
In a fascinating study published in 1998 in the Archives of General
Psychiatry, William Vega, an American public health researcher
at Rutgers University, showed just how psychologically corrosive
American culture can become for those who drop into it from the
outside.
Vega focussed on recent immigrants from Mexico. When they first
arrived in the US, he found, they were much healthier than the
Americans they settled among, with half the incidence of psychological
dysfunction. But the longer they stayed, the sicker they got. During
the first 13 years, their chance of developing a disorder in their
lifetime was 18 percent. After 13 years, whatever cul-tural protection
their Mexican heritage offered them had worn off, and their rates
of depression, anxiety and drug problems had risen to the same
level as the general populations (32 percent).
Among Mexican-Americans born in the US, meanwhile, the rate of
those afflictions soared to 49 percent. Mexican men born in the
US were five times as likely as recent immigrants to experience
a "major depressive episode." Drug misuse among Mexican
women born in the US was seven times as high as that of recent
immigrants.
Could it be that Mexicans are somehow uniquely vulnerable to this
particular American cultural virus? Apparently not. Other studies
have both replicated William Vegas findings and extended
them to other ethnic groups and problems, such as domestic violence.
Acknowledging that "components of Mexican culture are protective
against mental health problems," Vega concludes that "socialization
into American culture and society [will] increase susceptibility
to psychiatric disorders."
The findings present a puzzle. The Mexican immigrants Vega studied
were better adjusted psychologically, even though they fall far
below the US average in education and income. But thats just
the point. Income and education lose their meaning in a world of
rising mental expectations and reduced life satisfaction. The former
are rooted in our consumerist, media-saturated society, while the
latter emerge out of the loss of collective family and community
life in the face of American individualism. The real puzzle is
how a problem so big can draw almost no attention at all.
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