Latinx youth's ethnic-racial identity in context: Examining ethnic-racial socialization in a new destination area

The current study examined how ethnic-racial socialization (i.e., ERS; cultural socialization, preparation for bias) is shaped by neighborhood characteristics and parents’ perceived discrimination, as well as how ERS shapes youth ethnic-racial identity (ERI) among Latinx parent-adolescent dyads (N = 69) living in a new destination area (i.e., not historically settled by Latinx populations). Results showed that neighborhood diversity was positively associated with parents’ ERS beliefs, which in turn were associated with youth's perceptions of parents’ ERS behaviors, which predicted youth ERI outcomes (i.e., centrality and private regard). Neighborhood problems were negatively associated with youth public regard. Neither neighborhood problems nor parents’ perceived discrimination was associated with ERS. The current study adds to limited empirical evidence on how neighborhood structural and social characteristics impact ERS, and in turn, ERI, among Latinx families. Overall, study findings advance knowledge on how cultural and contextual factors shape ERS in an understudied context.