Adapting for Well-Being: Examining Acculturation Strategies and Mental Health among Latina Immigrants

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Here are my comments on the paper.

First of all, I should say that it is a good paper. Maybe some nuances and details are missing.

1. How do you define acculturation? Please indicate and describe and cite and if it is your definition, please add your own definition.

2. Please correct the punctuation here: Finally, separation occurs when immigrants
predominantly adhere to their native cultural traits. (Berry, 1997).

3. When you say that the research mostly focussed on young immigrants from Latino countries, can you provide some resources so that the readers know who worked on this? But not one, plenty if there is research on this theme.

4. Do you have resources for this one?

Discrimination and prejudice in the new society may frequently lead to social
isolation due to a limited support network in the new environment, further enhancing
acculturative stress.

5. please rephrase " the family is loyal to the family" do you mean family members are loyal to the family ....

6. punctuation: A dichotomous question represented contentment with the decision to move to the U.S. : Would you decide to move to the U.S. The
responses were either (1) Yes or (0) No.

7. I have come to the middle of the paper, which is really interesting, but now we are talking about women and yet, the literature does not talk about women and gender. Could you please add to your literature review the papers who are focussing on Latino women and their adaptation/acculturation in general in the USA, maybe the ones using similar methods to you, cause I imagine the literature would be broad. Just to show that you know the gendered migration patterns of Latino women, works on familismo and so on. This would be a must for the paper, I would say.

8. I find the findings very interesting and original. What about differences between females and males? Since you talk about women's cases, it would be interesting and worthwhile to know it and to add it to discussion and conclusions.

9. I sometimes feel that the author(s) is using acculturation and assimilation exchangeably but please be clear... which one would you mean? Would you mean acculturation cause it is not the same as assimilation. We need to be very sensitive about that since assimilation is a very old-fashioned way of seeing transnational migrants and binationals, bicitizens, diasporas and so on.

10. Your paper confirms past research. But what is new in your paper that we can learn from? What is your contribution to the field? Please underline it in the conclusions.

11. Do you think that English language programmes would help fight discrimination? Please nuance your suggestion. Discrimination when structural, learning English might not be enough... could you please detail and open up your suggestion?

12. I would shorten the limitations to one paragraph and synthesize it.

13. you find that familismo helps against distress, but then you find that the more they are assimilated, they leave familismo and they have less distress. is not that a paradox?? Please explain better. Maybe you explained this paradox and I missed it.

14. You talk about bronfenner in the beginning but you dont mention it again later, can you tie your conclusions and/or discussion to the theories used in the beginning?

15. The paper needs to be shorter and more synthethical if the authors can do it, this is just an optional suggestion.

16. Ethical concerns shall be explained in methods, ethical board, how did the research get confirmation from the university board of ethics and so on?

Thanks for the paper, it has great potential, I suggest minor to major revisions, good luck!

best wishes,

Reviewer.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Attached please find our response to your feedback. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article looks at the demographic and acculturation characteristics of Latina women migrating the United States.  This is a very interesting and relevant topic.  My main concern with the article is the dated nature of the data.  The authors reference this as a limitation in the conclusion, but do not discuss this concern throughout the paper.  I would suggest that the authors either situate the discussion in the time frame of the data (2004) or include a section showing how their insights explain current conditions.  The authors begin to do this in the conclusion, but I think this needs to be discussed as part of the explanation of the data set in the methodology and then again in the discussion and conclusions.  

 

Overall, I think the paper adds to the academic literature.  I think the lack of situating the results in the time frame of the data limits the explanatory power of the article.  I would encourage the authors to address this in a resubmission.  

Thank you for the opportunity to review the paper.  I learned a lot from reading it.  Best of luck in your future research.  

Author Response

Attached please find our response to your feedback. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

thanks for the changes!

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would like to thank the authors for the revisions to the paper.  I believe the revisions make the paper stronger.  I appreciate the extended explanation for the use of older data and the acceptance of limitations.  I think it does provide a snapshot in time, but I'm not sure how this benefits current research looking at Latina acculturation and well being.  I don't see this as a major concern, given your acknowledgement of the limitation.  Overall, I think the article is an outstanding example of secondary research.  Thank you for the opportunity to review the article.  Best of luck in your future research.