Barriers to Resource Access: The Need for Social Workers as Cultural Brokers in Hispanic Immigrant Communities

Abstract

Although the U.S. has more immigrants than any other country in the world (Budiman, 2020), there exists inequality in resource access among U.S. born and immigrants. The inequality has been created and maintained by the development of barriers such as idealization assimilation, forced acculturation, anti-immigrant sentiment and the limitations developed within immigrant serving organizations. Immigrants have tried to overcome these barriers through brokering by brokering through assimilation, brokering through their children and brokering through community health workers known as promotoras. Although the possibility of brokering exists, the question remains: how can immigrants achieve access to resources in a society designed to keep them out? In this study, I analyzed data collected by Dr. Marcela Nava in which she interviewed 21 participants who identified as immigrants or worked with immigrants. Dr. Nava’s data was used to identify the gaps in resource access among immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area (DFW Metroplex) and to discuss how social workers can act as cultural brokers by helping immigrants navigate the systemic barriers of U.S. society. The results revealed that not only are the barriers consistent with present literature, but there are also additional barriers unique to the DFW Metroplex. The results demonstrate that there are immigrant communities brokering barriers through lived experiences in order to access resources and emphasizes the need for trained social workers who can act as cultural brokers in order to help immigrants successfully navigate U.S. systems.