Latino Families Broken by Immigration: The Adolescent's Perceptions (New Americans (Lfb Scholarly Publishing Llc).)

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Artico describes the experiences, perceptions, and memories of seven Latino adolescents reunited with their biological parents after prolonged separation during childhood because of piecemeal patterns of immigration. These children's interpretation of the parents' departure as abandonment or as sacrifice shaped their internal working models of self and others. Events leading to the parent's departure and its interpretation by family members; the parent's dependability as providers during separation; and the quality of communication upon reunification influenced how these children perceived their departure and absence. Whereas the children's perception of caretakers as supportive or critical influenced their representational model of self, their internal working model of others was influenced by how families interpreted the parent's absence. Such representational models, in turn, predisposed them to develop specific affective, cognitive, behavioral, and relational patterns.