Serving Multicultural Elders: Recommendations for Helping Professionals

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary N. Weaver

As demographic patterns shift in the United States, helping professionals are likely to see more clients of color, including those who are first-generation immigrants. Additionally, given the aging of the American population, helping professionals are likely to encounter more elderly clients and their families. It is crucial that helping professionals be prepared to respond to elders from various cultural populations in effective and respectful ways. This article gives an overview of how old age may interact with cultural identity. This information can be useful for professionals in many different settings working with elders from various cultural backgrounds.

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 961-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Foner

This article examines the way family and kinship patterns change in the process of immigration — and why. Offering an interpretative synthesis, it emphasizes the way first generation immigrants to the United States fuse together the old and new to create a new kind of family life. The family is seen as a place where there is a dynamic interplay between structure, culture, and agency. New immigrant family patterns are shaped by cultural meanings and social practices immigrants bring with them from their home countries as well as social, economic and cultural forces in the United States.


2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fay Saechao ◽  
Sally Sharrock ◽  
Daryn Reicherter ◽  
James D. Livingston ◽  
Alexandra Aylward ◽  
...  

Affilia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-373
Author(s):  
Ashley-Marie V. Hanna ◽  
Debora Ortega

This research study explores the experience of first-generation immigrants of Mexican origin living in Denver, CO. Seven Mexican immigrants described their experiences through an in-depth interview process. The data were analyzed using a constant comparative method. The process described by the participants reflects ambivalence about living in the United States. This ambivalence stems from a conflict between their beliefs that the United States is the land of opportunity and their experiences of being unable to access opportunities because of their identity as immigrants—regardless of immigration status.


Author(s):  
Adedayo Ladigbolu Abah

Using the media accessibility function from self-categorization theory, this study examines the role of the Nigerian video film in mediating the twin issues of culture and identity among African immigrants in the United States. Africans in diaspora constitute the majority of the transnational audience for Nigerian video films outside of Africa. Using a combined method of surveying and personal interviews, several African immigrants, their children, and friends living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, USA were interviewed for their views on the role of the nascent Nigerian video industry in the way they sustain and straddle their multiple identities and culture in their society of settlement. Results indicate that most of the immigrants view the videos as affirmation of the values they grew up with and with which they still identify. This is in direct contradiction of professed cultural denigration they feel in their everyday professional lives in the United States. Most of the younger immigrants and first generation immigrants view these videos as a convenient way of accessing their Africanness as part of their multi-stranded identity and culture. Based on the expressed motivations for use and expressed outcome of use of the video-film, results indicate that the use of the video-film may have contributed to the accessibility of the African in diaspora label as a social category for this group of immigrants.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-174
Author(s):  
Sungil Han ◽  
Ha-Neul Yim ◽  
Richard Hernandez ◽  
Jon Maskály

As the number of immigrants in the United States grows, the importance of their confidence in the police cannot be understated. This article simultaneously examines the impact of both generational and ethnic differences among immigrants on their confidence in the police. Using a sample of U.S. residents from the World Value Survey (Wave 6, N = 2,232), the results suggest that first-generation immigrants have less confidence in the police than both nonimmigrants and second-generation immigrants. The results also suggest a generational and ethnic effect with second-generation immigrants of Hispanic/Latino origin reporting a lower level of confidence in the police than other ethnic immigrant groups. The importance of these findings is discussed in light of both scholarly and policy implications.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (10) ◽  
pp. 1543-1564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Vaughn ◽  
Christopher P. Salas-Wright ◽  
Jin Huang ◽  
Zhengmin Qian ◽  
Lauren D. Terzis ◽  
...  

A growing number of studies have examined the “immigrant paradox” with respect to health behaviors in the United States. However, little research attention has been afforded to the study of adverse childhood experiences (ACE; neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and witnessing violence) among immigrants in the United States. The present study, using Waves I and II data from the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), aims to address these gaps by comparing forms of ACE of first- and second-generation immigrants with native-born American adults in the United States. We also examined the latent structure of ACE among immigrants and conducted analyses to assess the psychiatric correlates of identified latent classes. With the exception of neglect, the prevalence of ACE was markedly higher among native-born Americans and second-generation immigrants compared with first-generation immigrants. Four latent classes were identified—limited adverse experience ( n = 3,497), emotional and physical abuse ( n = 1,262), family violence ( n = 358), and global adversity ( n = 246). The latter three classes evinced greater likelihood of being diagnosed with a mood, anxiety, personality, and substance use disorder, and to report violent and non-violent antisocial behavior. Consistent with prior research examining the associations between the immigrant paradox and health outcomes, results suggest that first-generation immigrants to the United States are less likely to have experienced physical and sexual abuse and witness domestic violence. However, likely due to cultural circumstances, first-generation immigrants were more likely to report experiences that are deemed neglectful by Western standards.


English Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée Blake ◽  
Cara Shousterman

Within American sociolinguistics there is a substantial body of research on race as a social variable that conditions language behavior, particularly with regard to black speakers of African American English (AAE) in contact with their white neighbors (e.g., Wolfram, 1971; Rickford, 1985; Myhill, 1986; Bailey, 2001; Cukor-Avila, 2001). Today, the communities that sociolinguists study are more multi-layered than ever, particularly in a metropolis like New York City, thus warranting more complex analyses of the interaction between race and language. Along these lines, Spears (1988) notes the sorely underestimated social and linguistic heterogeneity of the black population in the U.S., which needs to be considered in studies of the language of black speakers. This critique is addressed in work of Winer and Jack (1997), as well as Nero (2001), for example, on the use of Caribbean English in New York City. These two studies broaden our notions of the Englishes spoken in the United States by black people, particularly first generation immigrants. The current research goes one step further with an examination of the English spoken by children of black immigrants to New York City.We focus on second generation Caribbean populations whose parents migrated from the English-speaking Caribbean to the United States, and who commonly refer to themselves as West Indians.


Author(s):  
María Cristina García

This article provides a brief history and profile of the Hispanic or Latino population in the United States. Latinos trace their ancestry to over a dozen nations in the Americas, and their history reflects a variety of experiences: some are first-generation immigrants to the United States, while others trace their families’ presence in the United States as far back as the seventeenth century. Some have come to the United States as immigrants—others as refugees, exiles, or guest workers. Yet others are the descendants of people who were conquered and colonized. While they have played a key role in U.S. nation building, they have also exerted a significant transnational influence on their countries of origin. Among the groups that are discussed in this article are the Mexicans Americans/Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Dominicans, as well as various Central and South American populations.


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