LAUSR

According to ecodevelopmental and social learning models, Latino immigrant parents experience considerable stress associated with the immigration process, and such immigration-related stress is theorized to influence behavioral outcomes among their youth. Using a three-year longitudinal design among 217 Latino immigrant families in western Oregon, we assessed whether parents' (94% mothers, Mage  = 36.2 years) experience of immigration-related stress influenced the trajectory of their adolescents' (43% female, Mage = 13.4 years) externalizing behaviors. Controlling for covariates (gender, acculturation, age at migration, and gender), results showed that youth exhibited a normative downward trajectory for externalizing behaviors, and parents' experience of immigration stress significantly and negatively predicted this trajectory. Findings suggest that parents' experience of immigration stress may disrupt a normative trajectory of declining externalizing behaviors among Latino immigrant adolescents.