Policymakers, practitioners, and educators frequently group Latina/o immigrant adolescents within a single homogenous category, thus creating a problem in understanding their diverse experiences. To explore these diverse Latina/o adolescent experiences this dissertation cross-culturally compares patterns of ethnic identity and acculturation across a group of Indigenous (Yucatec Maya) immigrant Latino/a adolescents in the U.S. with Yucatec Maya adolescents residing in Mexico and with non-Indigenous immigrant Latina/o adolescents in the U.S. How do ethnic identity, acculturation levels, perceived discrimination, and sense of school belonging compare across Yucatec Maya adolescents in the U.S., non-Yucatec Maya Latina/o adolescents in the U.S., and Yucatec Maya adolescents still in Mexico? What roles do individual factors such as gender, language, generation level, and external factors such as family, cultural practices, ethnic community networks, and peer relationships take in the adolescents' lives in the U.S. and in Yucatan? The study draws on ethnic identity and acculturation frameworks as they relate to perceived discrimination (the study of how the person targeted by discrimination reacts and interprets these acts) and to the adolescents' feelings of belonging at school. The participants included 65 Latina/o non-Yucatec Maya heritage adolescents living in the Los Angeles, California area, 66 Mexican Maya heritage immigrant adolescents living in San Francisco, California or the Los Angeles, California area, and 70 Mexican Maya heritage adolescents living in Yucatan, Mexico. All 201 adolescents took a survey incorporating measures of ethnic identity, acculturation, perceived discrimination, and school belonging. Thirty-eight of the adolescents participated in semi-structured interviews that explored attitudes toward school, culture, discrimination, family, community, and peers influencing the adolescents. Quantitative findings expose the intra-group differences across Yucatec Maya and non-Yucatec Maya Latina/os adolescents and the discrimination faced by the growing population of Yucatec Maya adolescents within the Latino/a immigrant groups. Language, gender, and generation all play roles in the amount of peer and adult perceived discrimination experienced and the distress caused by perceived discrimination across Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents. The quantitative findings ultimately show that Indigenous adolescents have different psychological and cultural experiences when compared to non-Indigenous Latina/o adolescents. Being Yucatec Maya, first generation, male, and/or knowledgeable of Maya would put the adolescent at a higher risk of experiencing more perceived discrimination acts and distress. More perceived discrimination from adults also relates to adolescents in the U.S. (both Yucatec Maya and non-Yucatec Maya) resulting in lower levels of school belonging. The qualitative findings across the non-Yucatec Maya adolescents, Yucatec Maya adolescents in the U.S., and Yucatec Maya adolescents in Mexico reveal an in depth look at multiple perspectives surrounding cultural and ethnic identity, cultural practices, American culture, discrimination, school, family, and peers. Specifically for the Yucatec Maya adolescents, the interviews provided a lens into their sentiments about the Maya culture and preserving the culture for future generations. The interviews reflect the agency, reclamation of culture, and lived experiences that make up the Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents of this study. The study exposes the Yucatec Maya youth's resilient Indigenous identity that emerges regardless of the discrimination they face from non-Latina/o/non-Mexican groups as well as from their own Latina/o/Mexican communities. This understanding is needed to provide more comprehensive resources and services to these adolescents.

Little psychological research has explored Latino adolescents' identity and their experiences with ethnic discrimination. Latino college students' ethnic identity may be protective against the negative effects of discrimination. Recent studies have documented both positive and negative effects of having strong national identity among minority ethnic group members. The current study examined how Latino adolescents' ethnic and national identities are related to their perceptions of and affective responses to discrimination. We explored the relationships between ethnic and national identity, perceived discrimination, and the amount of stress and type of affective responses following experiences with discrimination in thirty-five Mexican-American students. Ethnic identity was positively correlated to perceptions of discrimination, as predicted. Additionally, ethnic and national identities were also positively related. This finding indicates that future research on this topic may need to consider ethnic and national identities in tandem. Importantly, bicultural youth scored higher on the measure of perceived discrimination than non-bicultural participants.

This book provides broad coverage of the various research approaches that have been used to study the development of ethnic identity in children and adolescents and the transmission of ethnic identity across generations. The authors address topics of acculturation and the development and socialization of ethnic minorities—particularly Mexican-Americans. They stress the roles of social and behavioral scientists in government multicultural policies, and the nature of possible ethnic group responses to such policies for cultural maintenance and adaptation.

Collecting the diverse perspectives of scholars, labor organizers, and human-rights advocates, Accountability across Borders is the first edited collection that connects studies of immigrant integration in host countries to accounts of transnational migrant advocacy efforts, including case studies from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Covering the role of federal, state, and local governments in both countries of origin and destinations, as well as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), these essays range from reflections on labor solidarity among members of the United Food and Commercial Workers in Toronto to explorations of indigenous students from the Maya diaspora living in San Francisco. Case studies in Mexico also discuss the enforcement of the citizenship rights of Mexican American children and the struggle to affirm the human rights of Central American migrants in transit. As policies regarding immigration, citizenship, and enforcement are reaching a flashpoint in North America, this volume provides key insights into the new dynamics of migrant civil society as well as the scope and limitations of directives from governmental agencies.

Drawing from Nigrescence Theory (Cross, 1991); Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1982); and the Ethnic Identity framework (Umana-Taylor, Yazedjia, and Bamaca-Gomez, 2004), this mixed method dissertation examined three questions: (1) Are there age-group differences in Oaxaqueno/a-heritage adolescents' and young adults' ethnic-racial attitudes and Identity-Salient Experiences (ISE)?; (2) Are there age-group differences in the interrelations among ethnic-racial attitudes, reported discrimination from Mexican peers, self-esteem, and Indigenous self-identification?; and (3) Does ethnic identity buffer the predicted negative relationship between discrimination from Mexican peers and self-esteem? Result indicate small overall age-group differences in ethnic-racial attitudes and ISE, but, compared to young adults, adolescents endorsed higher ethnic-racial Self-Hatred attitudes and lower Multiculturalist Inclusive attitudes. While 72% of participants reported experiencing discrimination from their Mexican peers, only 25% of participants recalled an ISE involving discrimination as formative to their identity. Rather, 63% of adolescents and young adults recalled an ISE involving the cultural practices of the Oaxaqueno community as formative. Adolescents and young adults cited ISEs as helping them identify and explore the cultural and racial markers that define the distinctiveness of the Oaxaqueno and Indigenous culture within the Mexican community. Second, adolescents', but not young adults', reported discrimination from their Mexican peers was positively correlated with their Miseducation and Self-Hatred attitudes. Only ethnic-racial Self-Hatred attitudes were negatively related to adolescents' and young adults' self-esteem. Among Oaxaqueno/a-Indigenous youth, those who self-identified as Indigenous reported more discrimination from Mexican peers than those who did not self-identify as Indigenous. Third, there was no evidence that ethnic identity buffered the negative effect of discrimination. Findings lend support for adolescence as a time when Oaxaqueno/a-heritage youth are particularly attuned to discrimination from their Mexican peers. The findings indicate that while discrimination may not be formative to adolescents' identity as Oaxaqueno/a, they were related to their learned and internalized stereotypes about the Oaxaqueno community. Findings also reveal how ethnicity and race together shape Oaxaqueno/a-heritage youths' sense of belonging as Mexican, Oaxaqueno/a, and Indigenous in adolescence and young adulthood. Finally, implications for the three theoretical models framing the study are discussed.