This study is based on secondary analyses of the National Latino And Asian American Study (NLAAS). Focusing on Asian Americans as an aggregate, and the three largest subgroups represented in the NLAAS (i.e., Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese Americans), this study investigated the extent to which (a) perceived discrimination predicted psychological distress, (b) social context variables (family cohesion, family conflict, neighborhood cohesion, subjective socioeconomic status) moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress, and (c) measures of subjective socioeconomic status (SES) mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress. By testing these models separately for Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese American groups, results provided a more nuanced assessment of each group’s unique experience. The results indicated that perceived discrimination was significantly related to increased psychological distress in the total Asian American sample, and the three Asian ethnic groups, however, the moderation and mediation model revealed divergent patterns for each Asian ethnic group and for the aggregate sample. Therefore, the results of this study may have implications for understanding within-group variability in the Asian American community.
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