Chapter 2: Mental Health Disparities in Children of Caribbean Immigrants: How Racial/Ethnic Self-identification Informs the Association between Perceived Discrimination and Depressive Symptomatology

Purpose – Differential racialization experiences influence ethnic and racial self-identification. This research assesses how ethnic self-identification colors perceptions perceived discrimination and how this in turn influences adolescent depressive symptomatology.

Methodology/Approach – We use the second wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) to examine the children of Caribbean immigrants. This research uses descriptive statistics, bivariate, and multivariate analyses to test hypotheses. The primary statistical method used is linear regression with OLS estimators.

Findings – Variations in the depression score exist among the racial/ethnic groups, with those identifying as non-black Antillean experiencing greater depression than the other three groups, and those identifying as white Cuban experiencing the lowest depression levels. The findings also show that some of this association is due to perceived discrimination.

Research Limitations/Implications – Future research should examine the association between discrimination and mental health longitudinally. We did not explore this option due to the lack of availability of relevant variables across multiple waves of the study.

Originality/Value of Paper – The results have implications for better understanding the second generation and elucidate how race and ethnicity shape adolescent perceptions of discrimination, and how these perceptions, in turn, are associated with mental health.