Relative Privilege, Risk, and Sense of Community: Understanding Latinx Immigrants’ Empowerment and Resilience Processes Across the United States

Abstract

Latinx immigrants regularly navigate adversity and oppression through resilience and empowerment; however, little research has sought to delineate when, how, and why they may engage in either process. Through the Transtheoretical Model of Empowerment and Resilience, this paper examines how Latinx immigrants living in distinct U.S. contexts interact with their communities. Seventy-three Latinx immigrants (ages 18 to 70, M = 40.85, SD = 13.65) participated in twelve focus groups in Albuquerque, NM; Maricopa County, AZ; Baltimore, MD; and Richmond, VA. Participants had lived in the U.S. for less than one year to 39 years (M = 14.19, SD = 8.72) and had varying immigration statuses. Analyses revealed that empowerment and resilience goals diverged by individuals' beliefs in the degree to which external change was vital, possible, and theirs to attempt. Beliefs coincided with the fundamental risk posed, based on the interaction of a context's conditions with an individual's characteristics and sense of community. Results indicate that while resilience is important to navigate risky settings, it may uphold oppressive power structures because it is consistent with the status quo. Interventions to spur external change should involve empowering processes, including facilitating gains in relative privilege and fostering sense of community.

Resilience and empowerment in immigrant experiences: A look through the transconceptual model of empowerment and resilience.

“…Contrary to TMER’s community-based assumptions, the resources for coping with risk that participants identified were more likely to be at the individual and family level. This is, however, consonant with the findings of prior work exploring TMER and immigrant communities (Buckingham & Brodsky, 2021). One explanation for this individual focus may be that immigrants who managed to escape risk in their home countries already had experience of identifying and applying resources to cope with risks.…”

“…While the desire for social change was not entirely lacking, this focus on individual resources, coupled with the individually focused cultural contexts of their receiving communities, may have kept some participants from envisioning and taking empowerment actions aimed toward meaningful societal changes in power. As found in other work, however, the amount of resources held, and their ecological level, did appear to be related to the level of actions one can undertake (Buckingham & Brodsky, 2021).…”

“…As a result, receiving societies may fail to recognize and act to address issues of immigrant social justice. While resilience is key for the psychological well-being of immigrants and greatly contributes to their adjustment, it can also conceal the social and personal conflicts caused by social disparities (Buckingham & Brodsky, 2021). Thus, although newcomers may use resilience to downplay negative experiences, researchers should seek to identify what stands between acquiescence and true belonging and acceptance, as well as between acquiescence and the empowerment to act toward change.…”

“…Resilient processes would lead to internal action and change in immigrants, such as efforts to accommodate or assimilate to a new cultural setting, whereas empowering processes would lead to efforts to make a change in their micro and macro communities, such as to make the new setting more amenable to the new community members. To the best of our knowledge, just one study has applied TMER to immigrant experiences, exploring resilience and empowerment in a sample of Latinx immigrants to the U.S. (Buckingham & Brodsky, 2021). Our use of TMER here further tests the analytic potential of the theory’s conceptual tenets, as well as serves to advance our understanding of immigrants’ efforts toward coping, wellness, and social change.…”

Participatory Action Research (PAR) Model for Developing A Tourism Village in Indonesia

“…Massively launched by the Indonesian government, community empowerment programs have experienced their ups and downs. Theoretically, community empowerment is derived from the perspective of people-centered development, which is the antithesis of the previous approach, namely the approach rooted in growth (Buckingham & Brodsky, 2021;Bunche-Smith et al, 2018;Mayaka et al, 2020;Cho & De Moya, 2016;Wardani et al, 2021;Fetterman, 2018). In addition, the shift from a top-down to a bottom-up empowerment strategy is also increasingly popular (Schuster et al, 2019;Luisi & Hämel, 2021;Mulder et al, 2018;Erdiaw-Kwasie & Acheampong, 2018;Maryunani, 2019;Simmons, 1994).…”