Latino Skin Color: The Role of Discrimination, Racial identity, and Parental racial Socialization on Self Esteem and Depression

sing the Cross Racial Identity Model (Cross, 1991), Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (Sellers, et al. 1998), and Helm's White Racial Identity Model (Helms, 1995), this web-based quantitative cross-sectional survey study was designed to examine the associations between self-reported skin color, racial discrimination, racial identity, parental racial socialization, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms in a convenience sample of 205 United States of America (USA) born Latinos (ages 18-25). Most participants were between 18 and 21 years old (64%) and were women (78.5%). Participants were asked to self-identify their race and approximately one-third [27% (n=56)] reported their race as White, and only 10.2% (n=21) reported their race as Black. Most self-reported their skin color as a lighter shade (89% rated their skin color between 1 and 4) and 31.2% (n=64) reported their skin color as "2=very light". Only 10.8% (n=22) reported their skin color as 5 and above (darker skin color). Approximately one-quarter reported their parent's country of origin is Mexico 24.9% (n=51) and others reported their parent's country of origin is the United States of America (15.1% n=31), or various countries in Latin America (e.g., Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba) and European Countries (e.g., Scotland, Spain, Ireland, Hungary). More than half were single when they completed the survey (58.5%), 39% were in a relationship, and 2.9% were married. Approximately, 70% reported they spoke another language while growing up; 64.9% reported speaking Spanish. Most were in college when they completed the survey (68.8% n=141). More than half reported their annual income as less than...