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Purpose: Specific stressors associated with caregiving in Mexican American (MA) families are not well documented, yet caregiving issues are paramount because informal care for parents is central to their culture. Although MA families who band together to provide care for one member are not unique, the literature does not describe the phenomenon of collective caregiving, which may be widespread but unrecognized. This article describes these understudied families who are poorly served by contemporary health systems because their characteristics are unknown., Design: Descriptive, multisite, longitudinal mixed-methods study of MA caregiving families., Findings: We identified three types of collective caregivers: those providing care for multiple family members simultaneously, those providing care successively to several family members, and/or those needing care themselves during their caregiving of others., Discussion and Conclusions: Collective caregiving of MA elders warrants further investigation., Implications for Practice: Exploration of collective caregiving may provide a foundation for tailored family interventions.

La familia drives elder care in Mexican-American (MA) families, but nursing home placement can result from day-to-day caregiving demands that increase caregiver difficulty with activities of daily living (ADLs). Using life course perspective, this article describes the initial data wave of 31 MA caregivers from a descriptive, longitudinal, mixed-methods study of 110 MA caregivers and care recipients over 15 months in their caregiving trajectories. Fifteen of 31 caregivers consistently indicated "no help needed" on the Katz ADL, whereas all but one reported "help needed" during semistructured interviews with cultural brokers. In addition to the discrepancy between results on the Katz ADL and interviews, findings include consideration of nursing home placement by moderately acculturated caregivers and minimization of their illnesses by caregivers. Additional methods of MA caregiver assessment may be needed due to the questionable accuracy of the Katz ADL; additional research should explore minimization and acculturation in MA caregivers.