Linguistic Acculturation and Context on Self-EsteemHispanic.docx

Linguistic Acculturation and Context on Self-Esteem:
Hispanic Youth Between Cultures
Rose M. Perez
Published online: 16 February 2011
� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract Immigrant adolescents must negotiate two cultures: the
host culture and
their native culture. This study explored how self-esteem is
moderated by the effect
of linguistic acculturation and context. An ordinary least-
squares regression model,
controlling for fixed effects, produced results supporting the
hypothesis that
linguistic acculturation moderates the effect of context on self-
esteem. The self-
esteem of Hispanic adolescents who were less linguistically
acculturated was found
to be more favorable when with family than with friends and the
reverse was found
for the more linguistically acculturated participants.
Adolescents in the middle of

the linguistic acculturation process had the widest variance in
self-esteem between
times they were with their families and times in other contexts;
they experienced
more positive self-esteem with anyone but family. Findings
underscore the need to
better understand the complex process of linguistic
acculturation and its effects on
self-esteem. This research also demonstrates the practical utility
of a fixed-effects
model for reducing bias in cross-cultural research.
Keywords Linguistic acculturation � Hispanics � Fixed effects
� Self-esteem �
Experience Sampling Method (ESM)
Hispanic immigrants and their children are not only the fastest
growing population
in this country, but they are also among the poorest (Portes and
Rumbaut 2006).
The author welcomes communication at the Fordham University
Graduate School of Social Service.
She wishes to acknowledge the dissertation committee who
helped guide completion of a doctoral
dissertation on which this article is based.
R. M. Perez (&)

Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, 113
West 60th Street,
New York, NY 10023, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
123
Child Adolesc Soc Work J (2011) 28:203–228
DOI 10.1007/s10560-011-0228-y
For Hispanic youth, the pathway to higher social mobility is
fraught with formidable
obstacles, like discrimination and suboptimal inner-city schools,
that render them
unprepared for the challenges of the labor market, and it
appears that, counter to
traditional patterns of immigrant incorporation, they are
experiencing downward
adjustment. This becomes a problem for Hispanics, and for U.S.
society as a whole,
given the increasing size of the Hispanic population. If Hispanic
educational and
economic indicators do not improve, as their proportions grow,
poverty in the
United States will grow correspondingly.

Redfield et al. (1936) defined acculturation as the ‘‘phenomena
which result when
groups of individuals having different cultures come into
continuous first-hand
contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural
patterns of either or both
groups.’’ Yet, time in the United States is typically associated
with second-culture
acquisition (Rudmin 2010), part of a complex and stressful
process (Ward 1996).
For Hispanic youth, acculturation often occurs in a context
influenced by, often
hostile environments that are not easy to navigate. Arguably,
the multifaceted
process of acculturation can add to the already tumultuous
emotions experienced in
adolescence and may impact self-esteem. As a result, immigrant
youth acculturate
in different ways, influenced in large part by the contexts with
which they interact
(Piedra and Engstrom 2009). The contextual changes that young
immigrants face in
the normal course of their lives may vary widely and if these
contexts are culturally

distant from one another, the cultural norms between them can
be difficult to
reconcile. For instance, a young person who has little mastery
of the English
language may not have a positive sense of self when in the
company of more
acculturated peers or classmates. In those cases, they may feel
closer to their
families with whom they are likely to be more culturally
matched (e.g., how they
value the importance of family) and despite the generational
differences.
Poor self-esteem has been associated problem behaviors, like
dropping out of
school and poor social and behavioral adjustment (Weiner
2000). More broadly, a
recent trend, referred to as the ‘‘immigrant health paradox’’ is
based on, a consistent,
and growing body of evidence mostly from the field of
epidemiology suggests that
acculturated adolescents experience lower levels of well-being
than less accultur-
ated counterparts in the United States (Harker 2001; Mendoza et
al. 2007; Rumbaut

1997). Although findings of this paradox are too numerous to
cite and largely
focused on Mexicans (Alegrı́a et al. 2008), consider that in a
sample of Hispanic
adolescents, acculturation has been associated with higher
substance use (Greenman
and Xie 2008; Turner and Gil 2002), chronic illness (Wickrama
et al. 2007), and
lower risky sexual behaviors (Weiss and Tillman 2009). Vega
and Alegrı́a (2001)
found some support to suggest that Hispanics have better mental
health upon arrival
than after achieving higher levels of acculturation. Researchers
exploring the
possible reasons for negative association between acculturation
and well-being
often include loss of family resources such as conflicts within
families stemming
from acculturation gaps between parents and their children as
factors shown to
reduce family cohesion (Smokowski et al. 2007, 2008). As
Hispanics, defined as
people who trace their ancestry to countries that share a
common language, history,

and certain cultural traits, which may or may not carry across
the generations as the
peoples acculturate (Cafferty 1985), continue to increase in size
it is important to
204 R. M. Perez
123
understand their continuing problematic patterns of
acculturation, which run counter
to the popular notion that immigrants are better off
acculturating.
Today more is known about the important role that acculturation
plays as a
moderator of the well-being of Hispanic youth, and it is
acknowledged that full
assimilation into mainstream U.S. life does not take place in
just one generation.
The relationship between acculturation and self-esteem has been
found to vary in
myriad ways (Berry et al. 2006; Bornstein and Cote 2007; Lang
et al. 1982). Much
of the variation in findings may be attributed to methodological
differences in how

acculturation is conceptualized and measured (Rudmin 2009).
As an individual-
level proxy for acculturation, language acquisition occurs
quickly, especially in
young people. Furthermore, it captures a complex process that
includes affective,
cognitive, and behavioral components (Cuéllar et al. 1995).
Language fluency has
been shown to account for a large portion of the variance in
multiple-item measures
(Rogler et al. 1991) and it continues to function as the most
broadly used measure of
cultural practice. All acculturation scales, whether complex or
simple, are imperfect
in some ways. Escobar and Vega (2000), after reviewing the
literature, recommend
using individual measures (e.g., language and length of stay)
rather than
multidimensional ones with uncertain value, as is currently the
case in the field,
until a single acculturation measure is fully validated
scientifically.
Because little is known about a young Hispanic’s well-being as
they interact with

different and probably widely differing environments, this study
set out to
understand the inter-relationships between acculturation, the
contexts in which
youth interact, and their effect on self-esteem. Data collected
using the Experience
Sampling Method, a repetitive sampling technique that assessed
adolescents’ self-
esteem in many different contexts throughout the course of one
week, is analyzed in
this study to argue that acculturation and context moderate self-
esteem. Using
advanced statistical design that allowed background differences
to be held constant
to reduce bias contributes to the literature on better
understanding the role of
acculturation, context, and self-esteem across groups dissimilar
in many socio-
economic dimensions (e.g., parental income, personality, age,
and gender). This
study can assist policy makers and practitioners to better
position programs and
policies in ways that better reflect on the experiences and needs
of this population.

Person-Context Perspective
The effects on well-being from interactions between people and
the contexts in
which time is spent are important aspects of ecologically valid
assessment
(Bronfenbrenner 1986). Ecologically valid assessment views a
person’s well-being
holistically, part of a broader system related to the environment
of which he or she is
a part (Sameroff 1995). Ecological theorizing is a core social-
work perspective. The
perspective of person-context interaction congruence is
predicated on the idea that
people’s well-being will be better when they are living in
contexts in which they
feel there is a good fit (Emmons et al. 1985). For example, if
youth are happy when
in the context of family they are likely to benefit from
socialization better than if
they were in conflict with their parents on a regular basis. The
person-context
Language & Context on Self-Esteem 205
123

congruence perspective is a helpful theoretical lens through
which one can observe
the effect of acculturation and context on self-esteem. The
importance of studying
complex person-in-an-environment effects on well-being is
highlighted in the
literature on stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). For
example,
adolescents who are better able to focus their attention on
challenging and
productive activities have been found to be more resilient than
those who cannot
(Garmezy et al. 1984). Therefore, if there is congruence
between spending time with
friends and acculturation level, an adolescent’s self-esteem
should be positive
relative to other contexts in which he or she spends time. For
instance, if adolescents
are interested in fitting into peer culture, and they feel accepted
when in the context
of peers, it is expected that they will report positive self-
esteem.

As Hispanic immigrant youth acculturate to U.S. life, they face
many linguistic
and cultural challenges along the way and sometimes these
adversely affect their
well-being—including self-esteem. Hispanic youth upon arrival
struggle to adapt to
the culture and language of the United States and during this
time they must
reconcile among the different contexts in which they spend
time. Usually by virtue
of being in school, younger individuals learn the language of
the host culture
relatively easily and adapt rapidly, although acculturation can
be moderated by the
surrounding cultures of the communities in which they live.
Parents are typically
slower to learn English. Cultural and linguistic retention are
likely to be of more
practical value in communities where the immigrant’s native
language is widely
spoken. Among immigrant adolescents in the United States,
unless they are recently
arrived the preferred language is typically English. For many,
learning a second

language means losing their first (Fillmore 1991). If their first
language was
Spanish, it is possible that their parents are bilingual or have
yet to learn English. As
a result, language use is an effective proxy measure. For
example, youth who speak
Spanish are likely to have arrived recently in the United States.
Among those whose
first language was Spanish, they are likely to be speaking
English after a few years
in the United States, but their parents are likely to retain
Spanish longer and, by
proxy, most likely their culture as well. Youth whose first
language was English
likely have highly acculturated parents with whom they are
probably culturally
matched.
Context and Self-Esteem
The important role that context—defined as time spent with
people such as family,
friends, at school, with others, or alone—plays in the lives of
immigrant youth
cannot be understated. Immigrant youth on any given day can
enter into many

different types of contexts ranging from situations that require
varying levels of
acculturation. For instance, with parents who are less
acculturated and who do not
speak English, they must accommodate to their acculturation
level. A reverse
situation more than likely occurs at school, where the language
of instruction is
typically English. As youth enter and exit these widely different
contexts they must
on their own reconcile their beliefs and ideas and make
decisions about which set of
206 R. M. Perez
123
norms and values they will adopt. This can be terribly confusing
during times where
the contexts differ significantly from one another.
Self-esteem is one of many variables that are often used to
assess well-being
among youth. However, self-esteem has been assessed as a
global measure or one

that is context-dependent. This study focuses on the latter
definition, where less is
known. A context-dependent measure of self-esteem means that
assessing it can
vary greatly depending on the circumstances that individuals are
experiencing when
they are being assessed. James (1890) first identified the
importance of context
regarding self-esteem when he described it as the ratio of
expectations to
achievement. In this definition, self-esteem fluctuates according
to the particular
conditions of the context, or state. An individual’s perceived
achievement of a goal
is related to the importance that the individual places on
achievement of that
particular goal. Hence, under this definition, self-esteem
depends on the frame of
reference, including the context, where the subjective judgments
that individuals use
to evaluate their accomplishments take place. In this two-part
process, the
individual’s perception of success or failure to reach goals
influences the outcome.
Thus, lowered expectations can increase self-esteem, and

expectations that are too
high can result in unfulfilled accomplishments and therefore
lower self-esteem.
Students with higher self-esteem are believed to be better
adjusted, be more
accomplished in school, and have close, trusting relationships
with their parents
(Gove et al. 1990).
The level of acculturation and contexts in which youth spend
time play an
important role in how youth feel about themselves.
Psychologists and sociologists
have used self-esteem measures to evaluate levels of well-being
between
immigrants and nonimmigrants and between immigrants of
different generations
(Berry et al. 2006; Leondari 2001). Some studies have explored
the relationship
between the level of acculturation and global self-esteem;
however, findings have
been inconclusive. The effects of contextual factors on self-
esteem warrant
consideration (Boden et al. 2008). For example, in the context
of the Hispanic

family, family cohesion has been observed to weaken with
acculturation to U.S. life
(Sabogal et al. 1987). A consequence of family conflict as a
young person adapts to
U.S. life contributes to lowered well-being, including self-
esteem (Portes and Zady
2002; Smokowski and Bacallao 2007).
In families, self-esteem can be used to detect the presence or
absence of
conflict, although conflict within a family is a difficult variable
to define and
measure (Pawlak and Klein 1997). Vega et al. (1995) reported
that both low- and
high-acculturation groups experienced conflict related to
language use. The less
acculturated reported experiencing stress both at home and at
school. The more
acculturated reported experiencing language conflicts,
perceiving discrimination,
and feeling that they were in a closed society. The authors
speculated that the
native-born/high-acculturation group might perceive
discrimination to be a

greater hindrance to their desire to succeed than the less
acculturated group.
Success is an integral part of the self-esteem equation as
defined by James
(1890).
The importance of family as a perceived source of support has
been found to be
robust across different Hispanic subgroups (e.g., Mexicans,
Cubans, and Central
123
Americans) (Sabogal et al. 1987) but has been found to manifest
differently between
Anglo and Mexican cultures (Luna et al. 1996). Familism,
which refers to the
within-family support systems is typically identified as
protective factors for young
Hispanics. Family cohesion has been found to be a protective
factor against
adolescent acting out (e.g., conduct problems, aggressive
behavior, and rule-
breaking) (Marsiglia et al. 2009). Hispanics who follow

familismo and retain aspects
of native culture are believed to enjoy closer family bonds in a
collective and
respectful orientation. Respeto, or respect for elders, is an
example of another
Hispanic/U.S. cultural difference. Acculturating Hispanic youth
may offend their
elders if they internalize the U.S. norm, which emphasizes the
individual’s rights
and autonomy.
A problematic aspect of acculturation is that often younger
family members
outpace older ones by learning the language of the host society
more rapidly,
something that facilitates their access to societal institutions.
Asymmetrical
acculturation such as this can introduce an acculturation gap
with the potential
for family discord (Kwak 2003; Portes and Rumbaut 2006;
Szapocznik et al. 1986)
and increased intergenerational conflict (Szapocznik et al.
1986). Acculturation gaps
in Hispanic families have been found to be inversely associated
with familial
obligation (Sabogal et al. 1987) and family cohesion

(Smokowski et al. 2008).
Parent-adolescent conflict, which has been found to increase
over subsequent
immigrant generations has been shown to moderate the negative
association
between acculturation and self-esteem (Dennis et al. 2010).
Indeed, when children
acculturate faster than their parents, as often happens, conflicts
in the family occur,
creating additional stressors for its members (Szapocznik et al.
1986).
Prior studies found that adolescents in the United States
allocate more of their
time to their friends than to their families. They also reported
that they enjoyed the
time they spent with their friends much more than the time they
spent with their
families. Although this is likely to be normative behavior (and
attitude) in
adolescence, it is of concern because it may get in the way of
receiving needed
sanctions from parents, which is a necessary part of the
socialization process
(Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984). For instance, some

research has found lack of
delinquency related to time spent with family on weekends
(Pabon 1998), and, more
generally, parental monitoring (Halgunseth et al. 2006). Of
course, it should be
noted that some research has found that peers can play a
positive role in the lives of
adolescents (Youniss and Smollar 1985), and this can be an
important source of self-
esteem. Thus, the existing literature has not focused much on
understanding how
Hispanic adolescents differ on the amount of time they spend
across different
contexts and this too will be explored in this study.
Other contexts besides family and friends have also been found
to affect the self-
esteem of young people (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984;
Csikszentmihalyi and
Schneider 2000). Some studies found students to be unhappy or
disengaged,
whereas others found that Hispanic students, more than any
other ethnic/racial
group, experience higher levels of enjoyment and affect
(measured by scores on a

scale measuring sociable, proud, happy, and relaxed) in school
(Shernoff et al.
2000). Time spent alone is not associated with positive
emotions (Hunter and
Csikszentmihalyi 2003; Larson and Csikszentmihalyi 1980), but
it can act as a stress
208 R. M. Perez
123
buffer (Larson and Lee 1996) and arguably is needed to engage
in productive tasks
(Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984). For introverted personality
types, spending
time alone has been found to be more problematic than for the
extroverted
(Brandstätter 1994).
Summary and Hypothesis
This study is motivated by the important and growing concern
of the downward
effects of acculturation (and its concomitant constructs, lowered
family cohesion
and conflict) on the well-being of Hispanic adolescents. Using

the lens of person-
context congruence to understand the dynamic changes in self-
esteem correspond-
ing with changes in the contexts where adolescents spend time,
this research set out
to better understand whether acculturation and context together
moderate self-
esteem. There have been studies that explored the effects of
acculturation on self-
esteem and there are studies that support the idea that self-
esteem has state and trait
qualities. However, not much is known about how self-esteem
changes in response
to changes in context together with the level of acculturation. It
is also important to
consider the effect of background differences of participants
(e.g., personality) on
self-esteem because of their potential for biasing results. In
nonexperimental
research, it is difficult to compare groups, because people vary
in many ways.
Because self-esteem is thought to have both state (i.e.,
momentary or fluid qualities
varying according to the circumstances in which one finds

oneself) and trait (i.e.,
global personality) qualities, one way to isolate the effect of
contextual changes
while holding trait constant is to employ person-context
congruence models, which
help researchers to assess moment-by-moment changes in self-
esteem. It is equally
helpful to control for background differences by employing
statistical techniques
(e.g., fixed-effects models) that hold background differences
constant (Wooldridge
2006).
This study explores differences in language use, context, and
the associated self-
esteem changes while comparing cross-cultural groups. Drawing
on person-context
congruence theories, the focus is on how self-esteem changes
when adolescents
move from one context to another. This study explores how
youth at different levels
of linguistic acculturation feel in the various contexts where
they spend significant
amounts of time and that are important to their development.
Particular emphasis is

placed on how youth at different levels of linguistic
acculturation feel when with
family versus nonfamily. If, for example, poorly linguistically
acculturated youth
have better self-esteem with family than with friends, and the
reverse is true of more
linguistically acculturated youth, linguistic acculturation can be
said to moderate the
experience between context (e.g., family) and self-esteem.
Controlling for
unobserved background differences, and the type of activity
youth were engaged
in, we would predict that linguistic acculturation would
moderate the effect of
context on self-esteem. Specifically, given prior research, we
hypothesize that with
increased linguistic acculturation, self-esteem will be lower
with family than with
friends and others.
123

Methodology
Research Design
This study used data from a large, nationally representative
sample employing the
Experience Sampling Method (ESM). ESM, a technique popular
in positive
psychology, employs a repeated-measure assessment technique
over the course of
1 week to assist with in situ data collection, which provides
higher reliability than
methods based on one-time questionnaires that rely on recall
(Csikszentmihalyi and
Schneider 2000). In this study, ESM helps us understand how
linguistic
acculturation moderates the adolescent experience of emotional
well-being in
important contexts, especially between home and friends. Use of
a fixed-effects
model to analyze ESM data is advantageous because it can
control for background
differences, often a major problem in cross-cultural assessments
(Wooldridge 2006).
Although many ESM researchers aggregate the data to the
person level, this study

uses a fixed-effects statistical model, which makes it possible to
analyze how self-
esteem changes from moment to moment as participants enter
different contexts—
with family, friends, school, alone, or elsewhere. The model
also allows the
researcher to control for background differences (i.e., fixed
effects).
Sample
Participants for this study were drawn from the first wave of
data, gathered in
1992–1993, from the longitudinal Alfred P. Sloan Study of
Youth and Social
Development, which had three waves of ESM data extending to
1997. Sloan Center
researchers sought participants from 33 public middle and high
schools, in 12
locations across the country, with diverse levels of
urbanization, racial/ethnic
composition, and economic diversity, in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12.
A protocol for
collecting this data in a way that protected human subjects was
in place at the

University of Chicago, where a team of faculty and students
received IRB approval
for the study.
This study focuses principally on Hispanic adolescents. For this
analysis, 796
participants met selection criteria. Each of these participants
filled out up to 56
Experience Sampling Forms (ESFs), thereby contributing
22,335 response sets,
which were then analyzed. (This approach will be discussed in
the section on
procedures and data analysis, below.) Of the Hispanic
subsample for this study,
which totaled 105, about 66% were of Mexican descent, 10%
were Puerto Rican,
1% were Cuban, and the remainder were from various countries
in Latin America.
All Hispanic participants were included in order to attain
sufficient power, given the
large number of variables needed for analysis. Hispanics were
contrasted with three
comparison groups: 487 White non-Hispanic, English-dominant
participants who
met the inclusion criteria for comparison purposes; 158 non-

Hispanic others whose
first and current language was English (mostly African
Americans); and 46 who
reported speaking multiple languages as children and/or in the
present adolescent
period.
210 R. M. Perez
123
Procedures
To ensure that participants understood the instruments they
would be completing,
participants met in groups with a researcher before and after the
study. Student
participants were asked to fill out the same ESM instrument
multiple times during
the course of a week, to a maximum of 56 response sets per
participant. Participants
were instructed to fill out their questionnaires each time their
preprogrammed
wristwatches signaled them to do so. These signals were set to
go off at eight

random times per day for up to 7 days.
Measures and Variables
Instruments
A one-time questionnaire, NELS, based on the National
Education Longitudinal
Study 1988–1994, provided language data (Hafner et al. 1990).
Following the ESM,
an ESF was filled out each time a participant was signaled (up
to a possible total of
56 ESFs). Although not all participants responded to all
questions, multiple
responses were recorded for most participants. All instruments
were administered in
Spanish or English, according to participants’ language
preference.
Techniques such as ESM (Prescott et al. 1981) facilitate the
exploration
of person-context interactions (Csikszentmihalyi and
Csikszentmihalyi 1988;
Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984; Csikszentmihalyi and
Schneider 2000), and
because they obtain repeated measures for each individual,
score high in reliability

(Hektner et al. 2002). ESM gathers multiple scores per
respondent unobtrusively,
because no interviewer is present, and in situ, in the context in
which the participant
is engaged when surveyed (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1987;
Hormuth 1986;
Moneta and Csikszentmihalyi 1996). There is no reliance on
participants’ ability to
recall deep emotions, which are often difficult to remember,
much less express.
Outcome Variable: Self-Esteem
The self-esteem variable is a composite (average) score based
on select items from
the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; to reduce participant fatigue,
some scales were
shortened (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1987). Self-esteem
items included ‘‘living
up to the expectations of others,’’ ‘‘living up to your own
expectations,’’ ‘‘feeling
good about self,’’ ‘‘succeeding at present activity,’’ and
‘‘feeling in control’’ on a
scale from 0 to 9 (0 = ‘‘not at all’’; 9 = ‘‘very much’’). One
additional variable,
‘‘Were you succeeding at what you were doing?,’’ originally on

a 1–9 scale, was
transformed to a 0–9 scale.
Explanatory Set of Variables: Context
The mutually exclusive binary variables for context are defined
by time when the
respondent filled out the ESF: when engaged in schoolwork,
alone, with friends,
with families, or in other contexts.
123
Schoolwork. The first was time defined by occasions when the
respondent
specified being at a place categorized by a coder as schoolwork;
if these times
overlapped with other contexts, only time in this context
counted.
Alone. Time alone consists of time with no one else.
Family. The family variable includes times when the participant
reported being
with mother, father, both, a sibling, or another relative and in
no other context.
Friends. Time with friends consists of times when the
participant was with a

friend but in no other context.
Other contexts. Times in other contexts include occasions when
the respondent
was with relatives, siblings, strangers, or others, as well as in
multiple contexts,
but not at school or work. When a participant’s time overlapped
with other
contexts, the responses were placed into the ‘‘other context’’
variable.
The categories were forced to be mutually exclusive and
exhaustive and
the variable ‘‘family’’ was left out of the regression equations.
Main effects
for ‘‘context’’ may be included in the fixed-effects model
because context varies
for each individual (variation by response signal rather than just
between
individuals).
Explanatory Set of Variables: Acculturation Group
Based on two binary variables (race/ethnicity and language),
participants were
placed into six acculturation groups representing a continuum
between unaccultur-
ated and acculturated states.

Less-Linguistically Acculturated Hispanics. For the first of
these, the less-
linguistically acculturated Hispanics group, Spanish was the
first language they
learned to speak and still spoke most often at the time of the
study.
Somewhat-Linguistically Acculturated Hispanics. For the
second group, the
somewhat linguistically acculturated Hispanics, the first
language learned was
Spanish, but English was currently spoken most often.
Linguistically Acculturated Hispanics. The third, the
linguistically acculturated
Hispanics group, consists of Hispanics whose first and current
language was
English.
White Non-Hispanic English-Dominant. The principal
benchmark group, against
which all of the Hispanic subgroups were compared, constituted
the fourth group,
White, non-Hispanic English-dominant, whose first and current
language was
English. Other benchmark groups were included to better
compare Hispanics.
Multiple Languages. The fifth group, a multiple-languages
group, consisted of

participants of any ethnic heritage who spoke multiple
languages, either from
birth or at the time of the interview.
Non-Hispanic Other. The sixth group, non-Hispanic other,
included all non-
Hispanic participants who were neither Hispanic nor White;
these were non-
Hispanic and non-White participants whose first and current
dominant language
was English.
212 R. M. Perez
123
Explanatory Set of Variables: Moderators of Linguistic
Acculturation
and Context
The self-esteem of Hispanic youth at various levels of linguistic
acculturation is
expected to vary with the context that respondents are in. These
mutually exclusive
and exhaustive binary variables consist of designations formed
by the interaction
between the binary linguistic acculturation group variable (less-

linguistically
acculturated Hispanics, somewhat linguistically acculturated
Hispanics, linguisti-
cally acculturated Hispanics, White, non-Hispanic English-
dominant, multiple-
language, non-Hispanic other) and the binary context variable
(with family, with
friends, in school or work, alone, or other contexts). The
linguistic acculturation
group variable does not vary for an individual, and cannot be
used in a fixed-effects
model; however, their inclusion is allowed by matching them
with context variables
that fluctuate from observation to observation.
Control Variables: Activities
Explicit control variables for the types of activities engaged in
were measured by
the ESM survey question, ‘‘What was the main thing you were
doing?’’ Responses
to this question were classified into five categories of binary
variables: leisure, work,
maintenance (e.g., brushing teeth), deviant, and distressed. The
criteria used to
categorize activities are roughly similar to those found by
Csikszentmihalyi and

Schneider (2000). Cases in which the respondent failed to
specify the activity being
performed at the time of the response signal were dropped from
the model. For
instance, activities involving personal care, sitting, relaxing, or
thinking were
classified as maintenance. Talking to someone, going to a
movie, playing sports, and
so on, were classified as leisure. A ‘‘distressed’’ activity
consisted of a situation in
which the person was crying or in emotional pain (e.g.,
attending a funeral). The
reference group in the equation is leisure; because these
variables represent all
leisure activities and the remaining variables are mutually
exclusive and exhaustive,
leisure was left out of the regression model.
Data Analysis Using a Fixed-Effects Model
To explore how the effect of linguistic acculturation on self-
esteem varies by
context, while controlling explicitly for the type of activity
participants were
involved in, this study used an analytic framework with a fixed-

effects, multiple-
regression model. Fixed-effects regression models allowed
participants’ self-esteem
scores in one context (e.g., when with parents) to be observed
relative to another
context (e.g., friends). Relative within-person contextually
based measures have,
among other advantages, the ability to avoid inexact
comparisons across people and
allow person-by-context factors to be assessed firsthand.
Exploration of relative
changes in how a person feels across different contexts, as
opposed to comparisons
between groups, helps to control for group heterogeneity.
Fixed-effects models are
123
useful in controlling for unobserved background differences
across participants and
in helping to reduce autocorrelation in the data.
Figure 1 shows a schematic of the proposed general fixed-
effects model. The

people with whom time is spent define context. Acculturation
groups are implicitly
controlled because demographic and other person-level
characteristics that do not
change within the person automatically drop out of a fixed-
effects model. The only
way in which the person-level variables do not drop out of the
equation is by
matching them with variables that do not drop out. So, this
study created interaction
terms between the person-level variables that do not change
from person to person
in the course of 1 week (e.g., linguistic acculturation) with each
of the context
variables (e.g., family, friends), which do change as participants
went from one
context to the next during the course of the study. The
interaction terms are change
scores showing how participants’ self-esteem was experienced.
Observations of
linguistic acculturation group by context are measurable and
were useful for
answering the research questions of interest. In addition, any
unobserved person-

level characteristics that do not change within the person, as
well as specified
(i.e., observed) activities in which adolescents engage, are
controlled.
The fixed-effects model demonstrates the relationship between
self-esteem and
other variables using ordinary least squares with fixed effects.
y ¼ bo þ X1b1 þ X2b2 þ X3b3 þ X4b4 þ ai þ e
where y stands for one of three well-being indicators, b0 is the
constant, X1 is a
vector of activity variables, X2 is a vector of context variables,
X3 is a vector of
interaction terms, X4 stands for the time varying intercept
(response signal dummies
1… 56), ai is the expected unobserved time invariant effects
where i indicates
person 1… N.
Controls Acculturation (Implicitly controlled)*
Activities (work, maintenance, leisure,
deviant, distressed)
Unobserved fixed effects
Less-acculturated Hispanics (Spanish)
Somewhat acculturated Hispanics
Acculturated Hispanics (English)
White non-Hispanics (English)
Multiple languages
Non-Hispanic Other (English)

Self-esteem
Context
Family
Friends
Alone
School/Work
Other
Fig. A fixed-effects model where linguistic acculturation group
moderates context. * A main effect of
linguistic acculturation cannot be explicitly estimated using
fixed effects because it does not vary within
an individual
214 R. M. Perez
123
Fixed-effects models correct for methodological problems, such
as omitted
variable bias and some autocorrelation, while allowing full use
of the dataset. Fixed-
effects models implicitly control for any unmeasured trait that
varies between, but
not within, individuals over time, and eliminate the dependence
found in
longitudinal data.
Results

Descriptive
Descriptive statistics are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Applying
chi-square statistics to
person-level data, Table 1 shows that participants’ demographic
characteristics
differ across the language use groups with respect to grade,
socioeconomic class of
community, and gender. Also, participants appear to spend the
bulk of their time on
leisure activities, followed by work and maintenance tasks (see
Table 2). The
context in which they spent the bulk of their time was on
schoolwork (ranging from
31% of the less linguistically acculturated Hispanics to 40.5%
for the most
linguistically acculturated Hispanics). Time with family
occupied the next highest
time allocation with White non-Hispanics spending the least
amount of time (20%)
with family, to less acculturated Hispanics spending 33% of
their time with family.
Across all groups, time spent with friends rather than
schoolwork was minor; less

acculturated Hispanics allocated 5% of their time with friends,
whereas the most
linguistically acculturated Hispanics spent 11% of their time
with friends.
Interestingly, less acculturated Hispanics spent the least amount
of time on
schoolwork and the most with family. Also, employing Wald
chi-square statistics on
disaggregated data, Table 2 shows that the groups differ
significantly in some but
not all of the types of activities in which they engaged and the
contexts in which
they spent time. Participants in the different language-use
groups differed
significantly only on time spent at leisure and maintenance.
Within each context,
there were significant differences between the groups on
schoolwork, family, and
friends. All in all, these results confirm the presence of
intergroup heterogeneity,
which was controlled by the fixed-effects model. Fixed-effects
models, by holding
all person-level differences constant, minimize measurement
bias.

Fixed Effects
Using STATA to analyze data, controlling for fixed effects, or
rather background
differences across participants, and also the type of activity
engaged in (e.g., work,
maintenance, deviant, or distressed), data support the
hypothesis that linguistic
acculturation moderates the effect of context on self-esteem.
For most of the
participant groups studied, results showed that linguistic
acculturation level did
indeed moderate the effect of context. In other words, the
combination of
participants’ level of linguistic acculturation and whom they
spend time with,
tempered participants’ ability to experience positive or negative
self-esteem relative
to being with family. The hypothesis was that with increased
linguistic
123
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216 R. M. Perez
123
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123
acculturation, self-esteem was predicted to be lower with family

than with friends;
prior research showed that familism declines with acculturation
and that gaps grow
as children outpace their parents in the linguistic acculturation
process. However,
results are more nuanced than anticipated. Instead of seeing a
progression toward
higher self-esteem with friends than with family as linguistic
acculturation
increased, it was the group in the middle, the somewhat
linguistically acculturated,
rather than those at the high end of the linguistic acculturation
process, who had
higher self-esteem with friends than with family.
Table 3 Fixed-effects results (n = 796 participants contributing
22,335 response signals)
Self-esteem
B SE Sig.
Deviant -0.36 .26
Work 0.21 .03 ***
Maintenance -0.18 .03 ***
Distressed -3.07 .59 ***

Friends 0.25 .05 ***
Friends * multiple languages -0.41 .22 *
Friends * less linguistically acculturated -0.27 .32
Friends * linguistically acculturated Hispanics -0.10 .17
Friends * somewhat acculturated Hispanics 0.57 .17 ***
Friends * non-Hispanic others -0.06 .14
Schoolwork -0.08 .04 **
Schoolwork * multiple languages 0.28 .14 **
Schoolwork * low-acculturated Hispanics 0.20 .15
Schoolwork * linguistically acculturated Hispanics 0.39 .14 ***
Schoolwork * somewhat acculturated Hispanics 0.49 .11 ***
Schoolwork * non-Hispanic others 0.11 .08
Alone 0.09 .04 **
Alone * multiple languages -0.37 .17 **
Alone * less linguistically acculturated -0.25 .21
Alone * linguistically acculturated Hispanics -0.21 .18
Alone * somewhat acculturated Hispanics 0.15 .14
Alone * non-Hispanic others -0.24 .09 **

Other 0.16 .05 **
Other * multiple languages -0.01 .24
Other * less linguistically acculturated 0.35 .22
Other * linguistically acculturated Hispanics 0.22 .23
Other * somewhat acculturated Hispanics 0.31 .17 *
Other * non-Hispanic others -0.23 .12 *
Because fixed-effects models are used, main effects for
language use group cannot be estimated by the
model. Only interaction effects for language-use group are
presented. The referent group for the activities
(deviant, work, maintenance, distressed) is leisure; for the
contexts it is White non-Hispanic, English-
dominant with family. Significance values are designated as
follows: *** p .01, ** p .05, * p .10
218 R. M. Perez
123
As can be seen in Table 3, coefficients are change scores as
participants’ self-
esteem changed from one context to the next. These are based
on changes to each

person’s base response; the first signal responded to acts as the
control to which all
subsequent responses are compared. Because all the
acculturation groups are
mutually exclusive and exhaustive, this table shows the main
effect, which is
essentially the change score for the referent group, the White
non-Hispanic English-
dominant group when with family. Because the fixed-effects
model drops all scores
that do not change within the person, all acculturation groups
were by design,
combined with the contexts, which did change from response
signal to response
signal to form interaction terms, such as low linguistically
acculturated Hispanics
with friends for example. The coefficients shown in Table 3 are
the resulting change
scores from these interactions.
In Table 3, the first coefficient within each context (friends,
schoolwork, alone,
and other), which is listed in bold letters at the beginning of
each context section,

corresponds to the referent group (i.e., White, non-Hispanic,
English-dominant
group, because the categories are mutually exclusive and
exhaustive). This is
followed by the interaction terms between each of the other
acculturation groups
and context. For example, a self-esteem coefficient of .25 (p
.001) for the
‘‘friends’’’ effect means that the White, non-Hispanic, English-
dominant group
experiences significantly more positive self-esteem when with
friends than when
with family. The interaction terms that follow within each
context represent the
moderation effect on self-esteem for each group within each
context. So, for
example, the coefficient within the friends context
corresponding to Spanish-
dominant Hispanics showed that self-esteem was moderated by -
.27 (not
significant [n.s.]). This coefficient, when added to the friend’s
effect of .25, implies
that being Spanish-dominant translates to -.03 effect on self-
esteem, meaning that
the less linguistically acculturated Hispanics experience self-

esteem no differently
with friends than with family. Likewise, going down the column
to the schoolwork
context main effect (also in bold), when engaged in schoolwork,
the White, non-
Hispanic, English-dominant group, relative to when with family
(the other referent
group), experience lower self-esteem when engaged in
schoolwork, -.08 (p .05).
The more interesting coefficients are the interaction terms
within each context and
these will be discussed next.
Assuming that the referent group, by virtue of its much larger
numerical
representation in this data, is a good proxy for host culture (to
which immigrants are
assumed to aspire to acculturate), the main-effect score in this
analysis can stand as
a benchmark to which the different groups may be compared. It
was expected that
within the friends’ context, the two more linguistically
acculturated groups would
show a higher self-esteem with friends than with family by
virtue of associated loss

of familism with acculturation described in the literature.
However, the most
linguistically acculturated Hispanics in this study, like the less
linguistically
acculturated, show no significant differences between being
with friends and being
with family; self-esteem, -.10 (n.s.). They therefore still appear
to have more
positive self-esteem with friends (as do most adolescents), but
this difference is not
significant.
123
For the less linguistically acculturated, the Spanish-dominant
group for all the
contexts except schoolwork, the effect of self-esteem was
moderated downward,
-.27 (n.s.); in other words, their negative interaction effect
scores suggest that the
group is more inclined to higher self-esteem when with family
than in any other
context but schoolwork. These results imply that the self-esteem

of the less
linguistically acculturated Hispanics is not significantly
different between times
spent with family versus friends. This outcome is noteworthy,
considering that the
effect of familism is likely to be stronger for the less
linguistically acculturated and,
conceivably, that speaking Spanish most often may distance
them from their friends
and classmates if English is the dominant language in these
contexts, as would be
expected in most U.S. cities.
By contrast, the opposite pattern is observed for the somewhat
linguistically
acculturated—those who learned Spanish first, but as
adolescents speak English
most often. It is interesting that the somewhat linguistically
acculturated have higher
self-esteem when with friends than when with family; it is
equally interesting that
the gap in self-esteem between each of the other contexts
(schoolwork, alone, or
with others) and the family context is also large for this group,
and in the same

upward (positive) direction. Data showed an upwardly
moderated effect on self-
esteem (toward the positive) for the somewhat linguistically
acculturated when with
friends, creating a self-esteem gap between friends and family
that is wider than that
of any other linguistic acculturation group. In three of the four
contexts, the
somewhat linguistically acculturated Hispanics exhibit the
widest gaps in self-
esteem relative to when with family than any other group. In
almost all cases, these
effects are statistically significant at p .05 or better.
It was expected that multiple language participants, having both
ability to speak
English and retention of native language, and by proxy culture,
would afford
multiple language speakers more versatility, enhancing their
self-esteem across
different contexts. However, the data reveal a surprising
pattern. These data showed
speakers of multiple languages to have lower self-esteem with
the friends than with
family context, -.41 (p .10), in a pattern that is similar but

more pronounced than
that of the least linguistically acculturated Hispanic group.
In sum, this study showed that being with family was associated
with higher self-
esteem for participants at low or at high linguistic acculturation
levels, but not for
those in the middle of the linguistic acculturation process.
Therefore, the idea that
the strength of family weakens with linguistic acculturation
(Sabogal et al. 1987) is
not fully explained or reflected here. The findings of this study
demonstrate that
acculturation and context did moderate self-esteem, but this did
not occur in the
expected direction. Self-esteem, defined by changes in
momentary affective states
as participants move from one context to another, is moderated
by the effect of
linguistic acculturation and context. However, where it had
been expected that self-
esteem would decline with increased linguistic acculturation, it
was found that
Hispanic adolescents at low or high linguistic acculturation
levels experience

juxtaposed patterns of self-esteem with those in the middle of
the acculturation
process. For the least and the most linguistically acculturated,
there is little
difference in self-esteem when with family versus when with
others. Being Hispanic
Spanish-language monolingual and speaking more than one
language moderated the
220 R. M. Perez
123
effect of context on self-esteem in a direction favoring positive
self-esteem with
family. In other words, these groups are more likely to be happy
with both family
and friends. By contrast, those in the middle of the linguistic
acculturation path,
termed the ‘‘somewhat linguistically acculturated,’’ appear to
have higher self-
esteem with anyone other than family.
At the low and high ends of the linguistic acculturation
spectrum—the high and
the low acculturated more than the bilinguals, Hispanic

adolescents are more likely
to experience more person-context cultural congruence when
with their parents/
family. At the low end, those whose first language and current
language preference
was Spanish, are more than likely youth in monolingual families
where (at least
from a linguistic perspective) there is more congruence.
Participants at the high end
of the linguistic acculturation process (i.e., individuals who
reported learning
English first and but currently speak English most of the time)
probably come from
English monolingual families; again, there is language
congruence, because for the
participants to have learned English first, the parents had to
have known how to
speak English. In these instances, the low and high linguistic
acculturation groups’
results showed a clear pattern of linguistic acculturation
moderating the experience
in favor of family rather than friends. For the middle group, the
somewhat
linguistically acculturated, who first learned Spanish but

reported that currently
English is spoken most, results show a marked preference for
time with friends
rather than with family, supporting the idea that cultural
incongruence may be a
factor in the family context.
Discussion
These findings contribute to the literature on the effect of
and context on self-esteem. This study, by showing that
linguistic acculturation and
context moderated self-esteem, suggests that the complex
relationships between the
different contexts in which youth spend time, combined with
their level of linguistic
acculturation, affect their emotional well-being. However,
although it had been
hypothesized that the emotional distance between parents and
children would have
been most evident as acculturation increased, this was not the
case. The patterns
observed in this research were not as predicted by the loss of
family cohesion,

suspected to be at root of many findings in the immigrant health
paradox research—
where declines in well-being have been observed as
acculturation increases. In a
study such as this, where adolescent’s self-esteem was
evaluated in different
contexts relative to when with parents, it had been expected that
youth at higher
levels of linguistic acculturation would have lower self-esteem
with their families
than with their friends by virtue of expected declines in
familism over time, as
orientation to dominant culture and away from the culture of
parents coincides with
acculturation. However, the evidence supports a different idea—
that it is the middle
of the process that more clearly showed a pattern of low self-
esteem with family
than in any other context.
Specific concern for the middle of the process was evident in
these findings. As
compared to low or high linguistic acculturation, participants in
the middle of the

123
acculturation process experienced significantly higher self-
esteem in any context but
with their families. More research is needed to unpack this
interesting finding. Time
with family is important for socialization. Also, familism,
especially for Hispanic
families (Gonzales et al. 2004) has been identified as a
protective factor for
immigrant youth against depression (Gil-Rivas et al. 2003). The
results of this study
indicate that the parent-youth dynamics of Hispanics in the
middle of the
acculturation process needs to be better understood. The results
support various
explanations. For instance, as posited long ago by Park and
Stonequist, it is possible
that home life is very difficult for Hispanic youth mid-process.
Alternatively,
acculturating Hispanics in the middle of the process may be
adapting to the aspect
of U.S. culture in which familism gives way to individualism.

Or, there may be
tension at home due to the clash of cultures, assuming the
parents are less
acculturated. Unfortunately, this study could not address every
aspect of the
question. Clearly, a major concern is the finding that self-
esteem was consistently
higher in any context but with family. This may be associated
with a parental
inability to socialize children to the culture the parents are most
familiar with and,
lacking that ability, their children may be adopting peer-culture.
Of course, there are many possible alternative explanations to
these findings and
these are related to the study’s limitations. First, it may be that
loss of family
cohesion is but one of many factors that acculturating youth
face. At school, the less
acculturated who prefer to speak Spanish most often may not be
much happier with
family, but rather may feel lower self-esteem with classmates
and friends by virtue
of their lack of mastery of the English language. Likewise, their
more linguistically

acculturated Hispanic peers who, by virtue of speaking English,
attempt to gain
entry into social institutions of the dominant culture, yet may
feel the ill-effects
associated discrimination, alienation, or marginalization that
affects many minority
groups in the United States (Smokowski et al. 2007; Vega and
Aguilar 1995).
Although this study employed rigorous analytical methods and
drew on data with
a large random sample containing repetitive data collection,
considered to have high
reliability, many assumptions were stated regarding the
challenges involved in
assessing the relationship between the variables. In practice,
many other complex-
ities are involved in the study of acculturation and language is
but one variable.
Furthermore, the quality of the interactions as participants go
from one context to
another is not known in its entirety. It may be that the presence
of linguistic
acculturation gaps are exacerbated by mixed immigration status
within the family

and gender/power issues among members, and minimized by
such things as
collegial communication and empathy among members.
Furthermore, the language
of the parents is not known, casting some doubt on the true
effect of person-context
congruence. Finally, before generalizing, one should remember
that the context in
which people live is always changing and the impact of macro-
level factors can
have an impact on the micro-level ones (Perez 2011).
Acculturation research has existed for nearly 100 years, yet
there is still no solid
cross-cultural measure for how to assess this process (Rudmin
2009). At the same
time, there is a relatively recent proliferation of acculturation
research (Rudmin
2009), and some recommend its inclusion in all well-being
research (Lara et al.
2005). In truth, much of the prior acculturation research on
well-being has been
222 R. M. Perez
123

based on language, and despite a growing trend toward
bicultural and multidimen-
sional measures, other researchers continue to advocate for
simple individual-level
proxy measures for acculturation (Escobar and Vega 2000).
Language acquisition
captures a complex process that includes affective, cognitive,
and behavioral
components (Cuéllar et al. 1995), and has been shown to be
influential in more
complex acculturation measures (Rogler et al. 1991). Accurately
capturing a
complex and dynamic process such as acculturation with a
single measure is likely
to remain difficult considering the large number of
multidirectional factors affecting
the process. Although the findings of this research help to point
out the important
effect of context together with acculturation, it is clear that
more research is needed
to disentangle these important effects among the large and
growing sector of

immigrant children the United States.
Implications
These findings underscore the need to better understand the
effects of linguistic
acculturation on self-esteem and the practical utility of a fixed-
effects model.
Evidence from this study showed that context and language-use
moderated self-
esteem. Essentially, the participant in the middle had better
self-esteem in any
context but with family. Although the times have changed from
the days when Park
and Stonequist wrote about the marginal man, it is interesting
that it was adolescents
in the middle of the process—those whose first language was
Spanish and whose
second language was English—who were different from the
other two acculturation
levels with respect to their families. Clearly, more research is
needed before we can
determine the benefits—or drawbacks—of the relationship
between their families of
Hispanic youth and their self-esteem relative to other contexts
in which they spend

time.
Research suggests that Hispanics will continue to present
varying levels of
language use for years to come—probably retaining their native
language and
culture longer than other immigrant group. Thus, the
implications of this study for
policy, practice, and research are critical given the size and
growth rate of this
population, in addition to their continual population
replenishment from Latin
America (Jiménez 2008), and their transnational (Levitt 2003),
circular (Massey
1987), and undocumented patterns of migration.
Research
This study also has implications for future research. The
combination of a fixed-
effects model with a unique data-collection method, ESM,
afforded an unusual and
beneficial research design that allowed for robust cross-cultural
comparisons. Cross-
cultural research is often challenged by the difficulty of
comparing dissimilar

people. Fixed-effects models have the advantage of being able
to hold background
effects constant so that cross-cultural comparisons are less
prone to selection bias.
A second implication for research, regarding the effects of
on development, is that more understanding of the dynamic
between immigrant
youth at the different levels of linguistic acculturation and their
families, is
123
warranted. Another possibly fruitful path for future research is
better understanding
the effects of language on the brain or, more generally, on
healthy development. The
multiple-languages group was expected to be relatively
indifferent about where they
spent time. It was predicted that participants who spoke
multiple languages would
experience few or no self-esteem differences across the contexts
in which they

spend time, by virtue of having learned enough and having
enough resources to
cope in a variety of contexts. The literature on
multicompetence, in particular,
shows that the structures of the brain develop differently when
individuals learn
more than one language at the same time (Kim et al. 1997).
These differences are
hypothesized to lead to higher levels of cognition, in that
multilingual people have
access to additional linguistic knowledge not otherwise possible
(Han 2004;
Pavlenko 2003).
Finally, it is hoped that cross-cultural researchers who work
with panel data
containing multiple measures per person see the advantage of
the fixed-effects
model. The fixed-effects model as applied to the panel data
(i.e., repetitive sampling
technique) used in this study allowed us to control for
background differences. This
was advantageous to reduce bias. This model controls selection
bias by way of the

demeaning process, which assesses each person’s changes from
his or her first
recorded response so that each person serves as his or her own
control, and only
variables that change from response to response are included.
Because each person
serves as his or her own base of comparison, the variables that
do not change over
time are simply held constant and thus do not bias the results.
In this way,
observable variables that do not vary for a person (e.g., gender,
grade, socioeco-
nomic status) fall out of the model because nothing changes
from response signal to
response signal; in this way they are implicitly controlled.
Unobservable variables
are also held constant. This is useful for controlling such things
as aspects of
personality, which can predispose people to prefer some
contexts or activities and to
experience particular affect. For example, an extroverted person
may have a low
self-esteem when alone, whereas an introverted person may be
much happier alone.

Practice
For practitioners working with young people learning a second
language, it is
critical to understand that important associated cultural
differences to their linguistic
differences in how they relate with family and friends and also
how they affect self-
esteem. Human services staff working with Hispanic youth may,
first and foremost,
want to assess the degree to which the family is experiencing
linguistic
acculturation gaps, and also to what extent these are merely a
nuisance rather
than causes of problematic behaviors. Linguistic acculturation
in this study was
treated as a moderator of self-esteem; in other words, there are
more than likely
additional familial and cultural issues that underlie problem
behaviors. Language
use, and more specifically, linguistic retention has been found
to be protective
factors bridging gaps between parents and youth and
contributing to global self-
worth (Birman 1998). For among more acculturated adolescents

more understand-
ing is needed to regarding the more problematic areas
negatively affecting
224 R. M. Perez
123
well-being—whether self-esteem, family conflict, or something
else that is not fully
understood as of yet.
Social workers may use the information found in this study and
others like it to
help bridge linguistic acculturation gaps between immigrant
parents and accultu-
rating offspring as has been found helpful by some practitioners
working with
troubled Hispanic adolescents (Szapocznik et al. 1986).
Exploring bridges between
youth and parental culture during adolescence can help
facilitate parental
socialization. Knowing that most immigrant youth progress
from low to high
linguistic acculturation, it may be worthwhile to explore how
benefits of cultural

retention (e.g., familismo, respeto) could be better preserved, so
that those in the
middle of the process do not feel estranged from their parental
culture.
Alternatively, children who do not feel positive self-esteem
with parents may not
be able to receive important enculturation and if they seek their
friends out they may
not benefit from the quality understanding that their parents are
better able to
transmit.
Policy
Regarding policy, there is currently no concerted federal effort
to incorporate
newcomers, linguistically or otherwise, into U.S. society
(Jiménez 2007). Further-
more, the problematic adaptation of more acculturated Hispanic
youth, as posited by
evidence from the immigrant health paradox, suggest that
macro-level interventions
led by the U.S. government would be justified (Perez 2011).
Addressing the needs of
Hispanic youth at the age most crucial to the transition to
adulthood can be seen as

an investment.
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