U.S. Mexican‐Origin Adolescents’ Well‐Being in the Context of Neighborhood White Concentration

Abstract

To address injustices that privilege whiter neighborhoods, many advocate for residential integration. The developmental consequences of greater exposure to whiteness associated with integration, however, are unclear. Research examining BIPOC adolescent development within the context of intraindividual changes in neighborhood white concentration -the changes that take place if an adolescent moves to a whiter neighborhood or if their neighborhood becomes whiter-is needed. We examined trajectories of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a longitudinal sample of U.S. Mexican adolescents (N = 749; 48.9% girls; 70.2% born in the United States). When adolescents experienced an uptick in neighborhood white concentration, they experienced a corresponding uptick in externalizing symptoms. We discuss the impacts of navigating whiter neighborhoods for U.S. Mexican adolescent well-being.

Dismantling Systems and Improving Contexts to Support the Development of BIPOC Youth

“…In conclusion, we emphasize that research on the contexts of BIPOC youth development cannot be neutral with regard to racism, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression. Whether studying school contexts and processes (e.g., Davis et al., 2022; Janssen et al., 2022) or neighborhood contexts (e.g., Chancy et al., 2022; White et al., 2022), it is unacceptable to study BIPOC youth without recognizing context and forces of oppression they regularly encounter. Recognizing oppression, as this special issue and the one before it shows, does not mean simply studying a minoritized racial or ethnic group, or examining race as a variable, but rather directly theorizing about, measuring, and analyzing the role of systems of oppression at work.…”

“…Several papers in this special issue point to the pernicious role of whiteness in society, including attention on White teachers' racial attitudes (Davis et al., 2022), White counselors who act as gatekeepers to STEM opportunities for Asian families (Janssen et al., 2022), White neighborhoods and the toxicity of whiteness that have negative impacts on BIPOC adolescents (White et al., 2022), cultural mistrust of White authority figures (O'Donnell et al., 2022), and the role of settler colonialism for Indigenous populations and how this plays out in research designs (Uink et al., 2022). We cannot emphasize enough the importance for researchers to consider whiteness as a root cause of systemic racism in our society.…”

“…Although the approach of testing interactions in a regression model is not new, what is special about this paper's approach is that strong theorizing of intersecting oppressions for Mexican‐origin youth matches the measures, which are analyzed in a way that aligns with the theorization of intersecting oppressions. Other notable examples of measuring systems of oppression in this special issue include Zong et al.’s (2022) measures of both direct and vicarious discrimination for Chinese adolescents, which were adapted to pertain to COVID‐19 related racial discrimination, Chancy et al.’s (2022) measures of neighborhood fears and discrimination as indicators of oppression for three different BIPOC groups of youth, and White et al.’s (2022) measure of whiteness at the neighborhood level. Zong et al.…”

Every Day Matters: Using Daily Methods to Understand Oppression and BIPOC Youth Development in Context

“…Finally, more research is needed to understand the more stable individual and contextual factors that either buffer or exacerbate the everyday influences of OREs, essentially identifying for whom and in what contexts these experiences may be most challenging, as well as which factors can be targeted to lessen the daily challenges of OREs. For example, research has documented how schools and neighborhoods are important contexts for adolescents’ experiences of discrimination (e.g., Davis et al., 2022; Janssen et al., 2022; White et al., 2022 in this special issue). Structural‐level oppression and racism are also critical, broader context that should be considered (Williams et al., 2019).…”

The associations among racial discrimination, pubertal timing, neighborhoods, and mental health among U.S. Mexican boys.

“…Thus, the social congruencies and support that early-developing U.S. Mexican boys encounter in predominately Latinx neighborhoods may be some of the mechanisms that mitigate the impact of accelerated biological aging on externalizing symptoms. These mechanisms may be specific to maturation (e.g., cultural recognition or support for the adolescent transition), to U.S. Mexican ethnic-racial identity (e.g., sense of belonging or inclusion in Latinx communities), and/or to systems of oppression (e.g., protection from othering encountered in predominantly white neighborhoods; White et al, 2021). Given the policy salience of our findings, identification of underlying inhibiting and promoting mechanisms is a critical area for future scholarship.…”