"Todo el tiempo no participamos porque se van a burlar" (we never participate because they will make fun of us): Latinx youth give voice to their cultural and systemic stressor experiences.

Abstract

Latinx youth can face a range of cultural and systemic stressors-stressors they experience due to anti-Latinx xenophobia and racism and having to navigate their distinct U.S. American and Latinx culture/s. The current investigation uses focus group methodology to hear the voices of Latinx youth and gain deeper insights into how Latinx youth experience cultural and systemic stressors in their daily life. We conducted six focus groups with 45 Latinx 9th- and 10th-grade high school students (50% girls; 0% nonbinary; M_age = 15.3 years; 82% Mexican) from a large and diverse Central Texas school district. Using a reflexive thematic analysis approach, we constructed five themes of cultural and systemic stressors: (a) being othered: treated as different, inferior, and/or a foreigner; (b) cultural racism resulting in linguistic and social isolation; (c) anti-immigration policies: hardships and barriers in daily life; (d) economic disadvantage: greater stress and pressure to succeed; and (e) familial cultural conflict driven by parental fear of adolescent cultural loss. These findings contribute to the cultural and systemic stressor literature by elevating youth's voices and identifying stressor experiences that are currently not captured in quantitative measures of cultural and systemic stressors. Scholarship on cultural and systemic stressors could include a larger focus on intersecting social positions (e.g., immigration status, gender, class) and individual characteristics (e.g., skin tone, language use). We discuss the implications for preventive interventions to support youth and reduce the occurrence of cultural and systemic stressors for them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).