Vietnamese Americans are the children of refugees. While some are middle-class and upwardly mobile, many are not. As an ethnic group, Vietnamese Americans are often grouped, by the mainstream and academics, with other high status and high achieving Asian Americans. In this study, I look at middle-class and upwardly mobile Vietnamese American students and alumni and their voluntary association with a vast network of ethnic organizations. I ask the question, how do these Vietnamese Americans respond to their racialization when their local ethnic resources are not consistent with their racial status? In my analysis, I draw on concepts from literature on segmented assimilation, minority cultures of mobility, and ethnic boundary work. Additionally, I frame my analysis in terms ethnic capital formation, social capital, and cultural frames. I found that Vietnamese Americans collectively responded to racialization via the organization and its programming. Additionally, they constructed and promoted a “cultural frame of indebtedness” to rationalize the discrepancy between their success and the marginalization of their co-ethnics. / 10000-01-01

Drawing upon 20 in-depth interviews with second generation Haitian young adults, I examined the ethnic identities and the involvement in ethnic organizations of the respondents. This study pays particular attention to how involvement in ethnic organizations influenced how the second generation Haitians believed the earthquake affected their identities and how they ultimately responded to the earthquake. Several of the findings revealed differences in how and why the respondents chose to ethnically identify such as Haitian, Haitian-American, black Haitian. The respondents' choice to join an ethnic organization was driven by different desires but the perceived influence of the organization on their ethnic identities resulted in an increase in cultural knowledge as well as an ability to stay rooted in the culture. However, the lack of participation on the part of some of the respondents was a choice dictated by conflicts of authenticity, time, and responsibilities. The comparison between involved and non-involved respondents in terms of their response to the earthquake revealed that involved respondents were more active in volunteer projects. Involvement in ethnic organizations influenced how the second generation Haitians perceived the earthquake affected their identities, and ethnic affirmation in terms of a desire to visit Haiti was expressed by involved respondents. The implications of this study revealed the importance of establishing ethnic organizations in middle and high schools in order to foster a sense of pride through knowledge at an earlier age.

This exploratory descriptive study looks at the characteristics of immigrant children in the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area who participate in organizations associated with their parents' country of origin. By drawing on the 2004 Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA) survey dataset, I bring together aspects of the participation and assimilation literatures in order to better understand who participates in ethnic organizations. Results provide evidence that ethnic organization participants differ from the full sample and from respondents who participate in community organizations; they exhibit more ethnic resource characteristics. Significant determinants of participation in ethnic organizations include having a larger numbers of close relatives in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, literacy in their parents' native language, higher education levels, and being married. These findings indicate that ethnic resources are more important to immigrant children who participate in ethnic organizations than attaining dominant characteristics or straight-line assimilation in society.