Un Paso Adelante (A Step Forward): A Family's Migration Testimonino and Recommendations for Mental Health Providers

Introduction

All the authors of this chapter are members of the Cardenas-Bautista family. In it we share the migration experiences of our family to the United States between (U.S.) 1980 and 1990. The testimoninos that we share describe the pre- and post-migration experiences from the perspective of a father, mother, and two siblings. In particular, we talk about how our family experiences in the U.S. South. Our migration stories, shared from four different perspectives, provide an insightful description of the history and impact of immigration on an individual and familial level. Our testimoninos seek to connect with readers who may share similar experiences and provide mental health providers with recommendations to consider while working with Latinx immigrant populations in the southern regions of the U.S. We conclude our chapter by providing recommendations that go beyond considerations of language acquisition and acculturation. Through our stories and recommendations our objective is to move away from the generalization of complex personal history of a community and encourage the introspective dive of rich historias that we carry beyond borders and time. It is also our intention to keep the testimonios of our father and mother in the language they chose to write their stories. Readers can find the English versions of their stories in the X. We note that not including the English version of their testimonios represents our intention to relocate our gaze of the reader.