Mia HahnAdvised by Professor Hung Thai

Introduction:

Literature Cited:

Results:

Living in High Cotton: How Second-Generation Chinese Americans

Living in the South Pick their Friends

Pomona College

September 3, 2015

McGill, R. K., Way, N., & Hughes, D. (2012). Intra- and Interracial Best Friendships During Middle School: Links to Social and Emotional Well-being.Journal Of Research On Adolescence (Wiley-Blackwell), 22(4), 722- 738.

Hung C. Thai (1999) “Splitting Things in Half Is So White!”: Conceptions of Family Life and Friendship and the Formation of Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Vietnamese Americans. Amerasia Journal: 1999, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 53-88.

Kibria, N. (2002). Becoming Asian American second-generation Chinese and Korean American identities. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Louie, V. (2004). Compelled to excel immigration, education, and opportunity among Chinese Americans. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Eckstein, Susan. 2002. "On Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Meaning of Immigrant Generations." Pp. 216-20 in The Changing Face of Home:  The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, edited by Peggy Levitt and Mary C. Waters. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Farley, Reynolds, and Richard Alba. 2002. "The New Second Generation in the United States." International Migration Review36(3):669-701.

Fernandez-Kelly, Patricia M., and Richard Schauffler. 1996. "Divided Fates:  Immigrant Children and the New Assimilation." Pp. 30-53 in The New Second Generation, edited by Alejandros Portes. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Apfelbaum, E. P., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating strategic colorblindness in social interaction.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 95(4), 918-932.

Acknowledgements:First off, I would like to thank all my participants who shared their pasts and thoughts with me. I would also like to express my gratitude to Pomona College’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program for allowing me the opportunity to journey home and examine the community that means so much to me personally. Lastly, I would like to thank Professor Thai for being my champion and critique, from helping me develop the theoretical framework to challenging me to polish my analysis.

In the Southern region of the United States, Asian Americans comprise 3.3 percent of the population in comparison to the 6.2 or 11.1 percent in the Northeastern and Western regions of the United States, respectively (2010 US Census Bureau). A ten-week ethnographic study on a mid-sized metropolitan area in the South examined how second-generation Chinese Americans employ different racial strategies to configure friendships and understand their own identities as ethnic Americans. Interpersonal relationships for second-generation Chinese Americans are examined in the context of past U.S. immigration policies and the current state of country’s race politics. As second-generation Chinese Americans transition into adulthood, they adopt racial strategies, form friendships, and mold their identity to insulate their racial and ethnic differences in the bifurcated black-white racial makeup of the South. As recent events reveal that historic black-white racial tensions persist throughout the nation, second-generation Chinese Americans living in the South have built their own spaces to observe, engage in, or ignore these racial conflicts.

Name Gender Age

Education (Highest Degree/Degree Currently Pursuing) Major/Occupation

Eric M 18 B.S. UndecidedJodie F 18 B.S. Mechanical

EngineeringAngie F 19 B.S. AccountingAnnie F 20 B.S. Accounting Ming M 20 B.S. BiologyPhilip M 20 B.S. Petroleum EngineeringCathy F 22 M.D. Medical School

StudentJune F 22 M.D. Medical School StudentLee F 22 B.S. FashionLi M 24 B.S. EnglishSheri F 27 PhD Pharmacology

Researcher

Jacob M 28 B.S. Performance PianistChuck M 29 J.D. Lawyer

Methods:Snowball Sampling

• Use of snowball sampling to meet participants. Entry sites includes a Chinese Christian church, a Chinese-language school, and local high schools.

Interviews

• Fifteen interviews were conducted. They lasted between one hour to three hours. Thirteen of the interviews were included in the sample for analysis.

• Most of my informants were•Made in the USA with the exception of one who immigrated to the United States from Sweden when she was 12 years old, but was born in China•Born and Raised in the South except one respondent was born in Michigan and currently studies in New York City and two live in different southern states.•“Middle class” however there was a wide range of interpretations of middle class. A few of my respondent came from either large families or parents worked in the restaurant business. Others came from single child households with parents who were doctors or professors.• Children of China’s Brain Drain as in at least one of their parents had a graduate degree although one of my respondent’s parents immigrated on the terms of family reunification.

Table I . ISecond-Generation Chinese Americans

1. Racial Strategies Guiding Friendships “Race Does Not Really Matter

to Me”, adopting colorblindness to a extent, constructing ethnic boundaries (Kiberia), and forming an ethnic identity amidst external factors perpetuating Asian Americans as forever foreigners and the internalization of such ideas

Educated - Friendships attributed to shared values in education and hard work. A majority of their friends tend to be white however, their closest or longest-held friends are Asian American.

Church - The significance of attending a ethnically-exclusive church is downplayed despite church being used beyond a religious space but also as the primary social and intimate space.

Leaving the South – The South is described as moving at a slower pace and having friendly people; at the same time, it is critiqued for being socially obsolete, “full of simple-minded people”, and culturally deficient. Respondents consider moving away from the South and expect that there will be more diversity or more “open-minded” people even though they make light of role being a racial minority plays in their daily lives.

“I have a ____ friend” Respondents think about and engage in discussions with their friends about

race relations. Many times they will point out the diversity of their group friends. Discussions are centered on black-white race relations, LGBTQ rights, or misinterpretations about radial religious groups. Despite being able to talk about issues regarding other communities, respondents do not recognize that Asian Americans face issues as a racial-minority group.

2. Not Enough to Start a Asian American Studies – Second-generation Chinese Americans harvest feelings of not belonging and bipolar marginality (Kiberia). However they rarely acknowledge these feelings and they have few outlets to explore their Asian American identities.

Model Minority Myth Chinese American culture defined by work ethic and fast food

Fast food with the exception of Lee Lee is majoring in fashion. She is the only respondent who understood how

Asian Americans could be cultural producers beyond the context of food. Repercussions of not engaging in discussions about race

• Wedge against other minority groups• Lack of discourse on shared interethnic experiences, such as familial

problems, micro-/macroaggressions