The Role of Acculturation in the Mental Health of Hispanics

After a brief history of acculturation as a concept and an integral component of the migration phenomena, a definition and eventual links with different causal factors are presented. Acculturation is both, a process that responds to needs of adaptation in new environments to achieve a reasonable establishment of psychosocial boundaries and/or constructive connections, and an encounter of groups and individuals facing a variety of circumstances and existential sequences. Hispanic immigrants into the United States, particularly, are the subject of a variety of experiences with different levels of physical and mental health repercussions (i.e., acculturative stress) that require specific attention and care management from individual and collective perspectives. The sequelae of varying outcomes of acculturation among Hispanic immigrants demand increased international collaborative research efforts to channel and materialize positive, constructive outcomes.