Centering Latinx immigrant knowledge for wellbeing, liberation, and justice in community-university research partnerships.

Abstract

Structural inequities impacting immigrant health in the United States were intensified during two recent time periods-the anti-immigrant socio-political context of 2017-2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020. Our community-university research team adapted and implemented a community-based mental health intervention with Latinx immigrants during these periods, which allowed us to reflect on the role of our community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership in addressing the disparate impacts of these events on Latinx immigrants. We documented the factors and processes that enabled our partnership to navigate crises, address immediate needs, and promote long-term social change. We analyzed focus groups with community-based organization staff, research team meetings, retreat notes, and interviews with Latinx immigrants. Exacerbated challenges included fear, uncertainty, limited resources, and restricted mobility and isolation. By prioritizing immigrant individual, community, and organizational knowledge and epistemologies, our team built upon immigrants' experiences of survival and resistance in the face of ongoing exclusion to navigate the difficulties of both periods. Instead of developing reactive processes, our partnership centered on immigrants' existing strategies, ensuring responses were rapid, effective, and aligned with community needs. These findings highlight that immigrant communities survive continual "crises" and engage in ongoing resistance and survival strategies that can provide the basis for effective CBPR and other social change efforts.