Family Environment, Heritage Language Profiles, and Socioemotional Well-being of Mexican-origin Adolescents with First Generation Immigrant Parents

Beyond Family Ethnic Socialization and Heritage Language Ability: The Relation between Desire to Learn Heritage Language and Ethnic Identity

“…Luo and Wiseman (2000) research highlight the importance of parent-child cohesion. Wang et al (2022) also found that family relationship quality has a stronger relation to adolescent Spanish proficiency than the family language environment. The ability to communicate with one's family is crucial and the erosion of shared language with parents has implications for one's connection with family.…”

The Behavioral and Mental Health Benefits of Speaking the Heritage Language within Immigrant Families: The Moderating Role of Family Relations

“…This also links heritage language use to different acculturation strategies, whereby it has been argued that identification with and cultural attachment to both the mainstream society as well as the co-ethnic group is more beneficial for children of immigrants than only turning toward one (or neither) of these (e.g., Berry, 1997;Berry & Sam, 1996). Heritage language use is thus also part of the identity formation process (e.g., Leyendecker et al, 2018;Oh & Fuligni, 2010;Wang et al, 2022) that may further relate to the behavioral and mental health of immigrant children. Ethnic identity and stronger connectedness to ethnic communities, which is partly reliant on heritage language fluency, protect immigrant children from unhealthy behaviors and help them sustain better mental wellbeing (Luthra et al, 2020;Yoon et al, 2008).…”

“…Prior studies have largely focused on heritage language proficiency, rather than the heritage language use per se, for adjustment outcomes, and produced rather inconsistent findings across studies and populations: some report behavioral and mental health benefits of heritage language proficiency (e.g., Chung et al, 2019;Collins et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2022; foreign-born Chinese American youth in Liu et al, 2009) while others show no association between heritage language proficiency and mental health (e.g., the U.S.-born Chinese American immigrant youth in Liu et al 2009) or even a negative association between the two (Ren et al, 2016). A meta-analysis published approximately one decade ago did not find evidence to suggest that proficiency in the heritage language would be associated with mental health outcomes (Yoon et al, 2013).…”

“…In many cases, the assumption in previous research has been that language use and/or proficiency influence family relations, which in turn influence behavioral and mental health. However, it has also been argued that family relations influence language use (or proficiency) rather than the other way around (Tseng & Fuligni, 2000;Wang et al, 2022). As noted above, it is unclear what the directionality of this relationship is (Müller et al, 2020;Oh & Fuligni, 2010).…”

“…A group of particular importance are children from immigrant families who may face additional challenges in comparison to their majority peers as they deal with identity development in relation to both the surrounding society as well as their ethnic heritage (e.g., Mood et al, 2016). Language is often a key aspect of ethnic heritage as well as being highly linked to (ethnic) social relationships both within and outside the family (e.g., Wang et al, 2022), yet its specific role for behavioral and mental health has not been widely studied, particularly from a longitudinal perspective. Furthermore, little is known about whether the role of heritage language use is conditional on family relations: increased use of the heritage language may be beneficial in family settings characterized by warmth and cohesiveness whereas reduced use of the heritage language may even alleviate adolescents' problems when the family is not supportive.…”