Wayne Reed

How Children of Asian Immigrants Deal with Acculturation

My initial interest for research had to do with how the values of immigrants evolve and persevere through the next few generations, i.e., what values are maintained from the homeland, and what values are formed from the process of the journey and “making it” in America, and what emerging value system resulted?  This topic being entirely too broad and grueling an undertaking, I decided to focus the subject on how the children of immigrants (born either here or abroad) formed their cultural identity having two cultural forces tugging at them.  In order to narrow this down even more I decided to choose Asian immigrants as the model.  My interest in this stems from the fact that, not only do these children of immigrants have a unique drive to succeed, they also have a unique advantage in an ever-globalizing world, having a deep bond with two countries.  Though it may be a struggle during childhood and adolescence, their cosmopolitanism tends to be an object of envy among non-immigrants.

One of the first things that I had to do was differentiate pluralism and assimilation.  Immigrant children may be very pluralistic, or acculturated, in their participation in both cultures which will most likely lead their children to be more fully assimilated.  The parents of immigrant children, on the other hand, do not always become fully pluralistic.  While the parents will nearly always assimilate economically (maintaining an American job, paying taxes, etc.) it is likely that they will remain culturally isolated, feeling bound to the homeland.  One study found that it wouldn’t be unlikely for a family to immigrate to America despite American values.  One family even states that “they did not come to the United States because they identified with, let alone accepted, American culture or values” (Lum 98).  these families immigrate for the opportunity to educated and, in turn, create a better opportunity for their children.  Thus, they have a tendency to find themselves in concentrated pockets of people with similar backgrounds, such as Chinatown in New York City (or pretty much any other major metropolitan area), where they allow themselves to be inundated by an imported Chinese culture where everything from food to news media is Chinese.  As a result, these immigrants may be economically assimilated, but they are far from culturally assimilated or even pluralistic. (Lum) 

Their children, on the other hand, will encounter more of the outside world through their peers and will come much closer to assimilating.  (I might add that this does not all together go against the desire of their parents, seeing as how they want the opportunity for their children to take advantage of life in America.)  The children of these immigrants are much more likely to speak both languages, have a mix of personal relationships with Chinese and American (or non-immigrant), and, not least of all, consume American media.  In other words, immigrant children are more likely to break out of the cultural insularity of their parents.  Lum states, “the children in the family have already acquired some of the more visible traits of American culture and have built a personal social network with many members from the dominant society.  That is, they have already achieved a certain degree of social and cultural assimilation into American society” (97).

Yet, this is not always a smooth transition as these children may experience intergenerational conflict and stress during this process of acculturation.  They are heavily influenced by the cultural influence of their parents at home, yet the pull of the influence from peers and media draws them toward an often times conflicting dominant culture.  One of the main factors in this ambiguity is the way the children are raised by their immigrant parents and the way they perceive the dominant culture’s idea of parenting.  In the Chao article, the conflicting views of parental warmth are said to cause stress among children of Chinese immigrants.  Whereas the children of immigrants may perceive the role of the parent to be one of an abundance of warmth and affection, as seen through overdone and sentimental American television, the Chinese parent may be more focused on showing their affection through actions rather than the more expressive means which American parents are perceived to show.  In contrast, European immigrant children attribute any discrepancy between their parents’ shows of affection and their perceived notions to generational gaps.  According to Chao, “It may not be as stressful as the cultural ‘deviance’ Asian American adolescents perceive from their discrepancies.  Consequently, the discrepancies in ideal versus perceived warmth may be less deleterious for European American than for Asian American adolescents” (518).  This may cause cultural misunderstandings  for the immigrant children in regards to their parents. (Chao)

Another point of departure with the culture of their parents is the idea of success compared with the lower expectations of their peers.  Compared to non-immigrant children and other groups, Asian-American children are more likely to equate academic success to parental acceptance regardless of the Asian-American’s socio-economic status.  These high expectations are also likely to remain with the children and help fuel the drive to succeed in professional careers.  (Dyson)

Despite this idea of being torn between two cultures, immigrant children tend to share most of the same interests as non-immigrant children.  They tend to show mutual interests in sports, video games, television, reading, etc., and a mutual distaste for chores, certain foods, and boredom.  Because of these common interests and common aspirations, immigrant children are able to say they are accepted and lead fairly enjoyable lives and, in turn, view themselves as more similar than dissimilar to their non-immigrant peers on a social level.  This aspect of their lives is probably the reason assimilation takes place so soon after their parents immigrate.  As Dyson says, “The immigrants are apparently changing their behaviour and values as a result of exposure to the ne culture in the host country.  In so doing, they may be deviating from their culture of origin as imparted by their parents at home.” (Dyson)

So, children of immigrants, though torn between the culture of their parents and the dominant culture, do tend to find their way in American society adopting many of the same interests of the new culture, yet maintaining a high level of expectations for success that may drive them to excel in professional life, providing for a healthy social and economic living.  For further research I would probably focus a bit more on the parents and in what other ways they differed from their children and their reactions or feelings toward the acculturation of their children.

Works Cited

Chao, Ruth K., Wu Chunxia.  “Intergenerational cultural conflicts in norms of parental warmth among Chinese American immigrants.” International Journal of Behavioral Development. 29.6 (2005): 516-523. EBSCO. 10 June 2006.

Dyson, Lily L.  “The Lives of Recent Chinese Immigrant Children in Canadian Society: Values, Aspirations, and Social Experiences.” Canadian Ethnic Studies. 37.2 (2005). Humanities International Index. 10 June 2006.

Lum, Casey Man Kong.  “Communication and Cultural Insularity: The Chinese Immigrant Experience.”  Critical Studies in mass Communication. 8 (1991): 91-101.  EBSCO. 10 June 2006.