As crazy as we are

It’s rare for Mexican to commit suicide. It’s not unusual anywhere for small-town alcoholics in their late 50s to hang themselves, but in Mexico, it’s as likely as not to be reported at least some national newspaper on a slow news day.

The Mexican suicide rate is only about 5 per 100,000, about 40 percent lower than that of the United States. However, according to a study by Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, a researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Siquiatría (INP), Mexican emigrants to the United States have a suicide rate two or two and a half times the Mexican average… or about the same (or slightly higher) rate at which U.S. natives commit suicide.  U.S. born children of Mexican immigrants commit suicide at the same  rate as their U.S. peers.  The U.S. rate also holds true among the children of Mexican immigrants.

Mexican immigrants who return home have higher drug addiction rates than other Mexican, though whether it’s due to their having more disposable income or having spent time in a country where there are few social controls on single young men is unknown.

Do mentally ill people tend to emigrate, or is assimilation hazardous to their health?

(Source: Ángeles Cruz Martínez, “La migración trae problemas de salud mental, dicen especialistas”,
Jornada, 17 Marzo 2008)