It is not clear whether traditional cultural ideology influences wife assaults in Hispanic-American families, or if culture is confounded with the stresses of poverty, unemployment, and immigration status. Our 1992 study of 1,970 families, including a national oversample of Hispanic families, examines the incidence of marital violence in the three major Hispanic-American subgroups and in Anglo-American families, and considers how sociocultural status and attitudes towards violence affect wife assaults differentially. The findings show that Hispanic Americans, as a whole, do not differ significantly from Anglo Americans in their odds of wife assaults when norms regarding violence approval, age, and economic stressors are held constant At the same time, considerable heterogeneity was apparent among ethnic subgroups on a number of measures. We also found that being born in the United States increases the risk of wife assaults by Mexican- and Puerto Rican-American husbands. However, the presence of norms sanctioning wife assaults within any group, regardless of socioeconomic status, is a risk factor for wife abuse.

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Data from a national survey were used to investigate the help-seeking efforts of Latinas (Mexican, Mexican American, Puerto Rican) and Anglo American women who experienced battering by intimate partners. The findings revealed that battered Latinas were significantly younger, less educated, and more impoverished than Anglo women. Additionally, Latinas more often categorized their marriages as male dominated and their husbands as heavy drinkers. Bivariate analyses showed that Latinas who sought help were significantly more acculturated and more likely to have a heavy drinking husband than those who did not seek help. Although battered women were active help seekers, Latinas underutilized both informal and formal resources relative to Anglo women, with Mexican women least likely to seek assistance. When sociodemographic predictors of help seeking were analyzed, being youthful and Anglo significantly increased the odds of help-seeking efforts. Low acculturation, as measured by preference for the Spanish language, was the only significant cultural barrier to help seeking by Latinas. Implications for treatment include improved outreach and advocacy to underserved groups.

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