The unremitting image of Asian Americans as being "Model Minority" has created a veil that conceals their incessant struggles with discrimination, prejudice and microaggressions on individual, institutional and cultural levels. Previous studies have highlighted the personal and collective struggles of this group and emphasized the harmful consequences to physical, emotional and mental well-being of Asian Americans. The current study explored potential factors that may influence the impact of experiencing racial microaggressions for Asian Americans. More specifically, a 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design was utilized to examine whether level of familiarity and role of power in the target's relationship with the perpetrator differentially impacts the experience of a racial microaggression. A vignette illustrated a microaggressive encounter with a perpetrator who differed on these conditions with a sample of 263 Asian Americans. The findings indicate support for the damaging psychological consequences of receiving racial microaggressions with participants reporting significantly negative experience when the perpetrator was someone familiar in a position of authority. The results of the present study contribute to the literature on racial microaggressions by providing support for the injurious impact it has for Asian Americans and continues to challenge the model minority myth that persists to silence their voices and invalidate their racial reality.

In order to better understand variations of health behaviors between US-born and foreign-born elderly Asian Americans (65+) in the United States, the research aims to explore relationships among health outcomes, healthcare utilization, and sociodemographic characteristics. Data from the National Health Interview Survey 1998-2012 is used to construct structural equation models for the US born group and for the foreign born group. The results found that there is a reciprocal relationship between health outcomes and healthcare utilization in both groups. Use of healthcare services can positively affect health outcomes, while better health outcomes reduce the need for healthcare utilization. In addition, some sociodemographic characteristics, such as age, sex, and marital status have a direct effect on health outcomes, but some others, such as education, family size and combined family income, have an indirect effect on health outcomes via healthcare utilization. The region of residency has both direct and indirect effects on health outcomes. Regarding the effects of predictors on health outcomes, US-born elderly Asians usually receive more health advantages from using institutional health services than foreign-born elderly Asians. Practitioners, social gerontologists, and policy makers should be cautious about assuming that there is a positive impact of increased healthcare utilization on health outcomes in elderly Asian Americans.

Prior research shows that race remains a significant factor of inequality in the U.S. The extent to which Asian Americans face discrimination in the labor market is also a subject of considerable debate. Thus, studying labor market inequality of Asian Americans is important for our better understanding of current/future race relations in the U.S. In doing so, the role of region and migration remain key factors that have not been much taken into account in the prior research, although they play an important role in assessing whether Asian Americans have reached labor market parity with non-Hispanic whites. This research therefore investigates migration and regional aspects affecting the wages of Asian American men. More specifically, this study investigates whether wage determination and regional migration are indeed interrelated among Asian Americans, and the extent to which important migration and regional characteristics of Asian Americans differ from those of whites. Because prior research has limited scope examining these important factors, this study investigates various hypotheses together, to broadly understand the complicated processes across migration patterns, regional aspects, and labor market outcomes among Asian American men. Using the 5-Percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. Census and the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG), the results indicate the significance of region of residence and migration processes for understanding the wages of Asian American men, as well as the extent to which they differ from whites. For example, this research finds that region and regional distribution matter in the wages of Asian Americans, because cost of living expense is significantly higher for Asian Americans. Indeed, this study finds that Asian American men do not face a substantial disadvantage in the U.S. labor market, net of cost of living, demographic, and class factors. Prior research shows that Asian Americans had faced significant direct and overt racial discrimination in the labor market before World War II. Then this achievement of parity represents a historic change for Asian Americas. Namely, racial and ethnic discrimination in the post-Civil Rights era has been ameliorated at least for Asian Americans. Findings of this research show that taking regional migration into account does not alter this fundamental and significant conclusion. Furthermore, the regional aspect (i.e., higher cost of living for Asian Americans) does not explain why Asian Americans have socioeconomic parity with whites. Although what this conclusion implies about race relations for other minority groups remains debatable, the post-Civil Rights era appears to be characterized with the greater acceptance of Asian Americans, rather than the extensive and persuasive occupational disadvantages and other forms of discrimination that were commonly found in the pre-World War II era. / text

A plethora of research has shown that body image dissatisfaction significantly impacts women's psychological well-being. However, most of the research studies have only focused on weight or body shape concerns. Little attention was paid to concerns related to other body parts. Additionally, the lack of research on Asian American women has resulted in limited knowledge about the manifestation of their body image concerns, which led to limited culturally-responsive treatments attending to their needs. This current study aimed to bridge the gap in current literature by examining the relationship between racial identity, internalization of the dominant White beauty standards, body image, and psychological distress among Asian American women. The potential ethnic differences in internalization of the dominant White beauty standards were explored. The last research question explored Asian American women's satisfaction with discrete body parts. There was a total of 472 Asian American adult female participants for this current study. All of the participants completed a questionnaire package, which included a personal demographic sheet, the People of Color Racial Identity Attitude Scale (Helm, 1995), the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (Thompson, van den Berg, Roehing, Guarda, & Heinberg, 2004), and the Multidimensional Body Self Relations Questionnaire-Appearance Scales (Brown, Cash, & Mikulka, 1990). Path analysis showed several significant results. First, the Awareness-Dominant racial profile was found to significantly associate with higher levels of Body Area Satisfaction. Second, Internalization-General was found to have a significant positive effect on Appearance Orientation and reverse effect on Self-Classified Weight. Third, findings showed that Pressures had a significant positive effect on Overweight Preoccupation and Self-Classified Weight, and negative effect on Appearance Orientation and Body Area Satisfaction. Results showed no ethnic group differences in the internalization of the dominant White beauty standards among Asian American women. Lastly, results showed that Asian American women in this study reported more satisfaction with their racially defined features than body parts that were related to weight, fat distribution, and fitness. The findings make significant contributions by showing the importance of racial identity and internalization of the dominant White beauty standards in Asian American women's body image development and psychological well-being. Limitations, implications for clinical practices, and directions for future studies are discussed.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

Why study Asian American sexual politics? There is a major lack of critical analysis of Asian Americans and their issues surrounding their place in the United States as racialized, gendered, and sexualized bodies. There are three key elements to my methodological approach for this project: standpoint epistemology, extended case method, and narrative analysis. In my research, fifty-five Asian American respondents detail how Asian American masculinity and femininity are constructed and how they operate in a racial hierarchy. These accounts will explicitly illuminate the gendered and sexualized racism faced by Asian Americans. The male respondents share experiences that highlight how "racial castration" occurs in the socialization of Asian American men. Asian American women are met with an exotification and Orientalization as sexual bodies. This gendering and sexualizing process plays a specific role in maintaining the racial status quo. There are short and long term consequences from the gendered and sexualized racist treatment. The intersected racial and gender identities of the respondents affect their self-image and self-esteem. For the women, femininity has been shaped specifically by their racial identity. "Orientalization" as a colonial concept plays a role in these racialized and gendered stereotypes of Asian American Women. The gendered and sexualized racialization process and "racial castration" has impacted Asian American men in a different way than their female counterparts. Violence is a prevalent theme in their gendered and racial formation. Asian American men begin as targets of violence and sometimes become perpetrators. I also analyze how romantic and sexual partners are chosen and examine the dynamics of Asian American intraracial and interracial relationships. While Asian American "success" as "model minorities" is challenging white supremacy, gender and sexuality become "regulating" forces to maintain both the racial and gendered order. Finally, I offer and discuss the resistance strategies against gender and racial hierarchy utilized by my respondents. Asian Americans must be creative in measures that they take for group and individual survival. Respondents resist in intimately personal ways against ideologies. / PDf file replaced 8-28-2012 at request of the Thesis Office.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2004. / Thesis directed by William Carbonaro for the Department of Sociology. "April 2004." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-42).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-275).

This study explores how Asian Americans’ educational aspirations are different from other racial groups as well as uncovers differences among Asian American subgroups. This study developed a hypothesized model on the formation of educational aspiration. Among factors affecting educational aspirations that were derived from the literature review, students’ academic effort and performance, students’ perceived academic self-efficacy, and support received from students’ significant others were hypothesized to have direct effects on students’ educational aspirations. In addition, students’ perceived self-efficacy and academic effort were hypothesized to have indirect effects on students’ educational aspirations through students’ academic performance. Students’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics were controlled to examine if they had any direct and indirect effects on educational aspirations. In order to test validity of the hypothesized model on educational aspiration, this study adopted structural education modeling (SEM) to analyze the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). As a result, the hypothesized model was confirmed because of its adequate model fit. In addition, this study found that Asian American students’ educational aspirations were different from other racial groups. First, neither academic effort nor performance affects Asian Americans’ educational aspirations whereas both affect aspirations significantly in the entire sample. Second, there was a positive effect of academic self-efficacy on Asian Americans’ educational aspirations whereas efficacy did not affect aspirations in the entire sample. Third, there was a positive effect of support with college information from significant others on Asian Americans’ aspirations, which was not statistically significant in the results of the entire sample. This indicates that Asian American students’ educational aspirations are more influenced by subjective or perceived factors such as academic self-efficacy and support with college information received from significant others, rather than objective indicators such as academic performance and academic effort. Moreover, there are differences in aspirations by Asian American ethnic subgroups even after controlling for other variables. Compared to Filipino Americans, all other four Asian American subgroups show significantly higher educational aspirations. The findings of this study help to understand how high school students’ educational aspirations are formed in general by examining the conceptual model with the entire data. In addition, the findings help to fill the gap in the literature about debunking the model minority myth about Asian American students by proving that they are heterogeneous. / text

This study tested the construct validity of the People of Color Racal Identity Attitudes Scale (PCRIAS) for Asian Americans using a mixed methods inquiry. The study produced mixed results with regard to the construct validity of the PCRIAS; Conformity and Immersion-Emersion statuses were somewhat corroborated by the qualitative data and provide tentative construct validity for these statuses of Helms’s model. Though statistically insignificant, results for the Internalization status,purportedly the most mature and developed of all racial identity statuses, were opposite to what racial identity theory would predict. Although some dimensions of the PCRIAS may be meaningful for Asian Americans, findings cast doubt upon the overall applicability of PCRIAS scale for Asian Americans. Results draw attention to the importance of race-specific experiences for Asian Americans and highlight the within-group heterogeneity of Asian Americans’ racial experiences. Qualitative analysis yielded critical theoretical points that illuminate how the historical, political, and economic context of Asian Americans has led to a multitude of options for the management of racial stimuli. Emergent themes revealed that Asian Americans have discursive options—factors such as the model minority myth and recourse to ethnic identity—that may offer possible detours around the recognition of racism or the incorporation of race into their sense of identity. These detours, however, may not necessarily be experienced as maladaptive or ego-dystonic. Nonetheless, one of the most prevalent emergent themes involved an endorsement of subjective distress caused by some racial experience, highlighting the clinical significance of Asian Americans’ racial identity and their management of racial stimuli. Emergent themes also revealed that the salience of race is externally imposed upon Asian Americans through the experiences of being (mis)recognized as a racial other. Limitations of the current study are discussed and suggestions for future research are explored. / text