“El Equilibrio de Identidad” The Mental Health of Second Generation Immigrants. Living between cultures is something I've had to struggle with for much of my life. As a second-generation immigrant, I found myself negotiating between two cultural identities. On one hand, I identify as American and on the other as Latina, Nicaraguan and Dominican. Throughout my life, my identity has been attacked from both sides. I was called too American by my immigrant family, while also being called too Latina by my peers and academia. As a first-generation college student and second-generation immigrant, I have encountered the stressors of living between two cultures. I received both acceptance and rejection, as well as stress related to my mother's status in this country and my responsibility to help her manage her daily activities. Currently, “first- and second-generation immigrant children constitute the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, and there are currently 40 million immigrants living in the United States. (Stephenson, 2008) According to Sirin, Ryce and Gupta, authors of The Role of Acculturative Stress of Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A longitudinal Study; a first-generation immigrant is someone who was born in another country and then moved to a host country, while a second-generation immigrant is someone who was born in the host country but has at least one parent born in the stranger (2013). The purpose of this article is to examine the mental health of second-generation immigrants and how (or if) cultural identity, acculturation, undocumented or documented parent status, education, and language barriers protect or negatively affect the mental health of this growing population. ...... middle of article ....... First and second generation immigrants have higher rates of acculturation stress and grow up in an environment where they quickly become the numerical majority but are treated as second-class citizens due to social stigma and political structures that work against them and/or their parents. One way we can solve these problems is by allowing first- and second-generation immigrants to attend community college for free. We can also increase the bilingual services available, particularly in the areas of health and education. Overall, I believe we need to change the way immigration is viewed and the way immigrants are treated in our country. This will require policy changes and media changes. It is unfortunate how negatively immigrants are viewed and many forget how much immigrants have contributed to this country..