A Longitudinal Examination of Latino Adolescents’ Ethnic Identity, Coping With Discrimination, and Self-Esteem Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor Delfino Vargas-Chanes Arizona State University, Tempe Cristal D. Garcia University of Texas at San Antonio Melinda Gonzales-Backen Arizona State University, Tempe The current longitudinal study tested the premise that Latino adolescents’ (N = 323) proactive coping with discrimination would mediate the relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem. Each component of ethnic identity (i.e., explo- ration, resolution, and affirmation) was positively associated with concurrent assessments of adolescents’ self-esteem. However, in the longitudinal analyses, none of the ethnic identity components predicted future levels of self-esteem. Ethnic identity resolution was the only ethnic identity component to predict proac- tive coping over time. Furthermore, proactive coping did not mediate the relation- ship between ethnic identity and self-esteem. However, there was evidence to suggest that the association between proactive coping and self-esteem was bidirectional. These findings underscore the importance of examining the unique components of ethnic identity as well as using longitudinal designs to examine the associations between ethnic identity and adolescents’ psychological well-being. Keywords: Latinos; adolescents; ethnic identity; self-esteem; coping A mericans of Latino descent are the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States. In fact, Latinos accounted for 49% of the national population growth between the years 2004 and 2005 Journal of Early Adolescence Volume 28 Number 1 February 2008 16-50 © 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/0272431607308666 http://jea.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com 16 Authors’ Note: The authors would like to thank Sandra Simpkins and Carlos Valiente for their comments on a previous version of this article. Correspondence regarding this study should be addressed to Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-3701; e-mail: adriana.umana-taylor@asu.edu. at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 18, 2016 jea.sagepub.com Downloaded from