Vulnerable and Resilient: Family Routines and Maternal Knowledge in Mexican and Central American-origin Families

• In Event: 4240 - Power and Inequality in the Lives of Children and Youth

Abstract

Most US-based migration research about unauthorized immigrants and their families focus on the long-lasting marginalization, harm, and structural constraints on their mobility that they experience in the country. A growing body of literature, mostly using qualitative approaches, centers on how unauthorized immigrant parents engage in deliberate practices to promote their children’s well-being and family functioning to survive in challenging contexts. Drawing from the literature on immigrant family resilience and protective factors for Mexican and other Latinx populations, this study examines two domains long predictive of positive youth outcomes: family routines and parental knowledge. This study analyzed whether Mexican and Central American mothers’ documentation status (i.e., nativity, citizenship, and legal status) is connected with total family routines, the frequency of family dinners, and knowledge of their children’s associations and friendships. Using Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey data, regression results indicate that unauthorized Mexican immigrant mothers have more consistent family routines and family dinners than their U.S. born and documented Mexican immigrant counterparts, and more knowledge about their children than their native-born Mexican American counterparts. The results also suggest that, at least among documented immigrants, Central Americans appear to be as advantaged or more advantaged for three of the four outcomes than Mexicans, all else equal. These findings highlight the often-invisible strengths present in immigrant families, including those with undocumented immigrant parents, and underscore the need for more quantitative research about mixed-status families from diverse regions of origin using an assets-based perspective.

Authors

• Eileen Díaz McConnell, Arizona State University

• Aggie Jooyoung Yellow Horse, Arizona State University