Young people whose parents or caregivers aren’t acclimated to their community’s dominant language and culture play a valuable role in bridging communication gaps, including unspoken misunderstandings triggered by a gesture or facial expression.
These interpreters, who range from pre-schoolers to young adults, can extract pride from the role, defining it as an important family duty or a way to pay back their elders for years of love and sacrifice. However, negative feelings such as resentment or embarrassment can seep into the process, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms.
Those negative outcomes are more common when the interpreter is dealing with an unspoken disconnection, a finding from groundbreaking UC Merced research into the task the lead researcher, Sivenesi Subramoney, coined as emotion brokering. The study was accepted for publication in Emotion, a journal of the American Psychological Association.
Subramoney, a UC Merced graduate student in developmental psychology, introduced the term in a 2024 co-authored study that surveyed Latinx university students about their experiences. The university team cited emotion brokering again in a paper, published in Child Development Perspectives, that reviewed how several types of interpreting affect the mental well-being of immigrant youth.
Emotion brokering cuts to the heart of life in the San Joaquin Valley, where English is not the primary language in nearly 45% of households — and Spanish is the main language in half of those homes. This leads to numerous occasions where children serve as interpreters for grown-ups who are not fluent in the dominant language.
The broad term for the practice is cultural brokering. In addition to emotion brokering (non-verbal disconnections, such as a doctor’s curt and straightforward manner misinterpreted as anger or an elder not understanding why someone expresses pride in public), youngsters can broker for language (i.e., ordering at a restaurant), procedures (completing an insurance form) and media (setting up a social media account).
Emotion brokering cuts to the heart of life in the San Joaquin Valley, where English is not the primary language in nearly 45% of households — and Spanish is the main language in half of those homes.
Joining Subramoney as research co-authors for the most recent study were her longtime mentor, developmental psychology Professor Eric Walle, along with developmental psychology Professor Alexandra Main and Spanish linguistics Professor Dalia Magaña .
Nearly 420 UC Merced students of Latinx heritage were surveyed for the study. Results showed that emotion brokering occurred less frequently than language brokering but had a stronger emotional impact on the broker.
“A key finding is people who experience embarrassment while brokering emotion puts them at risk for poor mental health,” Subramoney said.
The unpredictability of emotion brokering episodes was likely a key factor, Walle said.
“With language brokering, a child is mentally prepared to, say, interpret at a doctor’s office,” he said. “But I think of emotion brokering as more on the fly. The child has to either react in the moment or discuss it later.”
The unexpected nature of emotion brokering can ramp up embarrassment and stress, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. However, this is where the healing factors of family and culture can come into play. A child who learns to appreciate a role in their family can ward off shame with pride. Similar protections apply to young people who are comfortable with their cultural norms.
“I think a big predictor of whether you will feel embarrassed or proud is the quality of relationship you have with the person you're brokering for,” Main said. “Not just how close it is, but how positive.”
Latinx children and adolescents with an awareness of their family history can see interpreting as a form of giving back, Magaña said.
“Immigrants often leave everything behind and make these incredible journeys to the U.S., knowing they may not be welcomed in certain spaces but take that risk,” she said. “The children recognize the parents sacrificed everything, so if they can broker language or emotions, they feel it’s the least they can do.”
Subramoney said the team’s unprecedented research into emotion brokering will improve the tools of people who work with immigrant families, such as school counselors, health care workers and mental health professionals. The UC Merced research also could lead to folding emotion brokering into corporate training on cultural awareness.
A question on the survey of student participants asked at what age they first acted as an emotion broker.
“About half said they were younger than 9,” Walle said. “For about a quarter of the participants, it was younger than 7.”
Public Information Officer
