Living with Uncertainty: Perceptions of Well‐being Among Latinx Young Adults in Immigrant Family Systems

• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Ashley‐Marie Hanna Daftary
• Date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12407

A-M H D University of Nevada Reno

Living with Uncertainty: Perceptions of Well-being

Among Latinx Young Adults in Immigrant

Family Systems

Objective: To examine how the citizenship and

immigrant statuses of Latinx young adults and

their families affect their experience.

Background: Scholarship suggests that U.S.

policies negatively impact the nancial, aca-

demic, relational, and emotional well-being

of unauthorized immigrants and their entire

family.

Method: Eighteen Latinx young adults

(18–29 years of age) living in immigrant

families described their experience through

a semi-structured interview process. Responses

were analyzed using thematic analysis at the

semantic level.

Results: An overarching level of uncertainty

in relation to immigration status negatively

impacted participants’ emotional well-being.

These uncertainties were most related to

changes in immigration status, the unpre-

dictability of the Deferred Action for Childhood

Arrivals (DACA) policy, and the potential for

the detention or deportation of unauthorized

immigrant family members.

Conclusion: Immigrant status is often accom-

panied by a level of unpredictability that nega-

tively impacts emotional well-being.

Implications: To minimize this uncertainty,

immigration reform should include a pathway

toward U.S. citizenship. Future research related

University of Nevada,Reno School of Social Work, 1664 N.

Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557-0090 (Ahanna@unr.edu).

Key Words: immigrant families, Latinx, qualitative research.

to immigrant families should consider the immi-

gration status of nuclear family members when

exploring outcomes for well-being.

Of the 43.7 million immigrants living in the

United States, about 11 million of them are

unauthorized immigrants (Zong, Batalova, &

Hallock, 2018); that is, lack proper legal doc-

umentation to be present in the United States.

Over one quarter (26%) of children in the United

States live with at least one immigrant parent

(Zong, Batalova, & Hallock, 2018), and nearly

half of them—over 5 million children, the major-

ity of whom are U.S. citizens themselves—live

with at least one immigrant parent who is unau-

thorized (Capps, Fix, & Zong, 2016). These fam-

ilies are often referred to as mixed-status fami-

lies, which in the United States are families with

at least one unauthorized immigrant parent and

at least one U.S.-citizen child (Passel & Taylor,

2010).

Scholarship around mixed-status immigrant

families has emerged in the past decade and

demonstrates the ways that current U.S. policies

and practices negatively impact unauthorized

immigrants as well as their family members,

including U.S. citizens (Brabeck, Lykes &

Hershberg, 2011; Chavez et al., 2012; Mangual,

2011, 2012; Schueths, 2012; Vesely, Letiecq,

& Goodman, 2017). Children of unauthorized

immigrant parents have elevated probabilities of

both internalizing and externalizing behaviors

(Allen, Cisneros, & Tellez, 2015; Brabeck &

Family Relations 69 (February 2020): 51–62 51

DOI:10.1111/fare.12407