<p>Children of post-1965 Asian immigrants experience a different mode of social incorporation than other people of color. They achieve marked socioeconomic advancement but racism and discrimination continue to haunt them. Sociologists suggest that the group falls between whites and African Americans in the American racial stratification system. However, scholars know little about how this intermediate position shapes the group's modes of social incorporation and identities. I seek to answer this question by examining the lived experiences of grown children of Korean immigrants. For this research, I draw upon 69 in-depth interviews with upwardly mobile, 1.5- and 2nd-generation Korean Americans. I focus my analysis on four distinctive but related aspects of their lives: parental socialization, neighborhood contexts, occupational standing, and racial identity. Utilizing the grounded theory and the critical discourse analyses, I found that the group experiences neither full inclusion into nor exclusion from the white mainstream, but undergoes divergent adaptational experiences due to multiple factors. First, in their upbringing, Asian ethnic advantages and racial marginality did not shape parental expectations for children's success in a uniform way; their influences differ by the parents' class backgrounds. Second, the community contexts where my informants grew up diversify their perception of race relations, leading them to have divergent ideas of social incorporation. The ethnic communities function to refract the influence of the larger society's racial categorization on the informants, rather than insulating them. Third, the Korean informants' upward mobility in the mainstream labor market does not guarantee full assimilation; their occupations partially determine the extent of incorporation. Korean informants in Asian-clustered occupations are more likely than those in Asian-underrepresented occupations to experience social inclusion while accepting the racialized image of Asians. Finally, my Korean informants do not have homogeneous racial identities; they are diversified by gender and occupational standings. Male respondents and those in Asian-clustered occupations tend to have white-like identities. Also, the majority of my informants have an ambivalent racial identity that denies that they are an "oppressed" minority while endorsing the idea that they are non-white, which reflects their intermediate racial position. By identifying multiple factors in the construction of Asian Americans as racialized subjects, the findings illustrate the distinctive racialization pattern of Asian Americans, a pattern that is qualitatively different from other racial and ethnic groups. Additionally the research confirms the ongoing significance of race in the life chances of Korean Americans.</p> / Dissertation

This work looks at the way the Taiwanese American college student's identities are complicated and compounded by the intertwined histories of China and Taiwan. It looks at the historical account of Chinese and Taiwanese history through the understanding of genealogical history. It also analyzes the importance of narrated family accounts and lived experiences of Taiwanese-ness. Lastly, it looks at the development of Taiwanese identity as it is strengthened or weakened through religion, politics, and language.

Multiracial individuals undergo challenging life experiences as they develop their identity. The existing research on multiracial individuals primarily focused on specific periods of life or sampled particular multiracial mixtures. Instead, this thesis attempts to consolidate the preceding research to provide a comprehensive and encompassing analysis of identity development for multiracial individuals in reference to life stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. By compiling research to address multiracial individuals’ identity formation, mixed-race individuals can learn about the benefits of identifying with multiple races as well as the dangers posed by society and its perceptions of racial classifications. This thesis also acted as a personal memoir analyzing significant life experiences of an Asian /White individual growing up in the United States.

In 2014, in the wake of #BlackLivesMatter, a call to action was made for Asian Americans to actively engage with and unlearn the age old model minority myth and join the movement for racial justice. This thesis seeks to understand and complicate what it means to subvert this ideology in the way of #modelminoritymutiny. It is divided into three primary sections: first, a theoretical framework and of the model minority myth throughout time as a tool for positioning Asian Americans; second, an application of this framework into the recent Peter Liang and Akai Gurley case this past year; and third, a course syllabus for an Asian American studies course here at the Claremont Colleges. This trajectory showcases what it means for Asian Americans to actively resist ascribed narratives, and to propose methods for learning and unlearning.

<p>South Asian same-sex attracted women in the United States experience discrimination and marginalization that puts them at an increased risk for mental health issues. Research shows their rates of counseling and psychotherapy use are low due to perceptions of stigma, lack of knowledge, and concerns about culturally insensitive treatment plans. Mental health providers lack the literature needed to inform culturally sensitive treatment plans to address these concerning gaps in services, and an extensive literature review found no studies on the lived experiences of this population. Guided by feminist theory, this research study examined how discrimination, oppression, and marginalization mold women&rsquo;s lived experiences; this knowledge aims to serve as a means to advocate for social and political change for this population. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of this population. An emergent hand coding analysis, using experiential anecdotes, of data collected from interviews of 10 participants generated 10 major themes and 25 subthemes of experiences. Themes included importance of cultural values; familial relationships; marital life plan; intersectionality; and discrimination from gender disparity, patriarchal hierarchy, and sexual modesty. The study contributes to social change initiatives by providing culturally and contextually practical information to mental health professionals, counselor educators, and educational institutions that provide services to this population. </p>

In “‘Bury Your Head Between My Knees and Seek Pardon’: Gender, Sexuality, and National Conflict in John Okada’s 1957 novel, No-No Boy,” I analyze the ways in which the complexities of gendered sexuality expressed by protagonist Ichiro Yamada intersect with post-World War II and Internment-era national identifications for American nisei. I demonstrate that this apparent story of one man’s pursuit to resolve his conflict over national identity is, in reality, a tour de force of literary subversion that not only destabilizes the subterfuge that surrounded internment but also—in its deliberate failure to resolve questions of national conflict on the basis of masculine and heterosexual norms—encourages skepticism about the larger structures of order that allowed internment to happen.

<p> Asian Americans are generally considered an educationally and economically successful minority in the United States, a perception known as the model minority myth. These images can negatively impact Asian Americans, especially in higher education, by neglecting their challenges and limiting the research conducted related to their struggles and obstacles in higher education. Since most studies involving Asian Americans focus on their enrollment in elite universities, there is not much recognition of Asian Americans in community colleges. This study focuses on one specific subgroup of Asians, Korean Americans. Although this group is more likely to attend highly selective colleges regardless of socioeconomic status, I focus on the Korean American students who attend community colleges. </p><p> This study aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of Korean American students attending community colleges and how their perceptions and experiences influence the construction of their possible selves. More specifically, this study examined the opportunities and obstacles they experienced in community college and how these experiences intersected with model minority myths. This study also focused on the possible selves Korean American students might construct while attending community college. Possible selves are &ldquo;representations of the self in the past and they include representations of the self in the future&rdquo; (Markus &amp; Nurius, 1986, p. 954) and various self-conceptions that include &ldquo;the good selves, the bad selves, the hoped-for selves, the feared selves, the not-me selves, the ideal selves, and the ought-selves&rdquo; (Markus &amp; Nurius, 1986, p. 957). For this study, 29 Korean American community college students were recruited and semi-structured interviews were conducted regarding their high school experiences, community college experiences, and future goals and plans. Through data analysis inspired by a grounded theory approach, 40 codes were developed and three major themes emerged related to the experiences of Korean American students at community college. </p><p> The findings showed that before Korean American students attended community colleges, they negatively perceived community colleges as a place for those who did not get into four-year colleges or did not do well in high school, a perception strongly influenced by others such as parents, peers, or members of Korean communities. However, once they attended, many of them had positive experiences through the various academic and career services offered and interactions with faculty and peers. These positive experiences changed Korean American students&rsquo; negative views of community colleges. Although positive experiences changed their negative perceptions of community colleges, they consistently encountered negative perceptions from others which conflicted with their positive experiences. Korean American students also constructed various possible selves based on their academic and career goals. Most constructed positive possible selves if they had more specific academic and career goals and as well as the confidence to achieve them. These students thought community colleges helped develop their future goals but were ultimately ambivalent about their attendance at community college. Some believed community college was a foundation or stepping stone for achieving their goals while others thought attending community college would negatively influence their future. </p><p> This study is important because it explores an issue to which little scholarly attention has been paid and which has not been thoroughly investigated. Theoretically this study can contribute to the literature on possible selves and Asian Americans in higher education, give a deeper understanding of a particular group in relation to model minority stereotypes, and provide a guide for how to examine multifaceted elements which can influence the understanding of how community college students develop possible selves. This study also has practical benefits: it can promote how to better support Korean American students in order to help them succeed in achieving their goals in higher education.</p><p>

More than one hundred years have passed since the Chinese laborers first landed in this country in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet their history remains cloudy. This phenomenon is quite understandable if one considers the facts that most of the laborers were illiterate, did not have the ability, and never intended, to speak for themselves. It is true that many scholarly works have been published, but few were written by Chinese historians. As a matter of fact, Chinese scholars are unaware that a small number of their countrymen played a strange, pitiful role in American history. The published works reflect the viewpoint of only American observers. The labor of the Chinese workers was indispensable to the development of the frontier West at a time when resources were abundant and labor hands were few. So much work had to be done building railroads and dams, digging mines, clearing farm lands, canning salmon, etc. And the Chinese were welcomed to every line of manual work. There was a time when nearly every family at Astoria of Oregon and Olympia of Washington hired a Chinese as servant, as some writers claim. When the great number of whites moved in from the east, along with them came the floating laborers and the European immigrants, as well as the labor union. Conditions changed rapidly, the Chinese found themselves not only excluded from all employment, but persecuted everywhere. California was the state which first utilized Chinese labor and first expelled it. This unfavorable circumstance forced the Chinese to flee from California to other states. The purpose of this paper is not to give an account of how the Chinese were maltreated in a country known as a free, equal land opened widely to the whole world, but rather tries to find out how they survived, what were their daily problems, sorrows, and happiness, if any, and what were their inner feelings, their attitudes toward the white hosts. In short, the paper is written in an attempt to reconstruct their life in an alien land. In addition, the paper tries to answer the question why this oriental group appeared so peculiar in their behavior, as some whites commented, that they were both condemned and contemned. One of the crucial problems facing the researcher in the field of early Chinese immigration history is the lack of original materials. This is the common defects in all the published works on this subject. Fortunately for the author, by an unique chance, he was able to study numerous objects left in a Chinese grocery store, the Kam Wah Chung Co. at John Day--a small town once a busy mining area in Eastern Oregon. The pioneer artifacts in this town are disappearing, though the gravels of the old gold placers are still visible along the hillsides and canyons. But the queer old building of the Chinese store is still standing stubbornly as it did one hundred years ago, on a road called Canton Street So many objects were left in the building that the city of John Day is endeavoring to open it as a museum. From a historical point of view, many of these objects are very valuable. Among them are a great number of letters. Some were sent to the laborers from their families, in care of that building. Others were from the laborers to their homes, and for some unknown reason had not been sent to China. They are unique and of special importance to this paper. Perhaps nowhere else in the United States, or in War-torn China, can one find such a number of first hand records about the early Chinese in this country. Although few significant events, romantic affairs, or anything exciting can be expected of them, still, one can reconstruct a plain sketch of their life from these materials. The paper, though it only presents a small picture of the Chinese group in Eastern Oregon, is aimed to serve, hopefully, as a footnote leading to an understanding of how the early Chinese immigrants once lived in the Pacific Northwest.

There are more than 3.4 million South Asians in the United States. Among this subgroup, Bangladeshis in New York have a high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes ranging from 15 to 24% compared to the general population. This study examined the effect of acculturation through length of stay in the United States and understanding of the English language, and the role of gender on self-efficacy (SE) and diabetes self-management among 336 New York Bangladeshi immigrants between the ages of 21 and 75 who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with A1C -‰¥ 6.5%, as verified by their medical record for inclusion criteria in the original DREAM study. Health belief model was used as a theoretical framework. The key findings showed a significant relationship between gender and SE levels (p ¤ .0001). Bangladeshi women were 79% less likely to have high SE levels compared to their male counterparts (OR= .212; 95%CI: .099 -.453). Additionally, those who had low education attainment were 68% less likely to develop high SE levels (OR = .323, 95%; CI: .105 -.998). The findings demonstrate the need to understand the influence of social and contextual factors on SE and underscore the importance of integrating a systems approach and ontological lens in the implementation of gender-specific innovative strategies. Such an understanding might help destigmatize diabetes, improve medication adherence, and enhance SE and coping skills for Bangladeshi women across the life span. The findings of this study might provide knowledge to public health practitioners that would help create gender-specific diabetes education and lifestyle management for equity-centered capacity building to alleviate the disproportionate burden of diabetes in Bangladeshi minority women in the United States, ultimately improving health outcomes and reducing healthcare expenditures.

<p>This mixed methods, phenomenological study examined how cultural tension influences career development for Asian American community college students. Students initially completed Phinney's (1992) Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) and an instrument developed for this study called the Cultural Identification Survey. The mean for ethnic identity search was 3.49 and the mean for the ethnic identity commitment was 3.97. High exploration with high commitment corresponds to Phinney's third stage of ethnic identity development, ethnic identity achievement. On the Cultural Identification survey, the mean for "I identify more with my parents' culture" was 3.55, the mean for "I identify more with White culture than my parents' culture" was 2.80, the mean for "I identify with both White culture and my parents' culture" was 3.45, and the mean for "I feel caught between White culture and my parents' culture" was 2.62. Fourteen students who indicated either "often" or "all the time" to the statement "I feel caught between White culture and my parents' culture" participated in the interview portion of the study. The 14 participants received a mean of 3.30 for ethnic identity search and a mean of 3.56 for ethnic identity commitment on the MEIM corresponding with the ethnic achievement stage. Participants described how they experienced cultural tension through their relationships with their parents. The results indicated that through cultural tension, participants were able to move through the stages of ethnic identity development as described by Phinney (1990), Parental influence on career development, including their support, their understanding of careers, and their exposure to careers, was also found to be part of the participants' experiences. Cultural tension and their parental involvement created learning experiences that had an impact on the career decision-making process. </p>