The Immigration Paradox: Exploring Filipino American Psychological Distress

The immigrant paradox is the empirical trend that immigrants have better mental health than second and subsequent generations. Mossakowski (2007) found that Filipinos follow this trend, and using the same data this study builds upon the previous research by examining the relationship between cultural (ethnic identification, native language) and structural (nativity, age at immigration, and poverty in city of birth) variables. The results indicate that cultural variables are important in understanding psychological distress among Filipino Americans. Relative deprivation was not associated with psychological distress, and the effect of selective migration is explained away when language and ethnic identification are controlled. Use of native language benefits U.S. born and adult immigrant Filipinos, but is damaging to child immigrants with low ethnic identification. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Department dc:contributor.department

Sociology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Vila, Leighton Kenji

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Hughes, Michael D.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Kiecolt, K. Jill
• Jones, Russell T.

• Filipino Americans
• psychological distress
• immigration
• native language
• ethnic identification

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05112012-163445

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/77016