First-Generation Immigrant Mental Health: The Pressure Nobody Said Out Loud

I was born in Mexico City, so by definition I am an immigrant. My family brought my older brother and me to Oakland, California, when I was just over one year old, and my brother was three. Despite being an immigrant, I carry the first-generation experience: that gap between the life my parents lived over there and the one I was supposed to build here. Like countless families we likely know, my parents came for a better life. So I got handed the assignment of becoming that better life.

But here is the thing. No one ever said, "you better." And that is the part I want to talk about.

Nobody in my house ever said "you better"

My parents never sat me down and told me I better go to college. They never said I better make their sacrifice worth it. There was no speech, no intended guilt trip, no receipt handed across the dinner table.

They just worked. And they worked really hard.

My mom has a third-grade education, but she owned a very successful business out of her home. My dad made it partway through high school and never graduated, but landed a well-paid job with a pension that he lives off today because he had the privilege of retiring. Despite their lack of access and opportunity for a formal education in Mexico (where, by the way, school was never actually free, not even the public kind, once you count the uniforms, the books, the supplies, and the fees), they are still two of the hardest-working people I have ever met in my life.

So the pressure did not come from a lecture they gave me. It came from watching them get up every single day and grind in a country that did not make it easy for them. It came from the stories they shared of living in deep poverty in Mexico. Through their work ethic and their honest storytelling of their upbringing, I just knew.

To be clear, I always knew I had to go to college, though that was never their specific ask. The ask was bigger and blurrier: make something of your life. Be successful. Be able to take care of yourself, and eventually the family you build. That was the whole ask. Easy, right? (insert anxiety here)

Try being twelve and figuring out the roadmap for THAT. Make something of your life.

No models, no mentors, no compass

Here is what nobody warns you about growing up under an unspoken expectation. You cannot argue with something that was never actually said.

I had no models. No mentors. Nobody in my family had done college, so there was no one to ask what any of it even meant. No one to take me on college tours or help me figure out what I even wanted to do to make money AND be happy. So I just tried things.

For a while I wanted to be a graphic designer, which is funny because I am not particularly artsy, but I loved the idea of building things, web design, technology, making something people could actually use. I also wanted to be an FBI agent at one point, mostly because I liked solving puzzles and investigating things. Not a good reason to be an FBI agent. I was talked out of it when I learned that FBI agents have to agree to relocate anywhere in the country for the first few years. I liked California too much.

I also at one point wanted to be an immigration attorney, mainly because my parents' story pulled at me so hard and made me want to make a difference in the lives of other immigrants pursuing the same thing they came for. Then I considered being a juvenile probation officer, until I understood how punitive that system is and realized I did not want to be one more person holding a clipboard over somebody's life. Yuck.

I was not lazy, and I was not that lost. I was navigating without a compass because my compass had been calibrated to everyone else's (unspoken) expectations rather than my own. So I could never tell whether what I was doing was right. I just kept moving and hoped the feeling would show up eventually.

That kind of confusion has a cost, and it lives in the body. For me it was anxiety. Low confidence. A stress response to public speaking that I would describe, clinically, as "we are never doing that." I would like to think I am not alone in this. It is what first-generation immigrant mental health actually looks like for a lot of us. Not some dramatic diagnosis you go searching for. Just a low hum of never being sure you are doing it right.

We did not have therapy. We had jokes.

Therapy was not in the cards in my family. When things got hard, the guidance was "échale ganas" or "si Dios quiere." Both of those are genuinely motivating, and both of them are also a closed door. Put your head down. Keep going. God will sort out the rest. Also, try being someone who was not even sure who God was. In high school, I would pray on my knees before bed, and even then I had no idea what to pray for, or if anyone was listening.

So we coped the way a lot of families I know cope. We got funny. My family is HILARIOUS. Humor was our therapy, our processing, our entire nervous system regulation plan. We laughed through things that honestly deserved a support group. I would not trade that for anything; it kept us close. The laughter was real. And so was everything we laughed past.

The good daughter job description

I am the middle child. Only girl, between an older brother and a younger one. My older brother and I were born in Mexico City. My younger brother was born here, which is its own small universe of difference.

Middle child, only daughter, immigrant family. You already know the assignment. Be responsible. Be low maintenance. Be the one who needs nothing. Read the room before you walk into it.

For most of my life, I thought those were personality traits. They were not. They were strategies built to keep me acceptable. To keep me feeling loved. Ways to be a good daughter and, therefore, a good person. And here is the problem with a strategy that works: it is very hard to put down.

I am forty. The real untangling started maybe five to seven years ago. And that part of my life, navigating mental health struggles while being a mental health professional, well, that is something I am sure I will write about in the future.

Two things can be true

My parents sacrificed so that I would not have to. That is the part I keep circling back to. They did not grind like that so I could grind identically, forever, out of guilt.

And yet somewhere along the way I learned that giving more than you receive is simply what a responsible person does.

I am learning something different now. That I can be responsible and still have a life. That saying no to something does not take away my membership in this family. That the creative stuff, the things that make me happy for no productive reason whatsoever, are not a betrayal of anyone's sacrifice. 

And as you might be wondering, I did land somewhere I love in my professional life, and I want to be honest that not everyone gets that, and it is not purely a matter of effort. But I got here late, I got here bruised, and I got here without anyone walking alongside me. That is what I want to be different for you.

If you are carrying an expectation nobody ever said out loud, I see you. If you cannot tell where your family's dream ends and yours begins, mi comunidad, that confusion is not a character flaw. It is what happens when someone hands you a destination and no map.

You are allowed to want something for yourself. Even now. Even at forty, or even at eighty-three. It is never too late to get to know you.

If any of this sounds like your life, therapy can be a place to sort out which parts are actually yours. No pressure, no lecture, just a real conversation about what you are carrying and what you would like to put down. Explore services here, or reach out for a free 15-minute consult.