Mental Health: The effect of stigmas on Hispanic immigrant households
By Mara Gomez-Gonzalez
Today you decide to bake cupcakes for the first time in your life, but they’re not ordinary cupcakes. This cupcake recipe has been passed down in your family for years and it has now been passed down to you! First, you combine all the ingredients into your bowl and mix them. Next, you pour the batter into the baking tray, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then, and in 20-23 minutes they’re done.
Twenty-three minutes have passed, and you take out your cupcakes only to realize they don’t look pretty. So, once they have cooled down, you cover them in all types of frosting and sprinkles that you like to cover up the messy cupcakes because the presentation is what matters, right?
In some ways, households can be just like a family cupcake recipe. Through generations, we pass down our cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs. As new families and parents, they may go to their family members with a prior wisdom to help build their new families because they know best, but those cultural values they pass down may not always bring the best in the end for some families. For example, a family may pass along the value of male chauvinism; the belief that men are superior. Or, they may hold the cultural value of familism. Familism is the tendency to put your family first and be loyal to your family at all costs. Some of those stigmas have led families to look down on mental health concerns or even ignore them. The intention was good just like when you were baking your cupcakes, but sometimes your cupcakes won't come out being pretty, and tasty.
Although each family is different and has its own struggles, many still struggle with certain cultural values such as familism and male chauvinism that are taught from parent to child. Values such as these may contribute to high depression and anxiety rates in families. I remember growing up, my father would be upset whenever my sister and I would forget to clean, but our focus was on our schoolwork which to our parents always came second. He would remind us that it was our duty as girls to have the house clean before he came home. We were taught to make it easier on the men because they are the reason we have money and a roof over our heads. It wasn’t his fault that he had a mindset like this, and he tried his best to be open to change, but those values had been embedded into his thinking.
Those same values create gender roles in families and being put into those gender roles has been shown to raise anxiety, depression, and suicide rates in both men and women. Male Chauvinism is the sense of having a lot of masculine pride, so for men, they are the providers. Some men may feel like they aren’t good enough and showing that vulnerability is seen as a weakness (Healy, 2005); If their role isn’t successful then the whole family will fall apart because they are the foundation that holds the family together. Due to that culture value being enforced into generations of machismo or “masculine pride, they are less likely to go seek help. Hispanics have been found to be 50% less likely than non Hispanic whites to receive mental health treatment (Mental and Behavioral Health – Hispanics).
For women, Male Chauvinism puts them into the role of Marianism “Latina femininity.” While the men are at work, the women do the housekeeping, cooking, and they are the caretakers. A certain example I constantly see within Hispanic families is something as small as women being taught to fix the men a plate and the men expect it because they were taught that the women would take care of them. Women are taught to put others first and to keep a pure mind and body. The role of a woman is centered around the belief of familism and so putting themselves first is seen as selfish. This type of culture with reinforced gender roles and prioritization of one’s family can put a lot of pressure on family members especially adolescents who are trying to find themselves and figure out their place in the world. This type of pressure can grow into anxiety and depression which according to Mia Kosmicki, leads to a silencing of self-identity in some women.
Mental health is seen as a weakness in many Hispanic families and isn’t seen as a big issue because there are always other things to worry about. An individual is taught to always prioritize their family over themselves and with the self-silencing that may come with gender roles and familism, it causes individuals to avoid seeking help. Other labels that Hispanic families tend to use towards individuals that struggle with mental health are “crazy” and “lazy” and it’s that invalidation of one’s emotions and well-being that causes families to fall apart (Ventura, 2021). There are other terms used in the Spanish language that may have been unintentional, but for the individuals going through this find it invalidating.
“Calma tus nervios!” “Calm your nerves!”
The word “nervios” or “nerves” is used interchangeably and tend to use it when referencing anxiety. Referencing anxiety by the word nerves diminishes the effect and the feeling of high anxiety making it seem like a temporary issue. A bad feeling in your stomach or “butterflies” is an example of a nervous feeling. It’s also normally triggered by a certain event or situation. Anxiety can be persistent and at times it can even interfere with your daily life. It’s accompanied by negative thoughts, like thinking of the worst situation, and not knowing or uncertainty can destroy you from the inside and out. Anxiety can change your perception and can cause you to experience fear, even if it’s a false alarm. Anxiety doesn’t come and go as nervousness does (Hotchkin, 2017). This could be due to a lack of information throughout the years so many are not able to tell the difference between nerves and anxiety and nowadays having anxiety is being normalized to the point many start to use the word anxiety interchangeably for the word nerves. Lack of information towards mental health causes many problems through generations and families because it makes people feel that what they’re feeling isn’t as big of an issue or impact on their lives (Terceros, 2021).
Culture is a key ingredient in how families form. Just like flour is a key ingredient in making cupcakes, but just like your cupcakes turned out burnt and lumpy, culture can turn into something that is greatly enforced rather than treasured. Culture has a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs that are passed down through generations, from parent to child, and through time it may evolve. Certain values that are pushed into one’s culture such as Male Chauvinism, Familism, and Marianism can give rise to concerns such as anxiety and depression. Although research is limited, both anxiety and depression are quite high for Hispanics who have been taught and pressured into these gender roles within their families (32.3%) with women experiencing higher rates of depression (Sanchez et al., 2017). If mental health is taught more to individuals, especially to those who come from a cultural background, misinformation and misconceptions may be diminished and this may encourage to end the self-silencing some Hispanics go through (Kosmicki, 2017). It may lead to families changing their idea on mental health and treating it as a series of concerns.
References
Healy, M. (2005, October 20). Depression's machismo mask. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-oct-17-he-depression17-story.html
Hotchkin, K. (2017, August 25). What's the difference between nerves and anxiety? Michigan Health.https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/health-management/whats-difference-between-nerves-and-anxiety
Kosmicki, M. (n.d.). Marianismo identity, self-silencing, depression and anxiety in women from Santa María de Dota, Costa Rica. UNED Research Journal. https://revistas.uned.ac.cr/index.php/cuadernos/article/view/1895/2106
Sanchez, D., Vandewater, E. A., & Hamilton, E. R. (2017, August 28). Examining Marianismo gender role attitudes, ethnic identity, mental health, and substance use in Mexican American early adolescent girls. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831487/
Terceros, K. L. (2021, June 12). Deconstructing mental health stigma in latinx culture. Sunstroke Magazine. https://www.sunstrokemagazine.com/archive/2021/4/6/deconstructing-mental-health-stigma-in-latinx-culture
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. (n.d.). Mental and Behavioral Health - Hispanics. HHS.gov. https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=69
Ventura, H. (2021, September 30). Suffering in silence, the stigma behind "machismo". Mental Health Match. https://mentalhealthmatch.com/articles/depression/suffering-silence-stigma-behind-machismo