Protective Transformations: Social Closure, Discrimination, and Mental Health in Asian Immigrants

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 19. Contextual Effects on Mental Health

Abstract

Current research has recently begun exploring the ways systems of power, through discrimination, effect our mental well-being. These systems of power and their effects are largely organized around the groups we belong to, and the boundaries we have around them. While there has been some research at this intersection of discrimination, social identities (such as race and ethnicity), group boundaries, and well-being, studies have focused largely on the Black-White binary leaving a large gap in the literature about the fastest growing ethno-racial groups in the US: Latinx and Asian peoples. This paper advances the idea of closure ideology as a process mediating the relationship between discrimination and mental health, examining Asian immigrants. I begin by detailing important features of mental health prevalence for Asians living in the U.S. Then I offer a brief review of the role of discrimination in the mental health for racial minorities, specifically Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. I then stress the key intervening mechanisms in the discrimination-mental health link, contextualizing the role closure ideology may play in this literature. This paper formulates the argument that consideration of closure ideology provides a basis for understanding the complex link between discrimination and mental health, distinct from other potential intervening mechanisms

Author

• Ryan Gibson, Emory University