NEW YORK, April 1 (UPI) -- New York City officials concerned about the alarmingly high number of suicide attempts by Latina teens say culture shock and stress are often involved.

"It's a startling problem," Julissa Ferraras of the City Council Committee on Women's Issues, which is holding a hearing on the issue next week, told the New York Daily News.


The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported almost 15 percent of New York City Hispanic teens surveyed in 2009 attempted suicide in the previous year, compared with 10 percent of all city high school girls.

"They don't have high rates of suicide in their mother countries, so what is happening here?" asks Rosa Gil, who runs a program, Life is Precious, for suicidal Hispanic girls in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Gil blames a conflict between Hispanic teens and their mothers, who are often single immigrants stressed by working several jobs with little community support.

"The mothers say, 'No, no, I didn't date boys, I didn't stay out late,' and the daughter wants to behave like an American girl," Gil said.

"The conflicts escalate, and the adolescents feel like there is a bleak life ahead for them."

Experts say a cultural resistance to counseling in immigrant communities stops troubled teens and their overwhelmed parents from seeking help.

"It's much more acceptable to seek help in New York City, but it takes time to translate among immigrants," Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, said.