In Search of Disimmuration: Well-Being, Help-Seeking, and Community Support Among Latinx LGBTQ+ Immigrants

This dissertation research explores the cultural understanding of well-being for Latinx LGBTQ+ immigrants and the help-seeking behaviors that they use to manage stressors and improve their well-being. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2015-2021, the study examines discrepancies between what social service providers offer to Latinx LGBTQ+ populations and their emic perspectives of what they need to be well. Though discourses of resilience were prominent in the ways that service providers attempted to support queer immigrants, participant observation and interviews showed that this concept was not helping to improve their holistic well-being. Further, Latinx LGBTQ+ immigrants did not conceive of well-being as a goal, but as the ability to remain unentangled or unencumbered by unwanted obligations, restrictions, or requirements - a phenomenon presented in findings as “disimmuration.” While the logics of Latinx queer immigrants’ help-seeking behaviors were often misrecognized and misunderstood by Bay Area service providers, they consistently seek to maximize benefits while preserving the individual’s sense of disimmuration