their assessments and treatment processes. Practitioners should also strive to support transnational youth deal with any feelings of loss that they may experience due to letting go of their primary caregiver(s) in their home countries. Social service providers and program directors may also assist with setting up community- or faith-based sources of support for parents who may be hesitant to access mental health services.

Schools should provide assistance with family reunifications by facilitating school orientations for parents of newly arrived immigrant students to assist with academic expectations, as well as family issues. Schools may also develop social support groups for adolescents that are designed to address the gender-specific needs of these youth in a culturally competent manner. For male students, schools may implement newcomer support groups that provide academic retention strategies and offer peer mentoring to assist these students adjust to American schools and adolescent culture. Furthermore, school-based programs and community agencies should foster connections and a sense of belonging among peers and adult staff who model positive behavior.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of youth interviewed post reunification in Los Angeles (N = 10).

Child/age	Country of origin	Age at separation	Age at reunification	Length of separation	Caretaker in country of origin	Family composition upon reunification
Naomi, 18	Mexico	Infant	12 years old	12 years	Grandparents	Intact
Stephanie, 18	Mexico	2 years old	13 years old	11 years	Grandmother	Single mother–led household
Eduardo, 19	Mexico	3 years old	11 years old	8 years	Grandmother	Single father led household
Juan, 19	Mexico	3 years old	6 years old	3 years	Aunt and grandmother	Blended household
Miguel, 20	Mexico	4 years old	10 years old	6 years	Grandmother	Blended household
Mario, 21	Mexico	4 years old	9 years old	5 years	Maternal aunt	Single mother–led household
Liliana, 21	Mexico	3 years old	10 years old	7 years	Grandmother	Dual parent
Marivel, 22	Mexico	Infant	4 years old	4 years	Grandparents	Dual Parent
Cristian, 23	Mexico	Infant	5 years old	5 years	Grandmother	Blended household
Janet, 25	Mexico	2 years old	7 years old	5 years	Grandmother	Dual parent

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Table 2.

Results: Familial, educational, and social adjustment patterns.

Domain	Sample quotes	Gendered adjustment pattern among males and females
Adjusting to new family relations	Where do I belong?	Females: Becoming a parent while still a child
	Missing grandma back home.	Females: Becoming a parent while still a child
	I come and go as I please.	Males: lacking a role in new family; searching for alternative family structures
Educational adjustment	I thought I was smarter than this.	Females: Experienced some educational support and parental involvement
	My parents are my advocates.	Males: Lack of parental involvement, poor educational outcomes
	I needed more support.
Social adjustment	People in the community watch out for me.	Females: Maintained close community ties with mentors
Social adjustment	The streets will take care of me.	Males: Sought out alternative family structures through gang involvement

Funding

The research for this article was funded through the generous support of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and the UCLA Graduate Summer Mentorship Program. I am grateful to Dr. Carola Suarez-Orozco, Dr. Laura Abrams, and Dr. Bridget Freisthler for their thoughtful comments on previous drafts of this article.

Author biography

Kristina Lovato-Hermann is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles and is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at California State University, Fullerton. Her dissertation focuses on understanding how Latino immigrant youth adjust to new family circumstances following the deportation of a parent.

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