Community-Level Coping: A Critical Examination of the Role of NGOs in Latina Immigrants’ Navigation Interpersonal Violence

• In Event: Latina/o Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 3: Violence, Immigration, and State Power

Abstract

Latina immigrants are uniquely at risk to imposed upon stressors due to the compounding effects of their intersectional identity stemming from their ethnicity, sex, gender, religion, language,nationality, and documentation status; to name a few (Crenshaw 1989; Hill Collins 2000; Ryan et al. 2021; Villalón 2010). One such stressor is experiencing interpersonal violence (IPV) which disproportionately impacts women and historically marginalized communities (Beyer, Wallis and Hamberger 2015; Nowinski and Bowen 2012). Efforts are continuously being made in the field of mental health intervention to address the effects of stress exposure on the Latinx immigrant community (Eisenman et al. 2008; Kaltman et al. 2016; Pineros-Leano, Liechty, and Piedra 2017). However, less is understood about the relational, racial practices of services rendered and how they operate within broader social contexts. While to date, findings on the influence of community level factors on experiences of IPV also continues to be vastly understudied. As such, engaging in a critical examination via the stress process model and Latino critical theory, this study seeks to understand how the community level factor of non-governmental organization (NGO) operates within Latina immigrants’ experiences of IPV. Using ethnographic fieldwork (e.g., observations, interviews, and survey) with a Latina immigrant serving NGO in West Michigan, this paper proposes the following questions (RQ1) How do NGOs operate as a stress-buffering resource for Latina immigrants experiencing IPV? and (RQ2) When acting as a social resource for Latina immigrants, what collectivist practices do NGOs operate from?

Author

• Teresa Rivera, Michigan State University