Acculturation-Related Mental Health Stressors Among Recent West African Immigrants in Southern California

Abstract

West African immigrants are the largest group of African immigrants in the United States. However, there has not been much research focusing on this increasingly growing group of immigrants. The purpose of this qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) research was to explore acculturation related mental health stressors among recent West African Immigrants in Southern California. The research aimed to answer four relevant questions, namely, what are the acculturation patterns of recent West African immigrants living in Southern California, what are the mental health stressors of recent West African Immigrants living in Southern California, what are the coping strategies of recent West African immigrants living in Southern California, and what is the attitude of recent West African immigrants living in Southern California toward psychotherapy. The results of this study yielded four superordinate themes—Varied acculturation patterns, Multiple levels of stressors and anxiety, Resilience and resourceful in coping, and Varied attitude towards psychotherapy. The study also uncovered sixteen additional subthemes, which further elaborated on the superordinate themes. Five recent West African Immigrants were randomly sampled through snowballing for this research. Apart from providing answers to the research questions, this study also revealed that religious identity might be as important as ethnic identity and national identity in determining acculturation patterns. The study also indicates that immigrants’ pattern of acculturation is fluid and continues to change over time based on acculturation related factors, and that choice of coping mechanisms greatly affects mental health outcome of immigrants.