The Mexican American Experience Chicane Mental Health

A new edition of a key text on mental health Chicane Mental Health offers an intersectional and developmental framework for understanding and addressing the mental health needs of Chicane communities. Drawing on over four decades of clinical and academic experience, Yvette G. Flores addresses the entire lifespan from children and youth to emerging adults, adults, and elders. Foregrounding cultural humility and an understanding of Chicane strengths and community cultural wealth, the author uses vivid vignettes and community-based insights to address how historical trauma, systemic oppression, and sociocultural dynamics shape mental well-being. Flores highlights the cultural strengths and protective factors that foster resilience. This new edition expands on Flores’s influential work by integrating Indigenous healing practices, decolonial theory, and liberatory models of care. It challenges dominant Western paradigms and calls for culturally affirming, community-engaged approaches to mental health. With a focus on issues such as depression, substance use, intimate partner violence, and intergenerational trauma, the book provides practical tools for scholars, clinicians, and students committed to social justice and healing in Chicane and Latine communities.