Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates

Abstract

In the present article, we explore the hopes that immigrant parents of Mexican origin have for their children and the strategies they employ to foster such hopes in light of immigration status, immigration climate, and transnational lived experiences. We conducted six focus groups with 42 immigrant parents of Mexican origin living in Arizona and Texas to explore their hopes and strategies used to foster hopes. Parents, the majority of whom were mothers, defined hopes in terms of what they can provide to their children, including (a) a better life through education and economic opportunities, (b) a strong moral and civic upbringing, and (c) safety from neighborhood crime and hostile immigrant climates. Parents fostered these hopes through the strategies of using self as example, parental involvement and monitoring, self-sacrifice, and family unity. Mothers of unauthorized immigration status raising children in a harsh immigration climate also avoided undue public exposure to ensure their children’s safety, a task that was difficult for fathers as breadwinners. Immigration status and climate influenced parents’ ability to provide opportunities for their children to pursue educational and career opportunities. We discuss parents’ hopes and parenting strategies in the context of different immigration climates, highlight emerging gender differences, and provide recommendations for research and practice.

Parenting is grounded in the deep commitment to provide children with positive opportunities in life. Fulfilling this commitment motivates many to immigrate to the United States (U.S.) and to remain despite challenges in the host country (Hagelskamp et al., 2010; Valdez et al., 2013a). Children represent hope to resist and overcome adversity and do better for the family, even in environments that limit opportunities for advancement and threaten family preservation (Philbin & Ayón, 2016). This study explores the hopes that immigrant parents of Mexican origin have for their children and parenting strategies in light of immigration status and transnational contexts of influence.

Immigrant parents of Mexican origin have faced restrictive immigration policy at the state level over the past decade, such as Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 (SB1070). Passed in 2010 under the name “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” (Arizona State Legislature, 2010), this bill implemented harsh penalties on immigrants of unauthorized status, and introduced the ‘papers please’ provision, in which local police could verify the citizenship status of individuals with “reasonable suspicion” of unauthorized status. SB1070 led to racial profiling and destabilized financial stability in many families, diminished families’ trust in public services, and resulted in increased raids, deportation, and family separation (Anderson & Finch, 2014).

In contrast, during that same time period, immigrant families of Mexican origin in Texas were relatively protected from the type of persecution Arizona families faced (Anderson & Finch, 2014). Yet, the ever-increasing adverse climate in the U.S., which became central to the 2016 presidential election, has heightened a sense of fear and self-surveillance, negatively influencing the well-being of immigrant families of Mexican origin across the country (Valdez et al., 2021). Despite these experiences, immigrant families have significant strength and resilience to cope and overcome such psychosocial challenges (Ayón & Villa, 2013; Cardoso & Thompson, 2010).

Literature on Parental Hopes and Parenting Strategies

The literature base with immigrant parents of Mexican origin has predominantly focused on their educational hopes for children (see Goldenberg et al., 2001, for review). Longitudinal research with immigrant families of Mexican origin shows that parental aspirations about education are high and consistent (Goldenberg et al., 2001) but these aspirations depend on parents’ efficacy to support their children’s educational endeavors (Okagaki & Frensch, 1998). Other studies have highlighted the role of culture in these parents’ educational hopes for their children (see Harwood et al., 2002, for review). For example, immigrant parents of Mexican origin often emphasize that education is both academic learning and citizenship development, consistent with family-focused collectivistic values (Ayón & Villa, 2013; Cardoso & Thompson, 2010). In this way, parents rely on traditional cultural values to guide children’s educational pursuits and scripts for conduct around family and peers, especially in high-risk neighborhoods and settings (Smokowski & Bacallao, 2011).

In spite of this research on education and to a lesser degree, citizenship development, there has been limited literature that integrates parents’ hopes on various aspects of children’s lives. The need for an integrated view is critical because many immigrant families of Mexican origin experience significant stressors in their daily lives related to social stability and immigration climate. Increasingly restrictive immigration policies and enforcement practices have given rise to hostile social rhetoric against immigrants of Mexican origin, with negative psychological repercussions on youth and their families, including fear of deportation, family fragmentation, individual and family symptoms of trauma, and economic hardship (Barajas-Gonzalez et al., 2021; Chavez-Dueñas et al., 2019; Valdez et al., 2013b). In addition to these social forces, neighborhood resources, cohesion, trust, safety, and climate influence children’s resilience and interactions outside the family (Fuller & García Coll, 2010).

The life experiences faced by Mexican origin immigrant families suggest the need to conceptualize parental hopes and supportive strategies from a personal, cultural, and social/structural lens (Harwood et al., 2002; Stein et al., 2016). A great deal of research has focused on parenting, but comprehensively linking parents’ lived experiences to their hopes and their hopes to their parenting practices are nascent in contemporary literature (Maciel & Knudson-Martin, 2014). Understanding how external forces shape parents’ lived experiences, hopes for their children, and parenting practices can provide valuable information about supporting immigrant families of Mexican origin and how these families subsequently help their children. Racial/ethnic socialization―parents’ conversations with children about racial and ethnic pride and preparation for bias―is one way that parents could guide conversations with children based on their hopes and lived experiences (Ayón & Villa, 2013).

Theoretical Framework

We use a social-ecological framework (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007) to conceptualize parental hopes and support strategies. Hopes reside in the microsystem, the most proximal level, along with parents’ identities and expectations, their parenting capacities, and personal experiences. Interactions with the child inform parents’ hopes and support strategies. The mesosystem, the next level, consists of other institutions in which parents and children reside, such as extended family and neighborhood peers, children’s school teachers and classmates, and parents’ work environment. The frequency and quality of interactions between parents, their children, and individuals from school and other neighborhood settings constitute the mesosystem. Trusting and reciprocal relationships strengthen the bond between parents, children, and other significant persons (Valdez et al., 2013b).

Neighborhood quality and ethnic/racial culture constitute the exosystem. Cultural context may not occupy a tangible space but is highly influential in family practices, including parents’ hopes and parenting. Immigrant parents of Mexican origin transmit family norms and practices through enseñanzas (cultural teachings), consejos (culturally-based advice), pride, and language (Ayón & Villa, 2013; Halgunseth et al., 2006). Parameters that parents set around children’s conduct outside of the home may be motivated by how safe and stable they perceive that environment to be.

At the most distal level, the macrosystem, immigration policy may limit parents’ hopes and strategies (Ayón & Villa, 2013; Cardoso & Thompson, 2010). Immigration policy directly defines a family’s immigration status in the U.S. and indirectly shapes families’ access to healthcare, segregation, and marginalization (e.g., employment, safety nets) via facilitative or inhibiting policies and environments (Stein et al., 2016). For undocumented parents living under a harsh climate, these effects are salient in their day-to-day lives and likely influence their hopes and parenting strategies with children. Thus, the intersection of immigration status and immigration climate needs to be explored in the context of parents’ hopes and parenting. Finally, the chronosystem situates all ecological levels in a particular developmental and historical period. Time, and the events that take place in time in some spaces but not others, is critical in explaining personal and family life trajectories (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). Moreover, the burden of social events (e.g., immigration climate) in a given period of time may be contingent on the developmental tasks of immigrant families of Mexican origin.

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study is to illuminate (a) the hopes that immigrant parents of Mexican origin have for their children and the parenting practices and support strategies they use to foster such hopes, and (b) how immigration climates may influence the formation and pursuit of such hopes and strategies. Although the literature reviewed above indicates a breadth of research on the educational hopes that Mexican origin immigrants have for their children, our study extends this research corpus by examining various life hopes beyond educational ones among these parents. We also engaged parents in Texas and Arizona to compare and contrast parental hopes between immigrant parents of Mexican origin living in distinct immigration climates over the past decade. The birth of current U.S. immigration policy can be traced largely to the passing of SB 1070 in the state of Arizona in 2010. The fact that anti-immigration climate was strong in Arizona, but not in Texas, allows for an analysis of families’ lives in space and time. Importantly, this study applies a social ecological framework to the parenting literature by showcasing parenting linkages to social ecological processes (e.g., transnational experiences, immigration climate and status, community concerns, and cultural values).

Method

Study and Participants

The present study was conducted in two large metropolitan cities, one in Texas and one in Arizona. The study took place in October of 2010, six months after Arizona passed SB1070. We conducted focus groups in two school districts and six elementary schools, split equally by state. Schools were identified for having a large enrollment of students from foreign-born families. Adult participants (N = 42) were immigrants of Mexican origin and primarily female (n = 39; 93%). Most participants were unrelated, with the exception of two married couples in each state and one mother and daughter pair in Arizona. Of parents participating in Arizona focus groups (n = 27), 65% reported living in the U.S. for less than 15 years. Of Texas parents (n = 15), half reported living in the U.S. for less than 15 years. Participants ranged in age from 25–54 and had an average of 2.5 children living in the home. All met eligibility for free lunch at school and had a child enrolled in one of the six schools. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that 79.7% of parents in 2010–2014 were non-citizens in our participating school district in Arizona, while that percentage was 51 in our participating school district in Texas. Information disclosed informally during our focus groups suggest there were a few more parents in Arizona who reported being non-citizens and undocumented than in Texas.

Procedures

After securing appropriate institutional review board approval, participants were recruited via staff from a community organization implementing an after-school family program in schools (Gamoran et al., 2012). The first author, who was also involved in the family program study, spoke with parents by phone about partaking in a focus group about their life experiences and parenting in the U.S. Participants signed a written consent form at the beginning of the focus groups, which were conducted at their child’s respective elementary school (i.e., library, cafeteria) or at a neighborhood public library. The focus groups were moderated in Spanish, audio-taped, and lasted between 60 and 90 minutes. Participants were offered $15 for their time.

With experience and training in phenomenology and thematic analysis, the first author developed the interview protocol (Table 1) based on the immigration literature, and moderated the focus groups with a trained graduate student and a fellow faculty member. The protocol consisted of open-ended questions about life as a parent in the U.S., perceptions of and experiences with immigration policies, and hopes for their children. Questions were not limited to parents’ elementary-aged children but all children in the family.

Table 1.

Interview Protocol

Primary questions	Additional Probes
• What are your hopes for your children?	• What do you wish for them as they grow up? • What would that hope look like for you? • How will you know your child has achieved this hope?
• Where does that hope come from?	• What experiences have you had that make this hope important? • How did those experiences matter?
• How do you foster and support that hope?	• What do you do to help your child achieve that hope? At home? At school?

Analysis and validity assessment.

The authors used contextualist thematic analysis, an approach that acknowledges the ways individuals make meaning of their experience (in this case, hopes for their children and supportive parenting strategies), and, simultaneously, the ways the broader social context impinges on those meanings (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Relevant contexts in these participants’ experiences included immigration policy and status, economic and neighborhood constraints, and Latinx cultural practices and norms. The researchers have experience with this qualitative research method and with the population prioritized in the study.

Thematic analysis of the data was guided by Braun and Clarke’s recommended phases (2006), and conducted by the first and second authors. In the first phase, they read transcripts from each school in their original language, Spanish, and listened to the audio-recordings to (re)familiarize themselves with the interview content. Special attention was given to participants’ perspectives about socioecological factors, such as personal, home, community, and social, cultural, and structural influences on their hopes and strategies. In a second phase, they independently analyzed all the transcripts into descriptive statements—verbatim statements of one or more sentences aligned with a particular topic—to capture experiences and meanings. In the third phase, after reaching consensus on all transcripts, the researchers grouped codes into themes for each school transcript, resulting in themes for each school. Themes had multiple descriptive statements supporting them, with subthemes identified for nuance. Finally, the researchers collapsed and refined themes for all schools within each city, resulting in themes separated by city. Coding disagreements at each phase were handled by rereading the transcript and discussing the various pieces of evidence in support of a theme. Themes and subthemes are described by noting whether they were endorsed by all (100%), many (75% or more but less than 100%), some (50% or more but less than 75%), or a few (25% or more but less than 50%) participants. An auditor with expertise in qualitative research and Mexican origin families reviewed the final categories against the raw data to verify theme stability, categorization, and labeling.

Author Positionality.

Carmen Valdez is a faculty member who identifies as a Latina born outside of the U.S., and whose native language is Spanish. Nancy Herrera has a doctorate in counseling psychology who was born in the U.S. and also identified as a Latina. Kevin Wagner and Ashley Ables are graduate students in counseling psychology and social work, respectively, and both were born in the U.S., identify as White, and are bilingual in English and Spanish. All authors have a deep interest in community-engaged research with Mexican immigrants. Despite their interests and training, the authors’ educational and socioeconomic privilege may have biased data collection and analysis. For example, they may have drafted questions about parenting informed by their training paradigms, which are largely based on western, White middle-class notions of parental aspirations. This form of bias in turn, could alter participants’ responses and the team’s interpretation of such responses. The team actively worked to discuss and acknowledge potential biases. They addressed these biases by relying on the literature on Latinx parenting and social ecological theories, seeking auditing from an external consultant, and using a thematic analysis scheme that accounted for the contexts shaping the experiences and meanings of Mexican origin immigrant families.

Results

Contextualist thematic analysis yielded three major themes of parents’ hopes for their children. We illuminate the strategies parents employed to foster their hopes for their children. We also highlight parents’ perspectives on how their hopes and parenting strategies intersected with transnational experiences and the immigration climate in which families live.

Theme 1: Hope for a Better Life for Children

Economic and social advancement.

All participants expressed the core hope that they can provide children with a better life in the U.S. than they can in Mexico. They defined a better life as accessing economic opportunities. Parents shared the sentiment of one Texas mother who explained the motivation for this hope, “So when they open the door of our house and decide to leave, they will have a good foundation, and nobody will tumble them…. They can fly strong and be ready for the world.” Participants linked this desire to their contrasting experiences in Mexico, where employment was less stable, more physically strenuous, and less fairly compensated than employment in the U.S. In addition to escaping those conditions, parents said they migrated to the U.S. because they perceived this country to offer social resources and alternatives to purchasing, such as garage sales and church sales, that help families financially.

Many parents emphasized a common dilemma they face: the security and economic advantages of the U.S., and the emotional attachment to Mexico, as this Arizona mother indicated:

The good thing is when I got here [U.S.], we got peace and the sense of security to go to a park…in other words for [son] to play in the slide, swing for a bit, go to places that are affordable. The difference [between U.S. and Mexico] is day and night. I prefer 100 times over to raise [son] and the next ones that come, that God gives me, here than there, sadly.

Although this sentiment was expressed in Texas and Arizona, the perceived loss from being away from their home country was heightened for parents in Arizona, which they described to come from not knowing if they will return to their homeland based on their undocumented status. Many parents in Arizona reported not having returned to Mexico since they immigrated to the U.S. Additionally, some parents in Arizona expressed increased difficulty in maintaining stable employment because of the present immigration climate. All fathers reported having to work more jobs and these being less stable, which limited their time and prevented them from taking full advantage of school and social programs for the family. In spite of these challenges for Arizona parents, they reinforced the notion that living in the U.S., and all of its challenges, was preferred.

Educational advancement.

Parents perceived their children would achieve a better life (i.e., economic opportunities) through education. All parents underscored the hope that children would someday pursue a college education, as this mother from Texas noted, “They need a career, so they don’t have to do the things that we do; cleaning toilets, working at night, putting their lives at risk.” Some parents described themselves as adolescents not liking school or having to work to help their family, while a few mentioned marrying or having children early, as reasons for not having achieved a college education. Many parents, and mothers especially, also described their family context as barriers to an education when they were young. For example, one mother from Texas recalled: “Unfortunately, I’m realizing that I should have gone to college. I should have pushed myself more. But my mom never went to school, so she didn’t motivate me to go to school or help me with school.” This mother said that in contrast, her brothers were expected to go to college.

Many parents acknowledged it may have been too late for them to take advantage of educational opportunities in the U.S. for themselves. Some cited commitments to their children and financial and childcare constraints as reasons to not pursue a college education. Thus, many parents rested their hope on their children. As one Arizona mother stated, “My goal now is to push my children forward and help them as much as we can so they can help the family.”

A few parents recognized their children may not choose to go to college. One Texas mother described feeling like her “wings were broken” when her teen daughter dropped out of high school so she could move in with her boyfriend and start a family. Another mother from Arizona talked about her teenage son who wanted to drop out of his magnet high school to save parents money.

With this possibility in mind, some parents shared the hope that their children would at a minimum train in an occupation that would allow them to work indoors, such as a bank. This mother from Arizona exemplified this, “I want my daughter to get her bachelors. And yes, a masters and doctoral degree would be by the Glory of God. If not, if she could have some form of professional occupation, whichever one she chooses.” A mother from Texas stated, “I want them to finish college. But I won’t turn my back on them if they do not.” For many parents who contemplated the possibility of an occupation for their children, they voiced the importance of children developing a strong work ethic as follows (Texas mother): “I would like to pass on to my children the value that whatever they do in life, to do it with pleasure and be the greatest in whatever they choose, even be it street sweeping—whatever they choose.”

Parenting strategies to foster hope of a better life for children.

All parents seemed to foster their hopes of a better life for their children through the strategies of use of self and parental sacrifice.

Using oneself as an example.

All parents reported using their lived experiences to teach their children the consequences of discontinuing one’s education and to persuade them to stay in school. One mother from Texas used advice (“consejos”) to use her life as an example: “Now you know that you do not want to go what I am going through, you both have the responsibility to study.” An Arizona mother similarly used her experiences when giving advice to instill a value of education in her children, advice she did not heed when she was their age:

I use myself as an example for my children. I tell them, “Look, you both are from here [U.S.]; you both have the opportunity to study. Maybe we do not have the best [life] financially, but with your good grades you can obtain scholarships…. That [way] you both do not have to clean offices tomorrow… have to do [work] under the sun, you both can be [successful] people.”

Many parents depicted a clear path from parents’ limited educational opportunities to their restricted prospects for safe and rewarding employment and highlight that children have access to those opportunities. As one mother from Texas shared, “We always say, ‘there are so many people that would give millions of dollars and people that have given their life to be where you [children] all are. Take advantage, take advantage of school.”

In addition to advice-giving, parents reported commonly using experiential learning as a strategy to teach personal life lessons about education. A father in Arizona stated the importance of children personally experiencing the consequences of not completing an education as follows, “During the weekends I will take [my pre-teen son] to my work. Well he does not work hard, right, but I tell him to study so that he does not have to come work outside under the sun.” According to these parents, exposing children to challenging work allows them to witness and appreciate the value of a professional career and to appreciate their parents’ sacrifice.

Another type of experiential lesson many parents described was to expose their children to the harsh realities youth face in Mexico. An Arizona mother who reported growing up in poverty exposed her children to the conditions under which she lived, adding:

Four years ago, I went [to Mexico] and took my kids… I told my child, “Look how life is here. There are children that are walking around without shoes. So that you can value what you have [in U.S.]…. How those children wish they had what you have.”

Parental sacrifice.

Another strategy many parents reported using to instill in children the value of an education was parental sacrifice. One mother from Texas described this strategy as follows:

I am willing to commit 100% to be there for [my daughter]. If that means that I have to sacrifice my own needs, or that I can’t work and buy myself things, so be it. If she needs me to study with her or to help her with her homework, I will be there.

This type of sacrifice may not have been possible for parents with undocumented status, especially in Arizona, where family incomes were reported to be less stable due to changes in state immigration policy. Most fathers worked multiple jobs and were reported to be less available to their children than those in Texas. Many mothers stayed home with their children and sacrificed work pursuits in the interest of family preservation. Thus, choosing to work or not work was a critical matter that spoke to safety and preservation, not just educational support. Nevertheless, children’s educational success was viewed as an important outcome of parental sacrifice when giving advice to children. A father’s quote from Arizona exemplified this point:

We talk to our children about school being the most important thing. We tell them, “We don’t care if we have to keep working hard so you can go to school. In Mexico you would have had to work and go to school to become a somebody. The only thing we ask you to do is go to school and we will break our backs, so you won’t have to.”

Many parents saw themselves as being in charge of clearing possible obstacles in the way of their children’s economic and educational success. For some parents in Arizona who identified as undocumented, however, the realities of immigration climate were perceived as a clear obstacle they were not able to control. As one father noted:

They just put in the law that [undocumented] people can’t get a license. Before, even if you didn’t have one of your legal documents, they did give licenses to drive. But when they put the new law in place, people could no longer renew their license, take out another license or drive legally.

Some Arizona parents who identified as undocumented shared restrictions in their ability to be emotionally available for their children because of the urgency to focus on financial stability as a form of preparing for possible deportation. Some mothers in particular disclosed leaving previously stable and long-standing jobs because employers may have been too afraid to be penalized or because parents feared work raids. One mother, whose husband was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), talked about the financial sacrifices she had to make to pay the lawyer’s fees, including selling their mobile home, falling back on rent, and pawning their only car. The combination of ongoing fear, hypervigilance, and worries was a clear distinction between these Arizona parents and Texas parents, many of whom appeared to be naturalized citizens.

Theme 2: The Hope that Children will have a Strong Moral and Civic Upbringing

There appeared to be a strong sentiment from all parents that children should grow up to be respectable adults with strong moral values, including obligation to family and community and adherence to a traditional lifestyle.

Obligation to family and community.

All parents expressed the hope that children develop good character, as can be illustrated by this Arizona mother’s account, “I more than anything ask that [children] become good people.” A father described ‘being a good person’ as encapsulating the values of honesty, helpfulness, and family obligation. As one Texas mother shared: “Good person, yes…for them to be good in the sense of being honest people, responsible for their actions, that they help other people, and act as good citizens. That for me is important,” and “… for them to be good sons and daughters, good parents, good citizens, everything.” What parents called una buena educación (a good education), encapsulated parents’ vision of good manners as being heavily related to the way children treated others, highlighting Mexican collective values that center on family and community.

Adherence to a conservative lifestyle.

Many parents shared fear of the negative social influences of drugs, sex, and liberal values in the U.S., on their children, which they believed were heightened by social media and peers. Therefore, the need to be vigilant was expressed by many parents, as this Arizona mother indicated, “There is a lot of debauchery [in the U.S.]…And I think that in these times I need to begin talking to [children] about drugs, sex and all of that. In other words [talking to them] early on.” All three fathers, in particular, verbally justified the need to be strict, especially as children approach adolescence.

The consequences about the perceived liberal U.S. values were more complex for parents in Arizona. Some parents who disclosed being undocumented, were especially concerned about their children committing ‘indiscretions’ because contact with the law might jeopardize the whole family. A few mothers even described situations where U.S.-born adolescents may take advantage of the parents’ vulnerable immigration status. One mother said she felt restricted in her ability to set curfews for her children after witnessing her teen sister, a US-born citizen, threatening to call ICE on her parents if they refused to let her go to a party.

For some of these parents in Arizona, contact with governmental organizations, such as Child Protective Services, may have posed a dilemma in terms of discipline strategies that parents perceived to be acceptable in Latinx culture. A father described this dilemma: “Here it is forbidden to spank your child, right? There came a point where my daughter told me, ‘If you hit me again, I will call the police on you!’ And I was like, ‘What?’”

Parenting strategies to foster hope of cultural and moral upbringing for children.

Providing examples of moral behavior.

All parents reported instilling good character in their children through direct messages and consejos that begin early in life (Texas mother): “We have to program their heads since they are little. Since you have them in your arms and you are breastfeeding, ‘Son, you are going to be a good person.’“ Further, many parents shared the importance of talking to their children about strict parenting, “Well, I talk to her…that everything that we try to do, her father and I, is for her well-being,” illustrating the sense that children need to trust parents’ decisions. Some parents felt that for advice to be trustworthy it may need to be reflected in parents’ actions. One father from Texas who quit smoking shared: “It’s just that as parents, we need to start by setting the example.”

Monitoring and teaching responsibility.

To protect children from what parents perceived to be liberal values, many parents expressed the need to be more vigilant and to monitor children more closely, than they would need to if they lived in Mexico. Other parents viewed household chores as a way for their children to learn responsibility, contributing to obligation and respect for the family. As one Texas mother endorsed: “[Children] have to have responsibilities. That in the household there are responsibilities… everyone has to do something so that the household can function…”

Theme 3: The Hope to Provide Safety to Children

A final theme that prominently emerged for all parents was the hope that they can provide children with a safe environment. There were notable differences between parents in Arizona and Texas in the threats facing their children.

Neighborhood safety and negative peer influences.

Many parents in Texas expressed concern with neighborhood safety. They described their children being at risk for involvement in gangs, drugs, and deviant peers in their neighborhoods. Some parents recalled the Mexican neighborhoods and small towns where they grew up as safe. As this Texas mother indicated:

I remember when I was little, I would go out without my parents to play in the street…. All the neighbors helped each other and took care of the kids. But [in the U.S.], you have to be on alert with your kids all the time because you don’t know.

Some parents acknowledged that places in Mexico that were once safe may no longer be because of drug cartel violence. However, these parents expressed that not knowing or trusting their neighbors or the parents of their children’s friends in the U.S., was equally dangerous. A few parents, and mothers especially, expressed fear that their adolescent sons would fall “prey to a girl looking to get pregnant”:

Men in America have to be taken care of more than women. Because it’s possible that tomorrow [a parent] will come and knock on your door and say, “My daughter is expecting a child from your son.” And then they demand Child Support; they could completely ruin our son’s lives.

Immigration enforcement.

A prominent danger identified by parents in Arizona was immigration enforcement. Increased raids and profiling from police that followed the passing of SB1070 a few months prior to the focus groups, had heightened parents’ awareness that the family could be separated at any moment. A father who was detained by immigration officials for several months described the physical safety risk this posed to their children, “Because she had to watch all four children. At night looking for work, she took the risk of driving with the children in the backseat…and the children were sleep-deprived.” A mother worried about the psychological safety of her children, after they reportedly saw their father being taken by police.

Although there were likely a few parents in Texas who were undocumented, they did not openly disclose their status. Instead, some mentioned worry for undocumented family members who lived near them or in other states. However, all parents appeared to worry about the consequences to children of living in a climate where treatment of Mexican origin immigrant families is hostile. One Texas mother reportedly worried about younger children who may not understand the images they see on the news and become terrified that, “They’re going to take my mom.”

Parenting strategies to foster hope of providing safety for children.

In Arizona and Texas, many parents said they relied on monitoring children and avoiding public exposure to protect children from perceived dangers. Mothers, who were home more than fathers, described taking on a monitoring role to ensure children’s safety. All parents expressed the importance of promoting family unity and belonging during turbulent times.

Monitoring children.

Some mothers said they chose to limit their time outside the home so they could supervise their children more closely. Others may have justified the need to overprotect their children, including limiting their independent outside activities to keep them safe. As this Arizona mother indicated, “My son’s personality is changing because I keep him inside the house. But if you give them freedom, you might lose them.”

Avoiding public exposure.

A few mothers in Arizona reported leaving their jobs to avoid public exposure and deportation. Some parents described avoiding public places with the family to protect the family from police profiling and raids, as this father described, “We can’t go out. We’re afraid of being stopped on the way. We drive in this area and keep our eyes open. I try not to go out at night because at night you can’t see the police.” Although public exposure was avoided by fathers and mothers, for fathers it was not possible to fully avoid given their outside employment. Mothers that would typically take their children to doctors’ appointments and attend social service appointments for their U.S.-born children, reported making the difficult decision to limit these outside activities to prevent risks to their safety. This mother argued, “What is confusing is that if children are born here, they are entitled to services. But if the parents aren’t here legally and they are the adults, they are the ones who have to sign legally.”

Promoting family unity and belonging.

Many parents hoped that spending quality time with their children could teach them to avoid dangerous situations. They defined quality time as winding down a busy day by talking to and reading to children at bedtime, building trust by talking to children about their daily lives, and encouraging children to participate in church activities as a way to instill in them proper judgement when encountered with unsafe situations. Some Arizona parents underscored the need to communicate with children about the immigration climate. Yet, a few parents seemed to find conversations to be difficult, as this mother noted: “Well, many kids get very confused. And it is hard to even explain immigration laws well.”

Discussion

Consistent with a social ecological framework (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007), our study found that parents’ express hopes (microsystem) for their children in the areas of (a) economic opportunities and educational advancement, (b) moral upbringing, and (c) safety. These hopes were heavily motivated by the job insecurity and limited economic opportunities parents themselves faced in Mexico and accessed in the U.S. (macrosystem), acculturative tensions experienced when raising children in a new land (exosystem), and the sociopolitical context that was restrictive to legally vulnerable families (macrosystem and chronosystem). These findings build upon the previous literature by identifying a much wider scope of parental hopes than the typically-documented focus on children’s educational advancement (see Goldenberg et al., 2001, for review). By capturing how economic advancement through education, moral upbringing, and safety are priorities that guide parenting, we offer a layered understanding of the lives of immigrant families of Mexican origin in the U.S.

In addition, this study goes beyond the simple identification of parental hopes by also identifying parenting strategies participants used when reaching for the goals expressed in their hopes. Some parenting strategies applied across hopes, such as leading by example, which they pursued through the vehicles of advice-giving and exposure to real-life teachings. Other strategies, such as protective parenting (i.e., strict parenting, reinforcement of family collective norms) were influenced by parents’ perceptions of their children’s exposure to negative peer influences (mesosystem) and overall neighborhood climate of crime and drugs (exosystem). For families with undocumented status, especially those living in Arizona where immigration enforcement was high in the past decade (macrosystem and chronosystem), parents additionally protected children by avoiding public spaces and teaching children about discrimination and anti-immigrant bias. The body of literature on parenting corroborates many of these strategies (Halgunseth et al., 2006), but our study joins a nascent literature that links parental strategies to parents’ hopes and transnational lived experiences, including those shaped by different contexts of reception and immigration status (Chavez-Dueñas et al., 2019; Stein et al., 2016).

Our study corroborated what others have found that education is seen by parents as the key to children’s economic advancement, a central hope of parents. Goldenberg and colleagues (2001) similarly found high educational aspirations in a majority sample of parents of Mexican origin, with aspirations remaining high over the families’ length of residence in the U.S. Parents in our study reported making significant sacrifices so their children could focus on their education, challenging notions of low parental involvement in children’s education. In our study, not only did parents invest time and finances in their children’s education in the home and at school, they reportedly did so early in their child’s schooling, which has been found elsewhere (Altschul, 2011). Research shows that parental sacrifice has positive associations with adolescent academic outcomes (Ceballo et al., 2014).

Having undocumented status forced many fathers in Arizona to work multiple low-wage and unstable jobs to provide for the family. Although there were likely a few undocumented parents in our Texas focus groups, the passing of SB1070 in Arizona made jobs scarce for parents in that state, as has been found by others. Anderson and Finch (2014) describe how macrosystem policies create precarious exosystem environments that both deprive and threaten wellbeing, forcing men into labor hardship and expulsing women from the workforce. Many mothers reportedly left their jobs to minimize risk of deportation, corroborating the loss of economic and family stability found in other research (Ayón & Becerra, 2013). Further augmenting gender divides in parenting, fathers in Arizona especially described decreased involvement in school activities as a result of having to work multiple jobs. This is concerning because father involvement has been associated with positive outcomes for Latinx youth (Cabrera et al., 2013).

In children’s pursuits, many parents emphasized the need for children to develop a strong work ethic, which parents defined as gratitude, honesty, hard work, and responsibility. This ethic corroborates values emphasized by Latinx parents in other studies (Cardoso & Thompson, 2010) and reflects parents’ lived experiences in their home countries and motivations to migrate to the U.S. (Goldenberg et al., 2001; Hagelskamp et al., 2010). These narratives appeared to be assets that parents used to communicate to their children via advice-giving, modeling of sacrifice, and experiential activities (Halgunseth et al., 2006; Macias & Knudson-Martin, 2014).

In terms of parents’ hope for the moral and civic upbringing of children, parents’ own upbringing was often used to judge morality in the U.S. This struggle reflects larger acculturative dilemmas between parents and youth, which can lead to negative mental health outcomes in youth (Halgunseth et al., 2006; Smokowski & Bacallao, 2011). In addition to using cultural traditions, religion, and personal teachings to protect their children from these risks, parents also seemed to use discipline to guide their children’s behavior and enforce culturally-appropriate expectations. For undocumented parents in Arizona though, discipline was viewed as risky for the family because of anecdotal experiences of children threatening to report parents to immigration authorities. This power differential raises the stakes for undocumented parents who feel a diminished authority in their parenting (Smokowski & Bacallao, 2011). Family support programs need to account for the unique generational dynamics that arise in undocumented or mixed status families, such as differential power and authority (Ayón & Becerra, 2013.

Finally, parents’ hopes for their children’s safety seemed to be grounded in neighborhood risks, a concern found in other research with low-income Latinx populations (Galster & Santiago, 2006). Our study showed parents identified neighborhood disadvantage as risks for their children, including lack of social norms and collective efficacy and exposure to crime and violence. Others show that immigrant parents perceive their new environment to be more stable than the conditions they left in their home country (Soltero et al., 2016). Although this was partly the case in our sample among parents of young children (e.g., being able to go to the park), families lived in large metropolitan cities with high crime, thus safety of their children, and especially adolescent children weighed on their minds.

Arizona parents were additionally preoccupied with the anti-immigration environment in their state, which they feared might jeopardize their children’s safety and the family’s preservation. For these parents, safety might be front-and-center in their lives, and future studies could examine the salience of safety against immigration threats to interact with parents’ hopes in other areas.

Limitations

Our study relied on parent report, thereby not accounting for the perspectives of children, which could shed light on generational processes guiding parenting strategies. Research by Macias and Knudson-Martin (2014) shows how adolescents internalize parental messages of sacrifice, and offers an initial understanding of how youth negotiate their parents’ hopes and strategies. Moreover, our study was conducted during a time when immigration policy was driven by state politics, which in recent years has grown to a national arena. Therefore, our findings of parents in Texas may look different in the current climate. Additionally, we do not know for certain how many parents in Texas and Arizona were undocumented. Tracking this information explicitly, while protecting family identities, could provide a more nuanced understanding of the differential perceived impact of immigration policy on families of various immigration statuses. Finally, although the few fathers in our study shed light on gender norms and pressures among immigrant families of Mexican origin, our small sample size limited our ability to understand the complexity of these dynamics.

Implications

Limitations notwithstanding, with a social ecological lens on parenting, this study has implications for future research with immigrant families of Mexican origin. To date, much research on parenting in these families has focused on cultural values and acculturative processes, missing an opportunity to explore broader structural and environmental influences in contemporary society (Castañeda et al., 2015). Although social policy, climate, and immigration status are not deterministic, they intersect with family priorities of safety, moral development, and economic and educational advancement at a particular time when parents prepare to “launch” their children into the world. As these structural forces aim to threaten and deprive families who are legally vulnerable (Barajas-Gonzalez et al., 2021), how parents reach for the goals they have for their children in a constrained environment, is a crucial direction in family research. This will require a stance of social justice and liberation that focuses on income inequality, racism and discrimination, and immigration enforcement, among others (Walsdorf et al., 2019).

This study begins to uncover the parenting and gendered impacts of these factors on parents who live in harsh immigration climates. More research with fathers, and balanced mother-father samples, should illuminate how structural factors affect mothers and fathers differently, and guides their parenting and influence on children. Additionally, research that compares parental hopes and parenting among families with older children versus younger children, could highlight how the chronosystem positions social ecological factors relative to the developmental tasks and trajectories of families (e.g., the family life cycle) and children.

In terms of clinical implications, the study sheds light on the binational experiences of immigrant families that influence parents’ hopes and expectations. Practitioners working with youth and parents of immigrant background could frame conversations about parental expectations on the lived experiences that drive parents’ desire to empower youth (Macias & Knudson-Martin, 2014). For example, parents’ narratives of sacrifice could be linked to values of personal and family advancement that are anchored in their childhood and cultural and economic trajectories. In these facilitated conversations, practitioners could encourage youth discovery and affirmation about parents’ experiences, and search for values and experiences of youth that map onto parents’ journey so as to promote a narrative of empowerment and unity (Macias & Knudson-Martin, 2014). Simultaneously, practitioners could help parents explore the alignment of their own expectations with children’s experiences and hopes as they navigate the worlds of the family and the external pressures of U.S. society. The goal of this intervention would be to reduce acculturative stress between parents and youth, support youths’ unique needs in their U.S. environments, and reinforce shared competencies and spaces of belonging in Mexican and U.S. worlds (Smokowski & Bacallao, 2011; Valdez et al., 2021).

Additionally, understanding how immigration enforcement in Arizona shapes the daily lives of families and the constraint of this climate on hopes and parenting strategies, could inform coordinated family-focused clinical and advocacy efforts. Practitioners should explore and address the level of burden that families experience from their environment, and assist families in identifying resources for advocacy within the community (Walsdorf et al., 2019). Racial/ethnic healing approaches (French et al., 2019) that emphasize families’ critical consciousness and strength and resistance, among others, should also be pursued (Valdez et al., 2021).