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Primary Submission Category: Migration
The Protective Benefits of Collective Organizing in a Latin American Immigrant Community
Authors: Kyle Machicado, Jhumka Gupta, Bethany Letiecq, Maribel Tohara Nakamatsu,
Presenting Author: Kyle Machicado*
Background: The forces of structural racism and legal violence including deportation and family separation have significant influence on the health of immigrants. Research suggests that collective organizing is a critical tool to disrupt the impacts of anti-immigrant, racialized, and gendered legal violence.
Purpose: This study seeks to examine how collective organizing empowers immigrants to actualize better health and well-being.
Methods: Using a community-based participatory research approach, we conducted an exploratory mixed-methods, sequential study design. We conducted four focus group discussions with community advisory board members to develop a conceptual model for how community organizing promotes well-being and health. These findings informed the development of a survey administered to Latin American immigrants in the Washington, DC-area (n=103) to quantitatively examine how collective organizing impacts health and well-being.
Results: Focus groups highlighted how community organizing leads to feelings of accomplishment, solidarity, and power. Survey respondents had positive views of collective organizing, highlighting its role in improving community strength, political power, knowledge on rights, information dissemination, and confidence while reducing fear, loneliness, and isolation. Higher participation in collective organizing was associated with greater levels of reported hardship including physical and mental health, living expenses, unemployment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and fear of family separation.
Conclusion: These findings highlight the protective benefits of collective organizing in an immigrant community. While participants highly engaged in organizing reported worse health and greater socioeconomic challenges, this may indicate that immigrants turn to organizing for support and solidarity when faced with adversity. These findings highlight collective organizing as a potential tool for supporting immigrant physical and mental health.