At first, the major stressor which is the most powerful in initiating depression in elderly Latina women is the cultural disparity. Culture differences that are experienced by Latina women and their families when they are trying to adapt to the new place can sometimes become really depressing as they make one feel nostalgic and the immigrant people especially women are affected the most by this. The stress that this cultural difference puts on them can sometimes increase to become depressed and later lead to mental depression and sickness. Therefore it is observed that elderly Latina women become the victims of cultural competence and in the attempt to survive among Americans end up losing their mind and becoming stressed out all the time.
Secondly, the other stressor that depresses Latina women the most is the language barrier between the Latina population and the rest of the American population. In this study conducted by Lewis-Fernandez, he qualitatively explains why language barrier makes such an important difference between the Latina people and the other Americans. He focused his study on Latina women as women are found to be more emotionally affected by such differences than men. In this study not only did he identify language barrier as an important stressor but also found out ways to deal with them. He recommended psychological and pharmacological interventions as being highly efficacious in treating such Latina women who are suffering from language and social integrations barriers. Another study explains the same phenomenon of psychological depression found among Latina population as an important factor that must be studied and lists a number of concerns regarding the Latina population. Among the many, some of the most important are
- Orientation in the society; meeting other people and social interactions with neighbors and at the workplace.
- Competency in English; as English is the national language of the US so the failure of these Latina to speak English is one of the major reasons why the Latina women become depressed.
- Active coping; settling and adapting to the new environment and the time it takes are known as active coping. This is required to be done by all immigrants but the Latina women fail to do.