Risk and Resilience in Rural Communities: The Experiences of Immigrant Latina Mothers

• Author: Maria Galarza‐Heras,Steve P. Tran,Marcela Raffaelli,Angela R. Wiley,Vanja Lazarevic
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00717.x
• Published date: 01 October 2012
• Date: 01 October 2012

MARCELA RAFFAELLI,STEVE P. TRAN,ANGELA R. WILEY,MARIA GALARZA-HERAS,

AND VANJA LAZAREVIC University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Risk and Resilience in Rural Communities:

The Experiences of Immigrant Latina Mothers

Immigrants from Latin America are increasingly

settling in rural U.S. communities that welcome

them as workers but are often unprepared to

address their needs and promote their well-

being. Building on recent descriptive studies,

we examined factors associated with individual

and family well-being in a sample of 112 immi-

grant Latina mothers (mean age 34.5 years, 93%

Mexican) who completed in-person interviews.

Mothers who reported a more negative commu-

nity climate reported lower levels of individual

and family well-being (life satisfaction, finan-

cial well-being, and food security). Composite

measures of economic and social capital were

positively related to family well-being; unex-

pectedly, mothers with higher levels of human

capital reported lower levels of life satisfaction.

Discussion focuses on implications of results for

future research, theory-building, and practice.

Immigrants make up over one 10th of the

U.S. population, and nearly half of immigrants

are of Hispanic/Latin American origin (Grieco,

2009). Historically, Latino immigrants have

tended to concentrate in urban areas, but there

has been a population shift in recent decades

toward rural destinations that offer employment

opportunities in the agricultural, service, and

Department of Human & Community Development,

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 904 W. Nevada

St., MC 081, Urbana, IL 61801 (mraffael@illinois.edu).

Key Words: immigrants, Latinos, protective factors,

resilience, risk factors, rural.

manufacturing industries (e.g., Chapa, Saenz,

Rochin, & McConnell, 2004; McConnell, 2004).

In recent years, family scholars have docu-

mented the opportunities and challenges Latino

immigrant families experience in rural destina-

tions. Immigrants typically describe a number

of challenges, including language barriers, dis-

crimination, transportation issues, and lack of

benefits due to low-paying, high-turnover jobs

(e.g., Cristancho, Garces, Peters, & Mueller,

2008; Lewis, 2008). At the same time, they

describe sources of strength that may foster

positive adjustment, such as strong family con-

nections and the flexibility to adapt to life in a

new land (e.g., Campbell, 2008; Ornelas, Per-

reira, Beeber, & Maxwell, 2009; Parra-Cardona,

Bulock, Imig, Villarruel, & Gold, 2006). These

findings have led scholars to describe immigrant

Latinos as resilient, showing good adaptation

despite experiencing challenges (e.g., Camp-

bell, 2008; Parra-Cardona et al., 2006). These

studies (and others reviewed below) do indeed

show that Latino immigrants have an impressive

ability to weather adversity. It is important to

note, however, that few studies of immigrants

have conducted the types of analyses recom-

mended by scholars working within a resilience

approach. Such analyses yield the strongest

evidence of positive adaptation in the face of

hardship.

The construct of resilience was developed to

describe individuals (see Luthar & Zelazo, 2003)

or families (see Boss, 2002) that maintain better-

than-expected functioning in the face of adver-

sity or risk. Attributes that allow individuals

Family Relations 61 (October 2012): 559 – 570 559

DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00717.x