Daily Discrimination and Affect in Latinx Adolescent-Parent Dyads Residing in Northeast United States.

In this 14-day study, we tested whether Latinx adolescents' (Mage  = 12.76 years, 52% female; 52% U.S. born; N = 21) and parents' (95% female; 24% U.S. born) daily discrimination experiences were associated with their own and other's daily affective states. Results indicated that on days when adolescents reported discrimination, they reported higher negative affect and marginally lower positive affect and, interestingly, parents reported higher positive affect. On average (i.e., across the 2-week period), adolescents' discrimination was associated with higher adolescent negative affect and lower parent positive affect. Together, findings suggest that Latinx adolescents' discrimination experiences are linked to their own affective states and their parents'. Results underscore how discrimination is linked to the affective states present in family contexts.

Discrimination, defined as behavioral acts of unfair treatment toward lower status social group members (Ayón & García, 2019), permeates the lives of Latinx families in the United States (Ayón & Philbin, 2017; Park et al., 2017), and is a mechanism by which oppression is perpetuated (García Coll et al., 1996). Experiences of ethnic‐racial discrimination (ERD) are the most widely studied (Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009), likely due to their high prevalence. Among Latinx United States Southwest samples, for example, 54% of 12‐year‐olds and 66% of 19‐year‐olds reported at least one instance of ERD in the last 12 months (Zeiders et al., 2021). Nationwide data collected in December 2019 suggested that 4 in 10 Latinx adults experienced discrimination in the 12 months prior (Gonzalez‐Barrera & Lopez, 2020). Location‐specific research points to a high prevalence of discrimination among youth and adults residing in Latinx communities in emerging immigrant destinations (e.g., Marrow, 2011; Stein et al., 2013), especially in comparison to those residing in historically dense Latinx contexts such as Los Angeles (e.g., Potochnick et al., 2012).

Discrimination is a complex phenomenon, situated in structural/institutional (e.g., laws) and individual/interpersonal (e.g., called a racial slur) domains, targeting individuals with stigmatized attributes (e.g., language ability, skin tone) and group affiliations (e.g., immigrant), and perpetrated by peers, teachers, police, and other familiar or unfamiliar adults (Ayón & Philbin, 2017; Pincus, 1996; Potter et al., 2019; Seaton et al., 2018). It has also been noted that Latinx individuals experience discrimination as a result of their ethnic‐racial background and other stigmatized identities (e.g., undocumented status, Ayón & Philbin, 2017). Individuals in new immigrant destinations (South United States), for instance, attribute discriminatory acts to social position variables including race/ethnicity, social class, and immigrant and undocumented statuses (Stein et al., 2016). Therefore, in this study, we considered Latinx youth's and parents’ experiences with discrimination across racial‐ethnic and other stigmatized identities.

From a stress and coping perspective, exposure to discrimination is considered a chronic life stressor with deleterious effects on individuals’ health and behaviors (Ong et al., 2009). This individual‐level perspective has found robust empirical support, linking different types of discrimination to adolescent and adult mental and physical health (Benner et al., 2018; Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009), including daily negative mood and long‐term depressive and anxiety symptoms among Latinx individuals (Gassman‐Pines, 2015; Stein et al., 2019). At the daily level, Latinx youth's and parents’ interactions with surrounding environments (e.g., school and work) often involve hostile, discriminatory experiences (Ayón, 2015), and daily encounters with discrimination have yielded negative ramifications for both youth's and adults’ daily adaptation (Seaton et al., 2018; Torres & Ong, 2010). For example, daily ERD experiences were associated with daily affective states (e.g., negative affect, daily distress) in racially‐ethnically diverse youth (Huynh & Fuligni, 2010) and Latinx adults (Torres & Ong, 2010).

Given their stressful nature, individuals’ discrimination experiences can also have implications for a family system, by contributing to children's and parents’ well‐being and family functioning (e.g., Huynh et al., 2019; Wheeler et al., 2015). Because of the embeddedness of family members within social and historical contexts (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), the interdependence of family members’ emotional systems (Bámaca‐Colbert et al., 2019; Lougheed, 2020), and the centrality of family commitment and obligations emphasized in Latinx cultures (Hernández & Bámaca‐Colbert, 2016), individual‐level encounters of daily discrimination may shape Latinx individuals’ own affect and the affective states of their family members. There is evidence, for example, that on days when Latinx parents reported work discrimination, they also reported more externalizing behaviors in their preschool children (Gassman‐Pines, 2015). Yet, to our knowledge, little is known about potential bidirectional daily dyadic processes among Latinx families with adolescents residing in new immigrant destinations where there may be a shortfall of community support (Stein et al., 2016), resulting in greater reliance on family members in daily life. This study utilizes data from a pilot study exploring the daily lives of Latinx families with early adolescents in new immigrant destinations. We tested whether Latinx youth's and parents’ own discrimination experiences were associated with their own affective states (i.e., actor effect) daily and across a 2‐week period. Furthermore, we assessed potential adolescent‐parent dyadic crossover and compensatory effects by examining whether self‐reported (i.e., actor) discrimination would be related to the other family member's affective states (i.e., partner effect).

Several direct and mediated mechanisms have been proposed for the idea that individual family members’ affective states can be associated with one another. In this study, we examined two specific processes. First, the crossover hypothesis predicts that stressors experienced by an individual may impact their interactions with other family members and subsequently those individuals’ emotions as well (Bakker & Demerouti, 2013; Westman, 2006). The crossover effect from parent to child was exemplified in a study where parental ERD experiences were positively associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms and negatively related to their psychological well‐being in Black families (Ford et al., 2013). Longitudinal research also found crossover effects of discrimination from parent to child (for depressive symptoms) and from child to parent (for marijuana use) in ethnically‐racially diverse families, including Latinx families (Huynh et al., 2019). Research on the intergenerational transmission of discrimination (from parent to child) has generally emphasized indirect mechanisms of influence (Huynh et al., 2019). A remaining question is whether the discrimination‐affect crossover effect differs on a shorter time scale: the daily level. This is an important extension considering that daily affective experiences are linked to long‐term mental health outcomes (Maciejewski et al., 2014) and can hinder parents’ daily ability to provide support for their youth.

A second possible mechanism, the compensatory hypothesis, indicates that family members may exhibit positive affect or behaviors to compensate for the negative affect or stressors of another family member. For example, when mothers or fathers exhibited higher depressive symptoms, their spouses compensated for their behavior by reporting more supportive responses to children's negative emotions (Nelson et al., 2009). In adolescence, the results are mixed. Mancini et al. (2016) found that parents responded to adolescent negative affect with lower positive affect and higher negative affect in real time, providing evidence for the transmission of negative affect in parent‐adolescent dyads during an emotional task. However, in a daily diary study, Mercado et al. (2019) suggested that the absence of transmission of distress in parent‐adolescent dyads of Mexican origin may be due to an emphasis on using positive emotions in Latinx culture to initiate and maintain smooth social interactions, in line with prior research (e.g., simpatía; Acevedo et al., 2020). Alternatively, daily discrimination experiences may not negatively affect family members’ daily affective states, as subsystems may go through adaptive self‐stabilization processes to reduce the influence of negative environmental experiences for family members (Cox & Paley, 1997). Given the stressful nature of discrimination and the crossover and compensatory processes by which family members may be affected by, we examine these potential processes in this study with a small sample of Latinx adolescent‐parent dyads who reported daily on discrimination experiences and affective states during a 2‐week period.

The Current Study

Guided by past research on discrimination among Latinx adolescents and adults, the dearth of knowledge on daily experiences of Latinx families residing in contexts considered emerging immigrant destinations (e.g., Pennsylvania), and theoretical work underscoring possible processes by which discrimination experiences of one family member may affect the affective states of another family member, the purpose of this study was twofold. First, we aim to better understand the daily discrimination experiences of Latinx living in a new emerging immigrant destination across a 2‐week period. Given that individuals’ experiences of discrimination may stem from various stigmatized identities and attributes (Ayón & Philbin, 2017; Potter et al., 2019), we inquired possible reasons why participants believed they experienced discrimination (e.g., due to skin color, racial‐ethnic background) and asked from whom participants experienced these acts (e.g., peer, co‐worker).

Second, this study examines the link between discrimination experiences and daily affect among adolescent‐parent dyads through two potential mechanisms: crossover and compensatory effects. We tested bidirectional effects of dyads’ daily discrimination experiences on self (i.e., actor effect) and other's (i.e., partner effect) end‐of‐day positive and negative affect. Based on robust past research linking discrimination directly to mental health (Benner et al., 2018; Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009), we hypothesized that at the individual level, daily experiences of discrimination would be related to individuals’ daily affective states (e.g., parent experiences of discrimination would be related to parent reports of more negative/less positive affect). We also tested for the presence of compensatory and crossover effects within Latinx parent‐adolescent dyads. Given prior research suggesting the importance of using positive affect to maintain harmony, avoid conflict, and maintain smooth interactions in Latinx culture (e.g., Acevedo et al., 2020), we expected to find more evidence for compensatory effects than for crossover effects within Latinx families.

METHOD

Study Design and Procedures

Data were from a pilot study with 21 Latinx adolescents and parents residing in a diverse Northeastern United States city where Latinxs comprised 18% of the population (52% Black, 30% White; U.S. Census, 2010). See Table 1 for parents' and adolescents’ demographic information. Parents and adolescents were recruited by community organizations and research project staff through the use of flyers and snowballing recruitment techniques. Eligible adolescents had to be between the ages of 11 and 14, identify as Latino/a/x, and reside with the participating parents. Of the eligible recruited families (N = 32), 65.63% agreed to participate. Participants completed a baseline paper‐pencil survey that included questions about demographics, family, school and neighborhood experiences, and psychological well‐being. Parents and adolescents then completed 14 days of daily diary surveys on a provided smartphone. Daily diary surveys included questions about geographical environment, affect, physical health, relationships, discrimination experiences, and stressors.

TABLE 1

Parents’ and Adolescents’ Demographic Information (N = 21)

Adolescent
Age	M = 12.76, SD = 1.00, Range = 11–14
Female	n = 11 (52.4%)
Birth country:
U.S. Mainland	n = 11 (52.38%)
U.S. Island‐born Puerto Ricans	n = 9 (42.86%)
Dominican Republic	n = 1 (4.8%)
Ethnicity:
Puerto Rican	57.1%
Puerto Rican/White	4.8%
Dominican	4.8%
Dominican/Black	4.8%
Mexican	9.5%
Guatemalan	4.8%
Peruvian	4.8%
“Other”	9.5%
Parent
Mothers	n = 20 (95.2%)
Birth country:
U.S. Mainland	n = 5 (23.81%)
U.S. Island‐born Puerto Ricans	n = 11 (52.38%)
Foreign‐born	n = 5 (23.81%)
Ethnicity:
Puerto Rican	61.9%
Dominican	9.5%
Mexican	4.8%
Hispano	4.8%
American/Venezuelan	4.8%
Guatemalan	4.8%
Ecuadorian	4.8%
Peruvian	4.8%
Education level:
Nursery to sixth grade	9.5%
Junior high school	4.8%
High school	38.2%
Some college/Associate's or bachelor's degree	47.6%
Number of children living in household	M = 2.76, SD = 1.30
Number of adults living in household	M = 1.90, SD = 1.00
Married/Cohabiting	n = 10 (47.6%)

M, mean, SD, standard deviation.

Measures

Discrimination

Discrimination experiences were measured at the end of each day using seven items (e.g., “This afternoon/evening, were you called names or insulted?”) adapted for ecological momentary assessment studies (Scott et al., 2015). Scores were recoded to indicate whether participants experienced discrimination that day (0 = No and 1 = Yes). Participants were also asked to select one response for the main reason for experiencing discrimination. Available response options included your race, ethnicity, or national origins; English language ability; your economic or financial situation; the shade of your skin color; because of being an immigrant. These response options were designed to capture discrimination experiences relevant to ethnic‐racial identity and nationality. In addition, participants were asked to report as many type(s) of people who initiated the experience. For adolescents, available response options included friends; other kids; neighbors; police; other adults (storekeepers, people on the street). For parents, available response options included friends; coworkers; neighbors; police; other adults (storekeepers, people on the street). Measures with similar items were used in cross‐sectional studies and produced strong reliability with Latinx adolescents (Chithambo et al., 2014) and adults (Molina et al., 2013). Participants’ daily responses were averaged across the 14 days, such that higher scores indicated a higher proportion of days with reported discrimination. Participants’ raw scores for each day (0 = No and 1 = Yes) were also included in analyses. Alpha coefficients are reported in Table 2.

TABLE 2

Bivariate Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations for Parent and Adolescent Reports of Discrimination and Positive and Negative Affect

	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	M	SD	ICC	Cronbach’s α Across the 14 Days
1. Daily discrimination (A)	–								0.07	0.26	.51	.89
2. Daily discrimination (P)	.18**	–							0.07	0.25	.03	.91
3. Daily positive affect (A)	−.22***	.03	–						7.54	2.48	.52	.84
4. Daily positive affect (P)	−.19**	−.14*	.23***	–					7.84	2.40	.69	.87
5. Daily negative affect (A)	.34**	−.03	−.56***	−.18**	–				1.39	1.68	.50	.79
6. Daily negative affect (P)	.04	.11	−.06	−.45**	.06	–			1.27	1.61	.23	.83
7. Adolescent gender (% female)	−.06	−.01	−.04	−.19**	.07	−.03	–		52.40%	–	–	–
8. Parent employment status (% employed)	−.08	−.13*	.05	.14*	.07	−.12	.43**	–	47.60%	–	–	–

A, adolescent reported; P, parent reported; Daily discrimination: 0 = No; 1 = Yes; Adolescent sex: 1 = male; 2 = female; Parents’ employment status: 1 = Yes; 2 = No; ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient.

***p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05.

Affect

Positive affect (five items) and negative affect (seven items) were measured at the end of each day. Participants indicated how much they felt each emotion (e.g., happy, sad) using an 11‐point scale (0 = Not at all, 10 = Very much). Participants’ daily responses were averaged at the daily level and across the 14 days, with higher scores indicating more intense affect. This measure was drawn from daily experience sampling work conducted with adolescents from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Uink et al., 2017), and similar daily measures have obtained strong reliability scores for positive and negative affect among double‐up (e.g., homeless) Latinx youth (Aceves et al., 2020). Alpha coefficients are reported in Table 2.

Covariates

Adolescents’ sex (1 = male, 2 = female) and parents’ employment status at the time of the study (1 = employed; 2 = not employed) were included as covariates.

DATA ANALYSIS PLAN

We analyzed the dyadic diary data using a multilevel model to account for the repeated measures nested within persons and persons nested within parent‐adolescent dyads. The actor‐partner interdependence model (APIM) accounts for the interdependent nature of dyads (Kenny et al., 2006). A model was estimated for each outcome (i.e., positive and negative affect). In each model, both members of the adolescent‐parent dyad had their own predictor and outcome variable, thus allowing us to test whether discrimination predicted their own affect (i.e., actor effects) in addition to their partner's affect (i.e., partner effects). All models were estimated using the nlme package in R (Pinheiro et al., 2019; R Core Team, 2019). Given this pilot study's small sample size, power analyses were conducted to evaluate the statistical power for the APIM models. Power analyses, using ICCs for each outcome, number of observations and sample size, were conducted with the powerlmm package in R (Magnusson, 2018). Estimates of statistical power to detect a medium‐sized effect ranged from 55% to 91%.1

RESULTS

Table 2 shows correlations, means, standard deviations, and intraclass correlations (ICCs) for study variables. Lower ICCs reflected higher variability across parent and adolescent daily reports of discrimination and positive and negative affect. Rates of discrimination experiences varied, with parents reporting discrimination experiences on 0–71% of total participating days, and adolescents reporting discrimination experiences on 0–50% of total participating days. Refer to Tables 3 and 4 for frequencies of reports from adolescents and parents, respectively, of the main reason participants believed they experienced discrimination and from whom participants experienced these acts. Table 5 delineates the results from the multilevel models estimated for positive and negative affect.

TABLE 3

Frequencies of Adolescents' Reports of the Main Reason They Experienced Discrimination and Types of People Who Initiated the Experience

	Main Reason for Experiencing Discrimination					People Who Initiated the Discrimination Experience
This Afternoon/Evening,	Your Race, Ethnicity, or National Origins	English Language Ability	Your Economic or Financial Situation	The Shade of Your Skin Color	Because of Being an Immigrant	Friends	Other Kids	Other Adults (Storekeepers, People on the Street)
were you treated with less respect than other people?	–	4	–	1	–	4	–	2
did people follow you around in stores?	1	4	–	–	–	3	1	2
did people act as if they think you are not smart?	–	6	–	–	–	4	1	2
did people act as if they were afraid of you?	1	5	–	–	–	3	1	2
did people ignore you?	–	6	–	–	–	5	1	4
were you called names or insulted?	–	6	1	–	–	4	2	1
were you threatened?	1	2	2	–	1	4	2	–
Total count:	3	33	3	1	1	27	8	13

Adolescents were asked to report the main reason they experienced discrimination. Participants were asked to select one of the following response options: Your race, ethnicity, or national origins; English language ability; Your economic or financial situation; The shade of your skin color; Because of being an immigrant. Participants were asked to report the types of people who initiated this experience. Participants were asked to select all that apply from the following response options: Friends; Other kids; Neighbors; Police; Other adults (storekeepers, people on the street). Neighbors and police were not selected by participants.

TABLE 4

Frequencies of Parents' Reports of the Main Reason They Experienced Discrimination and Types of People Who Initiated the Experience

	Main Reason for Experiencing Discrimination				People Who Initiated the Discrimination Experience
This Afternoon/Evening,	Your Race, Ethnicity, or National Origins	English Language Ability	Your Economic or Financial Situation	Because of Being an Immigrant	Friends	Coworkers	Neighbors	Police	Other Adults (Storekeepers, People on the Street)
were you treated with less respect than other people?	6	3	1	1	2	–	–	1	7
did people follow you around in stores?	1	2	–	1	1	–	–	–	3
did people act as if they think you are not smart?	4	2	–	–	1	–	2	2	1
did people act as if they were afraid of you?	–	2	1	–	–	–	1	2	–
did people ignore you?	2	1	3	2	1	–	2	–	5
were you called names or insulted?	1	1	2	–	1	1	–	–	2
were you threatened?	2	2	–	–	1	–	–	1	2
Total count:	16	13	7	4	7	1	5	6	20

Parents were asked to report the main reason they experienced discrimination. Participants were asked to select one of the following response options: Your race, ethnicity, or national origins; English language ability; Your economic or financial situation; The shade of your skin color; Because of being an immigrant. The shade of your skin color was not selected by parent participants. Participants were asked to report the types of people who initiated this experience. Participants were asked to select all that apply from the following response options: Friends; Coworkers; Neighbors; Police; Other adults (storekeepers, people on the street).

TABLE 5

Parameter Estimates for Dyadic Multilevel Models of Parents’ and Adolescents’ Daily Discrimination and Positive and Negative Affect

Fixed Effects	Negative Affect B (SE)		p‐Value	Positive Affect B (SE)		p‐Value
Adolescent
Intercept	1.18	(1.02)	.25	6.12**	(1.87)	.001
WP discrimination actor	1.11*	(0.41)	.01	−1.09†	(0.59)	.06
BP discrimination actor	5.66*	(2.01)	.01	−4.91	(3.66)	.18
WP discrimination partner	−0.27	(0.34)	.42	0.21	(0.49)	.67
BP discrimination partner	−3.85	(3.80)	.31	7.13	(7.01)	.31
Adolescent gender	0.17	(0.53)	.75	−0.16	(0.98)	.87
Parents’ employment status	0.01	(0.59)	.98	0.99	(1.08)	.36
Parent
Intercept	1.34	(0.88)	.13	8.20***	(1.33)	.001
WP discrimination actor	0.30	(0.44)	.49	−0.31	(0.43)	.48
BP discrimination actor	3.06	(3.19)	.34	−0.88	(4.96)	.86
WP discrimination partner	−0.17	(0.53)	.75	1.69***	0.52	.001
BP discrimination partner	−0.15	(1.77)	.93	−7.40**	2.62	.01
Adolescent gender	0.06	(0.45)	.90	−1.06	0.69	.13
Parents’ employment status	−0.11	(0.49)	.83	0.75	0.77	.33

Daily discrimination: 0 = No; 1 = Yes; Adolescent sex: 1 = male; 2 = female; Parents’ employment status: 1 = Yes; 2 = No. WP, within‐person effect; BP, between‐person effect; SE, standard error of the estimate; SD, standard deviation. Child's sex and parents’ employment status were included in the model as covariates. Only random intercepts were estimated for the negative and positive affect model, based on model fit and convergence.

***p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05; †p ≤ .10.

Exploratory Analyses: Discrimination Experiences

Adolescents

Across a 2‐week period, adolescents’ most frequently reported reason for experiencing discrimination was English language ability, with much lower frequencies occurring for other responses. Adolescents reported that type(s) of people who initiated the discrimination experience were primarily friends, followed by other adults (storekeepers, people on the street), and other kids. Neighbors and police were not selected by adolescents as perpetrators of discrimination.

Parents

Across a 2‐week period, parent's most frequently reported reason for experiencing discrimination was race, ethnicity, or national origin. This was followed by English language ability, economic or financial situation, and immigrant status. Parents reported that the type(s) of people who initiated the discrimination experience were primarily other adults (storekeepers, people on the street), followed by friends, police, and neighbors.

Dyadic Models Examining Discrimination and Negative Affect

Actor effects revealed that on days when adolescents reported an increase in discrimination, they reported more negative affect. Between‐person effects revealed that on average, adolescents’ discrimination experiences were associated with more negative affect. No significant partner effects emerged for adolescents. No significant actor or contributing partner effects emerged for parents (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Dyadic models for discrimination and negative affect. Note. Unstandardized beta coefficients are presented. Adolescent sex and parent employment status were included as covariates. BP, between‐person; WP, within‐person. **p < .01; *p < .05.

Dyadic Models Examining Discrimination and Positive Affect

Actor effects revealed that on days when adolescents reported an increase in discrimination, they reported marginally lower positive affect. Partner effects revealed that on days when adolescents experienced an increase in discrimination it was associated with higher levels of parents’ positive affect. Between‐person effects revealed that adolescents’ discrimination experiences were associated with lower levels of parents’ positive affect. No significant actor or contributing partner effects emerged for parents (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Dyadic models for discrimination and positive affect. Note. Unstandardized beta coefficients are presented. Adolescent sex and parent employment status were included as covariates. BP, between‐person; WP, within‐person. **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10.

DISCUSSION

Considerable evidence demonstrates the negative implications of discrimination experiences on health and well‐being. Prior research suggests that positive and negative affective states may serve as mediators in the relation between ERD and long‐term mental health outcomes (Park et al., 2017). However, a more nuanced story may emerge when these affective states are examined daily at the family level. The present study utilized daily diary methodology to better understand the discrimination experiences of Latinx parent‐adolescent dyads living in an emerging immigration destination. Furthermore, responding to calls for research related to the complexities of parent‐adolescent emotion systems (Lougheed, 2020), we tested the possibility of actor effects and dyadic crossover or compensatory effects by analyzing the associations between Latinx adolescents’ and parents' discrimination experiences and their own and their partner's affect at the daily level and across a 2‐week period.

The first aim of this research was to better understand the daily discrimination experiences (i.e., reasons for discrimination and perpetrators) of Latinx adolescents and parents living in a new emerging immigrant destination across a 2‐week period. Descriptive statistics provide support for the idea that reasons for discrimination, as perceived by Latinx early adolescents and adults in this sample, extended beyond racial‐ethnic identity to include other stigmatized identities and attributes (Ayón & Philbin, 2017; Stein et al., 2016). Interestingly, for adolescents, the main and most frequent reason selected was English language ability whereas for parents, the two main reasons mentioned were race‐ethnicity‐nationality and English‐language ability. Skin tone was selected by adolescents, but not by parents.

Response patterns could be due to cognitive and socio‐cognitive developmental differences in individuals’ attributions for receiving poor treatment from others. Spears Brown (2017) notes that increasingly advanced social cognitive abilities (e.g., recognition of social categories) are necessary to detect and assess why one is discriminated against. Developmentally, recognition of social categories and associated stereotypes appears to focus first on concrete features and later on abstract qualities. The attribution of discrimination based on English language ability or skin tone is more concrete than a race‐ethnicity‐nationality based attribution, which is more abstract. Individuals’ attributions for discrimination as race‐based appear to also be tied to the ongoing process of ethnic‐racial identity development, which unfolds across the lifespan (Williams et al., 2020). Based on Williams et al. (2020) conceptual work, ethnic‐racial identity development is informed by, and informs, identity‐relevant experiences (e.g., discrimination) and the meaning and interpretation individuals give to these relevant experiences are developmentally driven. Therefore, it is possible that in early adolescence, when ethnic‐racial identity is likely to be less solidified, youth may be less likely to attribute unfair treatment to their race‐ethnic or nationality background. From a developmental perspective on discrimination (Spears Brown, 2017), an increasingly solidified ethnic‐racial identity may lead to an understanding of the serious social implications that race‐ethnicity carries for being discriminated against and, therefore, adults may be more likely to attribute their experiences of discrimination to race‐ethnicity‐nationality.

Of course, due to a small sample size, interpretation of these results needs to be taken with caution. Nevertheless, these results can provide important information for future research that focuses on discrimination in childhood and adolescence. In recent years, studies on racial‐ethnic discrimination with younger children, for example, have utilized measures that confound different reasons for discrimination into each of the items: “Have you ever had your teachers assume that you are not smart or intelligent because of the color of your skin, your language or accent, or your culture or country of origin” (e.g., Marcelo & Yates, 2019). Future research with children and younger adolescents should consider allowing them to select the main reason why they believe they were treated badly and explore whether these reasons moderate the associations between experiences of discrimination and adaptation.

The study findings also revealed that youth reported close same‐age peers as the most common perpetrator, with friends being the most selected, followed by other adults. For the parents, the most common perpetrators were other adults, such as storekeepers and people on the street, followed by friends, police, and neighbors. Taken together, these results reveal that assessments of discrimination experiences occurring in the natural environment may capture additional nuances that demonstrate that reasons and perpetrators of discrimination vary based on the extra‐familial social context in which youth and parents are embedded (e.g., schools). As noted by others (Benner et al., 2018), more research is needed that considers the moderating influence of type of perpetrators on the discrimination—affect link as discrimination experienced by friends and peers may have more negative repercussions than discrimination experienced by more distal others (e.g., store clerk).

Regarding the substantive models, our findings revealed that adolescents’, but not parents’, discrimination experiences were associated with their own and their parents’ affective functioning. For the within‐person associations, results were in the expected direction: when adolescents experienced discrimination, they also experienced more negative affect and less positive affect (trend level), in line with prior research with ethnically diverse youth (Huynh & Fuligni, 2010). Interestingly, our analyses also revealed that on days when adolescents reported more discrimination experiences, their parents reported increases in positive affect. In line with prior research suggesting evidence for compensatory effects in families (Nelson et al., 2009), the present work indicates that in Latinx families residing in new destination contexts, parents may utilize positive affect at a daily level to compensate for the discrimination experienced by their adolescent. This may be due to simpatía: prior work indicates this cultural value in Latinx communities may encourage individuals to display positive affect or behaviors in order to maintain harmony in relationships and avoid conflict (Ramírez‐Esparza et al., 2008). Alternatively, this association may reflect parents’ adaptive self‐stabilizing efforts (Cox & Paley, 1997) to soothe or protect their children from the negative repercussions of daily discrimination. Research with mother–daughter dyads provides preliminary support for this idea, suggesting that mothers are more likely to initiate instances of positivity after a negative experience than are adolescents (Van Bommel et al., 2018).

Findings also suggest that when adolescents face discrimination experiences across a longer stretch of time (i.e., averaged across 14 days), parents on average exhibit lower positive affect. This may suggest an accumulating crossover effect, whereby adolescents’ discrimination experiences over time may cross over to impact parents’ moods as well. Although parents may attempt to provide an emotional buffer for youth or compensate for the stressors adolescents experience at the daily level, this finding indicates that the persistent and pervasive nature of discrimination may still negatively impact parents’ mood, with potential harmful implications for their health and adjustment (Ong et al., 2009; Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009). In addition to extending research on dyadic experiences of discrimination and affect, this study also sought to build on prior research understanding the discrimination experiences of Latinx families in emerging immigrant destinations (Stein et al., 2016). This work makes an important methodological contribution, as data were drawn from a pilot study intended to assess the feasibility of daily diary methodology with Latinx parent‐youth dyads in these contexts. This research clearly demonstrates that although Latinx immigrant families are underrepresented in daily diary research, their daily reports reveal processes that are integral to our understanding of the short‐ and long‐term effects of discrimination at the individual and family level.

Although the results add to existing work on daily experiences of discrimination and affective states within Latinx families living in a new immigrant destination, several methodological characteristics should be considered. First, due to the nature of a pilot study, the small sample size reduces confidence in whether the results are generalizable to all families in this population. We aimed to recruit a diverse sample that represented the heterogeneity in demographics (e.g., country of origin, immigrant status) of our target community (Latinx immigrant families). However, emphasizing heterogeneity and representativeness in recruitment simultaneously limited our ability to account for demographic characteristics in our statistical models. Future research with larger samples is needed to address this issue. Further, sample size contributed to a range of statistical power, which suggests the possibility of being underpowered for certain analyses. Although we were not underpowered for all outcomes, it should be noted that for some models, there was a lack of power to detect patterns with small effect sizes and a possible inflation of estimated effect sizes for detected effects. Despite these challenges, we were able to identify promising directions for future research. Relatedly, this study was limited in its ability to test actual mechanisms of transmission via mediators, moderators, or confounding variables (e.g., depressive symptoms; Stein et al., 2012). For example, parents and adolescents may differ in the degree to which they are emotionally attuned to one another at a daily level (Lougheed, 2020). These remain important unanswered questions for future research. Furthermore, the current research was limited in the relative number of parents, especially fathers, who participated, and prior research indicates that there may be important differences in the mechanisms by which mothers’ versus fathers’ experiences of workplace discrimination are associated with adolescent mental health (Wheeler et al., 2015). Future research should examine parent characteristics that may moderate the association between adolescents’ discrimination experiences and parents’ possible buffering responses.

Altogether, the current study aimed to capture the ways in which adolescents and parents were individually and dyadically affected by discrimination experiences at the daily level and across 14 days. Our findings demonstrated that Latinx youth are affected by oppressive experiences at the daily level (via discrimination) when embedded in communities in emerging immigrant destinations. Our findings also indicate that daily experiences with discrimination, a mechanism by which systemic oppression is maintained, may affect the larger family system via compensatory effects at the daily level and crossover effects over time. Reactions to or overcompensation for Latinx youth's discrimination experiences may pose negative consequences for parents, especially long‐term. Finally, results from this study are more pertinent when considering the ability to detect both within (daily) and between (across days) significant findings with a small sample size. Future research may build on these findings to examine the ways in which Latinx adolescent‐parent dyads cope with interpersonal discrimination experiences and other forms of discrimination by which systems of oppression are experienced daily and long‐term.