Mental Health: Refugees And Immigrants

Why do children of immigrants often feel they must lose their culture identity? I was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and live in the U.S. I went to Lowell High School and took all ESL because I didn’t know much about English. In order to succeed, I started to

First Generation Immigrants and Education Immigration has a great impact on first generation immigrants. Studies show that acculturation and assimilation have wide-ranging effects on the groups involved, but mostly on the immigrants' lives. There are positive and negative attributes. Attributes that are due to the issues associated with integrating cultures, and broadly related to the greater issue of immigration. The issues and discrimination towards first generation immigrants cause them to have limitations throughout their lifetime, in the country that they have moved to. Furthermore, the Hispanic and Latino community have lived through this problem for so long. They are always the group to be affected by it because they lose a sense

Better research on immigrant health and health outcomes would go a long way to shining a light on how to tackle these problems. The current debate in the research concentrates on social determinants of health such as acculturation, which of course influences a lot of other health and healthcare decisions made by immigrants. However, only focusing on social determinants of health undermines the importance of other factors that also heavily affect immigrant health in the United States. Specifically in the case of undocumented immigrants, the debate need to focus on systemic issues impeding access to healthcare as well as pre and post migratory social, political, and economic factors. Some examples that Martinez et al listed include, “specific environmental conditions such as pollution and contamination of water, as well as pre-and-post migration experiences ranging from rape, sexual assault, and abuse to extortion and several other specific geopolitical and economic factors” (966). Social strife, political persecution or famines are real problems that can affect an individuals’ health and specifically their mental health for the rest of their lives. Torres et al urge “those involved in public health research, policy, and practice” to

The mediocre speakers are tasked with translation between their family and the rest of the world. They learn about handling adult responsibilities and protecting their families from the world's criticism before they even finish elementary school. These children learn that there is an unspoken dynamic of us and them, with their families being the underdogs. The world is pushing them to adapt to this new society. Their surroundings preach conformity to this new nation. All the while they try to maintain connection with their past world and rich culture. They endure torment from ignorant peers, are labeled terrible names, and constantly face underestimation from those who view non-native speakers as incompetent. This kind of environment feeds their insecurity and requires repeated effort to disprove the assumptions of others, but where most would give up their efforts, immigrant children persevere. They learn to use their environment to their advantage. For them, the media is now an interesting way to pick up on the language and slang the other kids use. With these newfound words and knowledge the children have more confidence to approach new people and attempt to make

PSTD among Latino Migrants Research indicates that immigrant groups are likely to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) at varying degrees irrespective of whether they are voluntary migrants or refugees. However, refugees are known to suffer higher rates of mental health disorders ranging from PSTD to depression (Rasmussen et al., 2012). It is also known that refugees are likely to have more pre-migration risk for trauma than voluntary immigrants. Even though most refugees flee their home countries to reduce the risk of distress, research indicates that the well-being of such immigrants deteriorates with increasing time spent in the host countries

First, they have high physical health need as a result of conditions such as poverty and abuse that may existed in their origin country or the difficulties they face during their journey from their home country. They are at risk of ill-health and need special health care when they reach their destination country and through resettlement. On the other hand, as they may be carry contagious disease they should be screened and quarantined to guarantee the health of host population (Lawrence & Kearns, 2005; Grove & Zwi, 2006). Moreover, it has proved by many studies that mental health problems are their main health concern. Most of them experienced violence, war, and torture in their home country before migration. Before reaching to the host country they were struggling to survive and they experience high level of stress and anxiety during resettlement. (Lawrence & Kearns,

677). However, pull factors include “better chances for social and economic advancement, religious and political freedom, and greater opportunities for fulfillment in all aspects of life” (p. 678). Immigrant children and youth are at high risk for mental health problems (Cardoso & Dettlaff, 2010)). Conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorders and anxiety disorders are common in immigrant children and youth living in the United States (2010).

The schools, acting as an important agent of socialization, expose students to diversity. When immigrant children, legal or illegal, begin attending the schools, the diversity only grows. In addition to bringing diversity, the children also bring needs that the schools sometimes have trouble providing for. For example, some children are not able to speak English fluently and need special attention from ESL teachers in order to succeed in school. Also, some children come to the United States with a poor education due to the lack of adequate schooling in their home country. Therefore, these children come to the United States needing to catch up. With the growth of immigration rates, the education system is feeling more and more pressure to provide for the needs of a growing number of immigrant

Due to socioeconomic, cultural, and, after the past few election cycles in the United States, political adversity that immigrants have to endure, it is not surprising that some immigrant populations, namely the working poor, manifest various mental health issues at higher rates than the rest of the population. According to much research, "evidence is overwhelming that certain immigrant groups. . . suffer a greater incidence of schizophrenia" also noting that the "risk increases with length of residence in the host country and the risk is even more severe in the second generation" (Whitley 1073). There are a number of pre-migratory, post-migratory factors that also include factors associated with the process of migration that most likely increase the incidence of mental health issues in immigrants, namely persecution, poverty, violence, famine, drought and other traumatic events that in addition to potentially arduous journeys to reach their destination and post-migratory factors included in the term "marginalization" that make it easy to see why immigrants would have a higher incidence of psychopathology like schizophrenia, developmental disorders in children, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety (Whitley 1073). Many of these issues compound after migration has taken place to manifest what has been called "social defeat." According to Whitley, "social defeat is an umbrella term that refers to various sociocultural (and economic) acute events and

The thesis of this article is how immigrants and refugees experience stress and mental health issues when permanently migrating to another country and how medical professionals attempt to identify and address the issues. When immigrants and refugees lack social acceptance, alienation, rejection and other adversities they are subjected to mental and psychological issues during the experience of migrating.

Migration can bring difficulties to parenting; language barriers may occur in the process (Bornstein and Bohr, 2011, p. 3). Children become more and more disconnected to their parents while they become attached to modern America as a result of peer pressure or solely because of the portrayal set out by the media (i.e. television shows, movies, music and magazines). It’s understandable that children want to fit in and that is something that parents should be more open-minded to. Dissonant acculturation, as explained by Bernstein et al (2011), “leads to increasing parent-child conflicts in immigrant families and adaptation challenges for children” (p. 3); children learning English and the ways of their new country can cause them to lose sight of their native culture and language (p. 3). I have often heard parents express their desire to ensure Spanish is learned and used so that it is not lost as well as how much more it is important for them to learn Spanish than English. Migration, overall, “affects intergenerational relations in the family” (Foner, n.d., p.

→ Undocumented immigrants faced much kind of challenges among them; one of main difficulties arises from languages. For example difference between American slang and formal English. Likewise Jose Antonio describes in the video difference between “ what’s up? Where he replied “the sky”, if I were in his place I would have replied it as same way like he did. Also another challenged would be bullying by classmate they will make fun of your accent, if you have notice most immigrant kids won’t talk in front of the whole class because if they answer question asked by teacher they have to repeat several times so that teacher can understand fear of rejection, embarrassment and later bullying from you classmate outside of class. This why most immigrant

When immigrant families move into the U.S. the culture shock is significant. Families can easily become overwhelmed by their need to fit in. This is especially true for young children. It is easy for the kids to get caught up in the American way of life, and because of this, the culture can be forgotten. That is why the adults in these families need to enforce their cultural norms on their children, so they can make sure that their culture is not forgotten.

The Effect of Stress on the Mental Health of Immigrants This cultural psychology course paper aims to discuss and analyze a topic of particular importance. Specifically, the focus of the paper will be on the effect of stress on the mental health of immigrants, which is a particularly relevant and important topic on which to gain more insight within the context of Canada’s increasingly diverse society. Accordingly, it is integral that psychology be able to better understand and accommodate the needs of various people from different cultural background that have a different set of needs based on these different environmental factors.

According to George et al (2015) many migrants experience prolonged period of low income and social exclusion. World Health Organisation (WHO) states that a person’s mental health and many common mental health disorder are shaped by social, economic and physical environments and social inequalities. Research points to the effect poverty, unemployment, financial insecurity and economic hardship on psychological health of migrants. Fassil and Burnett (2015) suggest that racial discrimination and immigration process may impact on mental wellbeing of migrant. High risk of homelessness and destitution creates circumstances that further exacerbates the fragile mental health of most