I Felt Like My Heart Was Staying Behind: Psychological Implications of Family Separations & Reunifications for Immigrant Youth

Journal of Adolescent Research

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 222-257

  Suárez Orozco, Carola ^a   Kim, Ha Yeon ^a   Bang, Hee Jin ^b  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b William T Grant Foundation   (United States)

Author keywords

family relationships; immigration; mixed methods; psychological outcomes; resilience

Indexed keywords

EID: 82455247579     PISSN: 07435584     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0743558410376830     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Abrego, L. ( 2009). Economic well-being in Salvadoran transnational families: How gender affects remittance practices. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, 1070-1085.
2. Ambert, A.-M., & Krull, C. ( 2006). Changing families: Relationships in context. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
3. American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
4. Arnett, J.J. ( 2008). The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to become less American. American Psychologist, 63, 602-614.
5. Arnold, E. ( 1991). Issues of reunification of migrant West Indian children in the United Kingdom. In J. L. Roopnarine & J. Brown (Eds.), Caribbean families diversity among ethnic groups (pp. 243-258). Greenwich, CN: Ablex.
6. Arnold, E. ( 2006). Separation and loss through immigration of African Caribbean women to the UK. Attachment & Human Development, 8, 159-174.
7. Artico, C.I. ( 2003). Latino families broken by immigration: The adolescent's perceptions. New York: LFB Scholarly.
8. Bernhard, J.K., Landolt, P., & Goldring, L. ( 2006). Transnational, multi-local motherhood: Experiences of separation and reunification among Latin American families in Canada. CERIS, Policy Matters, 24. Retrieved July 15, 2009, from http://ceris.metropolis.net/PolicyMatter/2006/PolicyMatters24.pdf
9. Bohr, Y., Whitfield, N.T., & Chan, J.L. ( 2009). Transnational parenting: A new context for attachment and the need for better models: Socio-ecological and contextual paradigms. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
10. Boti, M., & Bautista, F. (Writers). (1999). When strangers meet [Motion picture]. Canada: National Film Board of Canada (Producer).
11. Brickman, P., & Campbell, D.T. (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. In M. H. Appley (Ed.), Adaptation-level theory (pp. 287-305). New York: Academic Press.
12. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P.A. ( 1998). The ecology of developmental processes. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (5th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 993-1028). New York: Wiley.
13. Bryceson, D., & Vuorela, U. ( 2002). The transnational families in the twenty-first century. In D. Bryceson & U. Vyorela (Eds.), The transnational family: New European frontiers and global networks (pp. 3-30). Oxford, UK: Berg.
14. Bryman, A. ( 2004). Social research methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
15. Burke, A.W. ( 1980). Family stress and precipitation of psychiatric disorder: A comparative study among immigrant West Indian and Native British patients in Birmingham. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 26(1), 35-40.
16. Capps, R.M., Castañeda, R.M., Chaudry, A., & Santos, R. ( 2007). The impact of immigration raids on America's children. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
17. Charnley, H. ( 2000). Children separated from their families in the Mozambique War. In C. Panter-Brick & M. T. Smith (Eds.), Abandoned children (pp. 111-130). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
18. Chaudry, A. Pedroza, J., Castañeda, R.M., Santos, R., & Scott, M.M. ( 2010). Facing our future: Children in the aftermath of immigration enforcement. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
19. Crawford-Brown, C., & Melrose, J. ( 2001). Parent-child relationships in Caribbean families. In N. Webb (Ed.), Culturally diverse parent-child and family relationships: A guide for social workers and other practitioners (pp. 107-130). West Port, CT: Ablex.
20. Da, W.W. ( 2003). Transnational grandparenting: Child care arrangement among migrants from the People's Republic to Australia. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 4, 79-103.
21. Day, C., Sammons, P., & Gu, Q. ( 2007). Combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies in research on teachers’ lives, work, and effectiveness: From integration to synergy. Educational Researcher, 37, 330-342.
22. Derogatis, L.R. ( 1977). The SCL-R-90 Manual I: Scoring, administration and procedures for the SCL-90. Baltimore: Clinical Psychometric Research.
23. Dreby, J. ( 2007). Children and power in Mexican transnational families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 1050-1064.
24. Dreby, J. ( 2009). Honor and virtue: Mexican parenting in the transnational context. Gender and Society, 20(1), 32-59.
25. Falicov, C.J. ( 2007). Working with transnational immigrants: Expanding meanings of family, community, and culture. Family Process, 46, 157-171.
26. Foner, N. ( 2009). Introduction: Intergenerational relations in immigrant families. In N. Foner (Ed.), Across generations: Immigrant families in America (pp. 1-20). New York: New York University Press.
27. Forman, G. ( 1993). Women without their children: Immigrant women in the U.S. Development, 4, 51-55.
28. Gaytán, F.X., Xue, Q., & Yoshikawa, H. ( 2006). Transnational babies: Patterns and predictors of early childhood travel to immigrant mothers’ native countries. Paper presented at the annual National Head Start Research Conference, Washington, DC.
29. Gindling, T.H., & Poggio, S. ( 2009). Family separation and the educational success of immigrant children (Policy Brief). Baltimore: University of Maryland.
30. Glasgow, G.F., & Gouse-Shees, J. (1995). Themes of rejection and abandonment in group work with Caribbean adolescents. Social Work with Groups, 4, 3-27.
31. Glick-Schiller, N., & Fouron, G. ( 1992). “Everywhere we go, we are in danger”: Ti Manno and the emergence of Haitian transnational identity. American Ethnologist, 17, 329-347.
32. Gratton, B. ( 2007). Ecuadorians in the United States and Spain: History, gender and niche formation. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 581-599.
33. Headey, B., & Wearing, A. ( 1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 731-739.
34. Hernandez, D., Denton, N., & McCartney, S. ( 2007). Family circumstances of children in immigrant families: Looking to the future of America. New York: Guilford.
35. Hohn, G.E. ( 1996). The effects of family functioning on the psychological and social adjustment of Jamaican immigrant children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York.
36. Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (Ed.). (2003). Gender and U.S. immigration: Contemporary trends. Berkeley: University of California Press.
37. Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. ( 1997). “I’m here, but I’m there”: The meanings of Latina transnational motherhood. Gender & Society, 11, 548-571.
38. International Organization for Migration. ( 2008). World migration. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
39. Lashley, M. ( 2000). The unrecognized social stressors of migration and reunification in Caribbean families. Transcultural Psychiatry, 37, 203-217.
40. Levitt, P. ( 2001). The transnational villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
41. Lucas, R.E., Clark, A.E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. ( 2003). Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 527-539.
42. Luthar, S.S., & Cicchetti, D. ( 2000). The construct of resilience: Implications for interventions and social policy. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 857-885.
43. Mahalingam, R., Balan, S., & Molina, K.M. ( 2009). Transnational intersectionality: A critical framework for theorizing motherhood. In S. A. Lloyd, A. L. Few, & L. R. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family studies (pp. 69-80). London: SAGE.
44. Marks, G. ( 2005). Accounting for immigrant non-immigrant differences in reading and mathematics in twenty countries. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28, 925-946.
45. Masten, A.S. ( 2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56, 227-238.
46. Mather, M. ( 2009). Children in immigrant families chart new path. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau.
47. Mattis, J.S., Grayman, N.A., Cowle, S., Winston, C., Watson, C., & Jackson, D. ( 2008). Intersectional identities and the politics of altruistic care in a low-income, urban community. Sex Roles, 59, 418-428.
48. McLoyd, V., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.). (1998). Studying minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
49. Menjívar, C. ( 2006). Family reorganization in the context of legal uncertainty: Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 32, 223-245.
50. Menjívar, C., & Abrego, L. ( 2009). Parents and children across borders: Legal instability and intergenerational relations in Guatemalan and Salvadoran families. In N. Foner (Ed.), Across generations: Immigrant families in America (pp. 160-189). New York: New York University Press.
51. Miles, M.B., & Huberman, M.A. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
52. Morgan, C., Kirkbride, J., Leff, J., Craig, T., Hutchinson, G., McKenzie, K., et al. (2007). Parental separation, loss and psychosis in different ethnic groups: A case-control study. Psychological Medicine, 37, 495-503.
53. O’Connor, E., & McCartney, K. ( 2007). Examining teacher-child relationships and achievement as part of an ecological model of development. American Educational Research Journal, 44, 340-369.
54. Ong, A. ( 1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
55. Orellana, M.F., Thorne, B., Chee, A.E., & Lam, W.S.E. (2001). Transnational childhoods: The participation of children in processes of family migration. Social Problems, 48, 572-591.
56. Partida, J. ( 1996). The effects of immigration on children in the Mexican-American community. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 13, 241-254.
57. Rousseau, C.I., Hassan, G., Measham, T., Moreau, N., Lashley, M., Castro, T., et al. (2009). From the family universe to the outside world: Family relations, school attitude, and perception of racism in Caribbean and Filipino adolescents. Health & Place, 15, 751-760.
58. Rutter, M. ( 1971). Parent-child separation: Psychological effects on the children. Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 12, 233-260.
59. Scalabrini Migration Center. (2003). Heart apart: Migration in the eyes of Filipino children. Quezon City, Philippines: Author.
60. Sciarra, D.T. ( 1999). Intrafamilial separations in the immigrant family: Implications for cross-cultural counseling. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 27(18), 30-41.
61. Sewell-Coker, B., Hamilton-Collins, J., & Fein, E. ( 1985). West Indian immigrants. Social Casework, 60, 563-568.
62. Simpao, E.B. ( 1999). Parent-child separation and family cohesion amongst immigrants: Impact on object relations, intimacy, and story themes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Long Island University, New York.
63. Small, S., & Covalt, B. ( 2006). The role of the family in promoting adolescent health and development: Critical questions and new understandings. In F. A. Villarruel & T. Luster (Eds.), The crisis in youth mental health (pp. 1-25). Connecticut: Praeger Perspectives.
64. Smith, R. ( 2006). Mexican in New York: Transnational lives of new immigrants. Berkeley: University of California Press.
65. Smith, A., Lalonde, R.N., & Johnson, S. ( 2004). Serial migration and its implications for the parent-child relationship: A retrospective analysis of the experiences of the children of Caribbean immigrants. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 10(2), 107-122.
66. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. ( 1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. London: SAGE.
67. Suárez-Orozco, C., Suárez-Orozco, M.M., & Todorova, I. ( 2008). Learning a new land: Immigrant students in American society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
68. Suárez-Orozco, C., Todorova, I., & Louie, J. ( 2002). “Making up for lost time”: The experience of separation and reunification among immigrant families. Family Process, 41, 625-643.
69. Suro, R. ( 2003). Remittance senders and receivers: Tracking the transnational channels. Washington, DC: Multilateral Investment Fund and the Pew Hispanic Center.
70. Totterman, N.J. ( 1989). Intermittent father absence and the development of children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
71. Tyyska, V. ( 2007). Immigrant families in sociology. In J. E. Lansford, K. D. Deater-Deckard, & M. H. Bornstein (Eds.), Immigrant families in contemporary society (pp. 83-99). New York: Guilford.
72. United Nations Development Programme. (2009 ). Human development report 2009- Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development. New York: Author.
73. U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Census 2000 summary. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_QTP22&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U
74. Waters, J.L. ( 2002). Flexible families? “Astronaut households” and the experience of lone mothers in Vancouver, British Columbia. Social & Cultural Geography, 3, 117-134.
75. Wilkes, J.R. ( 1992). Children in limbo: Working for the best outcome when children are taken into care. Canada's Mental Health, 40, 2-5.
76. Wong, B.P. ( 2006). Immigration, globalization and the Chinese American family. In J. E. Lansford, K. D. Deater-Deckard, & M. H. Bornstein (Eds.), Immigrant families in contemporary society (pp. 212-229). New York: Guilford.
77. Zhou, M. ( 2009). Conflict, coping, and reconciliation: Intergenerational relations in Chinese immigrant families. In N. Foner (Ed.), Across generations: Immigrant families in America (pp. 21-46). New York: New York University Press.