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This study examined the associations of language brokering stressintensityandexposurewith Mexican‐origin youths’ cortisol responses when brokering for fathers and mothers, and the moderating role of youths’ brokering efficacy in these relations. Participants were 289 adolescents (M_age = 17.38,SD = .94, 52% girls) in immigrant families. When brokering for mothers, stressexposurewas related to flatter (less healthy) same‐day diurnal slopes in youth. When brokering for fathers, daily brokering efficacy buffered the detrimental link between stressintensityand youths’ same‐day cortisol slopes. When brokering for fathers/mothers, stressintensityandexposurewere related to flatter (less healthy) next‐day diurnal slopes. Although daily brokering stress can relate to youth physiologic functioning, feeling efficacious about brokering may buffer the negative ramifications of stress.

Adolescents from Mexican immigrant families are often embedded in a challenging social environment and experience multiple contextual stressors, including economic stress, discrimination, and foreigner stress. We consider how the effects of these contextual stressors may be amplified or diminished for adolescents who function as language brokers, interpreting and mediating for their English-limited parents. Using two waves of survey data collected from a sample (N = 604 at Wave 1; N = 483 at Wave 2) of Mexican American adolescents with ages ranging from 11 to 15 (Mage = 12.41, 54% female), four distinct brokering – stress profiles were identified. Latent profile analyses revealed that with moderate levels of contextual stress, adolescents with more positive language brokering experiences (protective group) demonstrated more favorable outcomes than those with neutral language brokering experiences (moderate group) and those who did not involve themselves as frequently in language brokering activities (less-involved group). In contrast, high levels of contextual stress, coupled with more negative language brokering experiences (risk group), produced the least favorable outcomes among adolescents.