Coping with perceived discrimination: Does ethnic identity protect mental health? (2003)
The researcher examined the relationship between the ethnic identity of Filipino Americans (N = 2109) and their mental health and the stress caused by discrimination. Dr. Mossakowski found that the more that Filipino Americans identified with their ethnicity the less likely they were to report depressive symptoms. Self-reports of lifetime and recent incidents of discrimination were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Ethnic identity showed to have a buffer effect against the stress caused by racial/ethnic discrimination. The author argues that within-group studies are valuable in their efforts to tease out cultural, geographical and socio-demographic differences in racial and ethnic groups, which is why the focus of this research was on Filipino Americans in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA–the areas with the highest concentrations of Filipino-descended persons in the US). The author purposefully compares day-to-day (recent) discrimination unrelated to race/ethnicity to lifetime racial/ethnic discriminaton, in order to measure the differences on depressive symptoms.
Relevance to documentary: These findings support the premise of this documentary: discrimination has an effect on the health of the victim of discrimination. It also shows that there are protections against these negative outcomes. Better yet, there are preventive strategies to dealing with discrimination: inculcating a strong sense of ethnic identity.
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