Essay On Second Generation Immigrants

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“El Equilibrio de Identidad” The Mental Health of Second Generation Immigrants.
Living in between cultures is something that I have had to struggle with, for much of my life. As a second generation immigrant, I have found myself negotiating between two cultural identities. On one end I identify as an American, and on the other as a Latina who is Nicaraguan and Dominican. Throughout my life my identity has come under attack from both sides. I have been called too American by my immigrant family while also being called too Latina by peers and academia. As a first generation college student and second generation immigrant, I have faced the stressors of living in between cultures. I have received both acceptance and rejection, as well as experienced stress relating to my mother’s status in this country and my responsibility to help her navigate daily activities.
Currently “first and second generation immigrant children are the fastest growing segment of the U.S population, and there are currently 40 million immigrants living in the United States.” (Stephenson, 2008) According to Sirin, Ryce, Gupta authors of The Role of Acculturative Stress of Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A longitudinal Study; a first generation immigrant is someone who was born in another country and then moved to a host country, while a second generation immigrant is someone who was born in the host country but has at least one parent who was born abroad (2013). The goal of this paper is to look at the mental health of second generation immigrants, and how (or if) cultural identity, acculturation, undocumented vs documented status of parents, education and language barriers protect or negatively affect the mental health of this growing popul...

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.... First and second generation immigrants have higher rates of acculturation stress and are growing up in an environment where they are quickly becoming the numerical majority but are treated as second class citizens due to the social stigma and political structures that are working against them and/ or their parents. Some of the ways we can address these issues is by allowing first and second generation immigrants to go to community college for free. We can also increase the bilingual services that are available, especially in the health and education areas. As a whole I believe we must change how immigration is viewed and how immigrants are treated in our nation. This will require changes in policy, and changes in the media. It is unfortunate to see how negatively immigrants are viewed and many forget how much immigrants have contributed to this country.

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