How to assist the child survivors of war is a problem. One of the most traumatic injuries a child can suffer is the loss or displacement of their care-givers. The practical details of what constitutes a helpful intervention are unknown. Beginning in 1975, a group from S.E. Asia, some children of war, traveled to the United States as unaccompanied refugee minors. One purpose of this study is to discover what inner strengths and external resources enabled these young people to create a viable life for themselves in a strange new culture. Another purpose of the study is to explore ways in which therapeutic approaches to working with dislocated children of war can be strengthened and informed. A sub-group of the unaccompanied minors is the Vietnamese Amerasians. Between 25 and 40,000 Vietnamese Amerasians were born to Vietnamese women and American servicemen between 1962 and 1975. An in depth, phenomenological interview was used to record the migration stories of these 11 children. The literature and the interviews supported the conclusion that a major predictor of positive adjustment was length of time the child had spent in the care of parents or parental substitutes before migration and the amount of stable foster care the child received after migration. Additionally, the child's relationship to institutions and case workers as adjunctive caretakers was also found to be a significant factor in adjustment. Finally, the methods employed in the case work required were divergent from the typical child welfare practice due to the importance of paying particular attention to culture and the meaning of “helping relationships” in the original culture.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Tibetan women at various higher educational institutions in the Western Massachusetts area after the US Congress passed the 1990 Immigration Act (Comprehensive Immigration Action of 1990, Sec 134) that granted 1,000 visas to displaced Tibetans from exiled communities in India and Nepal to the United States. The research study was guided by the following five main questions: (1) What does it mean for Tibetan women to pursue higher education in the United States? (2) What motivates the Tibetan women to study? (3) What professional careers do these Tibetan women aspire to in the United States? (4) To what extent are these women intending to serve Tibetan communities? If so, how? If not, why not? (5) How did the concept of a Tibetan egalitarian society help these women to pursue higher education in the United States? Case study was the approach used for the study with a research design focusing on qualitative rather than quantitative techniques. Due to the paucity of existing literature and research on the Tibetan population in the United States, this was an exploratory study. This study does not represent educational experiences of all Tibetan women in higher education. Twelve Tibetan women participants were interviewed using in-depth interviews as a data collection method for this study. Five common themes emerged out of this study; the meaning of higher education, educational motivation, communal responsibility, career aspirations, and gender differences in Tibetan society. Results from this study suggested that Tibetan women’s experiences in higher educational institutions are different from other minority women partly due to their stateless status and their devotion to work towards the preservation of unique Tibetan culture and language in exile. In addition, the multiple uprooted experiences clearly posed unique challenges as well. It was apparent from the study that Tibetans while adapting to the host culture, remained loyal to the cause of the Tibetan self determination and nation state.

This dissertation examines two central debates concerning Latino/a families: the superintegration versus disintegration debate focusing on the direction of differences in extended family integration between Latinos/as and Whites, and the culture versus structure debate seeking to determine whether it is cultural or structural factors that are responsible for these differences. Using the second wave of the NSFH (1992-94), this dissertation explores the ethnic differences in extended family integration as well as investigates cultural and structural factors that may produce these differences. Examining three components of family integration---proximity to kin, contact with kin, and kin support---the dissertation first compares Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latinos/as, and finds that Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans are similar in their family integration, while other Latinos/as are different from them. This finding emphasizes the need for comparing Latino/a groups to each other. Based on the results of this comparison, the dissertation combines Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans into a single Latino/a category, and finds that Latinos/as are significantly more likely to live with and near kin, as well as to frequently see their kin in person, than Whites. Thus, the findings on proximity and contact support the argument that Latino/a families are more integrated than White families. Examining kin support, however, this dissertation finds that Latinos/as and Whites are similar in terms of instrumental help and emotional support but different in financial assistance and child care help: Latinos/as are less likely that Whites to give or receive financial assistance, and Latinas are more likely than White women to give or receive child care help. Thus, the findings on kin support refute both the disintegration and the superintegration arguments, and support the arguments of multiracial feminist theorists, who criticize dichotomous approaches to Latino/a families. In terms of the culture versus structure debate, this study finds that the differences between Latino/a and White family integration can be attributed primarily to the ethnic differences in socioeconomic standing. Cultural factors and nuclear-family composition only play a small role in explaining the ethnic differences. Thus, this dissertation primarily offers confirmation to structural approaches.

This study of the narratives of Chinese female immigrant professionals explores factors that affect their career development and strategies they use for career adjustment in the United States. Narrative analysis, using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, was employed to interview eight Chinese immigrant women who are wives and mothers, have degrees in higher education, have worked in professional fields, and have immigrated from People's Republic China to the U.S. between 1984–1992. The analysis, conducted with a feminist perspective, revealed that U.S. immigration regulations, gender relations and family responsibilities, language and cultural background, discriminatory practice, field of specialization and skill transferability, and opportunities offered by the U.S. are the six major forces that shape the vocational experiences of Chinese female immigrant professionals in the U.S. Derived from the women's narratives, the study also identified strategies that the women used to meet the challenges they encountered in the U.S. These strategies include: (1) some helpful attitudes, (2) tactics to encounter immigration restrictions, (3) using resources in the larger society, (4) tips to improve English skills, (5) help from extended family, (6) connecting with ethnic based network, and (7) family separation as an adaptive strategy. Even though most women in this study seemed to manage to tackle the many challenges facing them, there are also concerns and issues emerging from the narratives that deserve careful attention. Areas of concerns and needs involve disruption from prolonged family separation, inequality in traditional gender relations, parenting issues, limited social integration, how to deal with prejudice and discrimination, and heightened stress level. Both clinical and research implications are also discussed in detail.

This qualitative study investigates the ways in which White college students make sense of meritocracy in relation to racial inequality in the contemporary United States. Through in-depth individual interviews and qualitative methods of analysis, participants reveal their beliefs about how people achieve success in the U.S., their explanations of the economic disparity between Black and White Americans, and their perspectives on meritocracy in contemporary U.S. society. Twenty traditionally-aged White undergraduate college students at a large public University in the Northeast took part in the study. The sample was stratified by gender, year in school and engagement with issues of racism. White students who had experience with issues of racism through academic courses, or who had taken active roles in student organizations that addressed racism were identified as “engaged.” White students who had not been actively involved in such courses or co-curricular activities were identified as “not-engaged.” Based on their gender or year in school, there were no differences in White students' perspectives on either meritocracy or racial inequality. Prior engagement with racism, however, was strongly related to striking differences in White students' perspectives on meritocracy and their explanations for racial inequality. Engaged White students were much more likely than not-engaged White students to espouse a structuralist stratification perspective about both success and racial inequality, and to assert that the United States is not a meritocracy. Most of the not-engaged White students relied on individualist explanations for both the achievement of success and the causes of racial inequality. Of particular note is the way that many not-engaged White students seemed to be involved in a cognitive juggling act, trying to work with the contradictions between their ideology of meritocracy and their awareness of racial discrimination. The findings raise implications about the role that merit and racial ideology play in forming White students' understanding of individual achievement and racial inequality in the United States. The study includes suggestions for new ways of conceptualizing anti-racism teaching to emphasize the role of meritocratic ideology and it suggests future research on developmental processes that may challenge traditionally-aged White undergraduate college students' reliance on merit ideology.

Immigration to the United States is a complex process of psychological adaptation and change not only for immigrants but also for their children. This study initially explored processes of identity in second-generation immigrant Asian Americans, considering a variety of factors influencing processes of self-making. In interviews with eleven Asian American men and women of various ethnicities, aged 18–30, who resided primarily in the Northeast, open-ended questions were asked about immigration history and significant relationships. In subsequent analysis, this researcher proposed utilizing a framework of loss and trauma to explore aspects of participants' experiences, including family relationships, academic achievement, gender role identity, sexuality, and racism. Traumas of immigration were speculated to have been recreated in family relationships. Regarding academic achievement, participants described feeling pressured by and conflicted about pursuing lucrative financial careers, perhaps in an effort to recover losses of immigration and to achieve the “American Dream.” Regarding gender role identity, women in the study described feeling restricted, perhaps in response to a parental effort to preserve a nostalgic vision of cultural purity. Men in the study talked about feeling pressured to assume leadership roles in the family as young adults. They also discussed feeling emasculated in the context of U.S. culture. Regarding sexuality, women felt the pressure to be chaste and to marry someone of the same ethnicity, perhaps in a parental effort to recreate their parents' nostalgic of the ancestral homeland. Men described feeling similar pressures in marrying, but also described feeling asexualized in U.S. culture. Both women and men talked about the pressure to delay sexuality until after achieving career goals. Participants also described various experiences of racism that often led them to feeling marginalized. Racism may have exacerbated the losses of immigration as participants struggled to claim the U.S. as home. This research highlighted not only Asian American lives but also the complex transnational political, historical, and economic forces in which they are embedded. Looking at the experiences of Asian Americans (and other ethnic minorities) through the lens of immigration, rather than through generalized notions of culture, is encouraged as a new paradigm for research in psychology.

The purpose of this study is to explore how white anti-racism educators understand and address whiteness in their teaching. This study describes how white anti-racism educators make sense of whiteness as a construct. This includes an exploration of how whiteness is defined, and an elaboration on the similarities and differences between these definitions. In addition, the study explores how white anti-racism educators address the concept of whiteness in their teaching and training. This study follows a phenomenological approach to data collection and analysis with regard to the research question: from the perspective of a white anti-racism educator, what is whiteness and how does it inform my practice? Twelve white anti-racism educators who identify as either university faculty or organizational consultants were interviewed for this study. Several themes emerged describing their interest in anti-racism education and how their journeys as anti-racist educations began with an early awareness that came from spiritual and religious values, family influences, relationships with people of color, and participation in anti-racism training. In describing the meaning of "whiteness," these anti-racism educators talked of whiteness as social construction, culture, power, and privilege. Finally, most of them shared feelings of ambivalence, hope, anxiety, and compassion that were derived from thinking about how whiteness has impacted their lives and how they felt they should teach about it. Important considerations based on this research include the role they play in raising the racial consciousness of other whites, the role of trust in their journey toward being an anti-racism educator, and how high-trust relationships have influenced how they view their work. And finally, they follow a set of principles or guidelines that help them situate whiteness within the context of their anti-racism educational practice. This study concludes with research limitations, as well as future research and practice implications.

This dissertation is an analysis of how, in the context of State governmentality, Salvadoran immigrants in the 1990s constructed a transnational identity and forged community through the symbolic use of their cuisine. Drawing from historical sources, including USDA documents, contemporary theory, including Foucault, Boym, and McCracken, and ethnographic data, I discuss the roles of power, memory and consumption in Salvadoran immigrants' encounter with the State. Historically, immigrants have been subject to State nutritional bio-politics: food and nutrition policy and programs that deploy a “technology of diet,” resulting in modern meanings for food, what I term “nutrithink,” and dietary discipline. But I demonstrate how undocumented and temporarily documented Salvadorans, especially those who migrated from rural areas, establish culinary sanctuaries and invent the “Salvadoran Ideal Meal” to resist State ascribed identities and dietary disciplinary tactics. To these ends, Salvadoran woman, I argue, “groom” food for their household and community to infuse it with meaning and to forge an identity otherwise unavailable to Salvadorans in the public sphere. This identity, a function of collective gastronomic nostalgia, links Salvadorans to an idealized past and a hoped for present and future, all of which they want to share with their children. But Salvadoran immigrants quest for an autonomous identity in the face State power and modernizing forces leads to many tensions, and these tensions ultimately become located on the bodies of Salvadoran-American children, lending, I suggest, to their high rate of obesity.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of African-American students and their parents about the academic achievement gap between African-American students and their White counterparts at the elementary school level in urban school districts. The study was also aimed at determining the extent to which socioeconomic factors contribute to the achievement gap between African-American and White students. A survey of African-American students and their parents was conducted to collect data for the study. The data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative procedures to provide answers to the research questions and to test the research hypotheses. Consistent with the related literature, the findings indicate that the existing achievement gap between African-American and White students is primarily impacted by a number of socioeconomic factors including single-parent family structure, lack of equal educational opportunities, lack of appropriate self-esteem and/or necessary self-confidence among African-American children, peer pressure, and little participation of African-American parents in their children's educational accomplishment due to financial restraints, job-related obligations, and other family commitments. Conclusions derived from examining the research questions and hypotheses are summarized as follows: (a) as a result of low family socioeconomic status, a majority of the African-American children have the disadvantage of not being able to enjoy the quality education they deserve; (b) younger parents of low socioeconomic status are more likely to show dissatisfaction with the quality of education provided their children as compared to older parents with higher income status; (c) the more educated African-American parents are, the more likely they show commitment to their children's academic achievement; (d) the older African-American parents are, the more likely they value the relationship with school concerning their children's academic achievement; (e) fifth graders are doing best in science and writing, while third graders are doing best in reading; (f) while both third grade and fifth grade children agreed that teachers do not show favoritism toward African-American or White students, fifth graders showed a relatively higher degree of agreement; and (g) while both third grade and fifth grade children disagreed that even when they work hard, they receive poor grades, fifth graders showed a relatively higher degree of disagreement. The study was concluded with several suggestions for future research as well as a number of recommendations to school boards, to educational policy makers, to school administrators, to school teachers, and to the African-American community.

This dissertation examines the process of miscegenation in the work of four authors who occupy pivotal positions in American writing about race. It is concerned with a variety of fictional and non-fictional texts produced by William Wells Brown, George Washington Cable, Pauline Hopkins, and Thomas Dixon between the years 1846 and 1915. This study will examine how miscegenation provided these authors with a way of narrativizing American race relations in a period which encompasses slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction and Redemption, as well as the creation of a segregated South and an imperial America. Individual chapters engage in cultural as well as literary analyses by reading mixed-race characters as literary signs which gave rise to a wide range of narrative possibilities, as political instruments which allowed each author to intervene in contemporary debates about the construction of American history, the nature of race, and laws designed to regulate interracial contact. While remaining aware of the personal and political differences which separate the writers under consideration, this study notes similarities in the ways in which each makes use of mixed-race characters and miscegenation plots. Attention to gender likewise unites the individual chapters. The fact of mixed parentage signifies differently for male and female characters, no matter what plot these authors chose. For each, the figure of the quadroon woman presented special problems, as indicated by the sheer number of pages each devoted to telling child re-telling her story. This study traces the permutations of plots centered around quadroon women by reading a number of fictional works by each of the primary authors. It also examines the ways in which constructions of gender are overdetermined by methods of race representation which appear in the works of African-American writers, as well as in that of their white counterparts. By focusing on a works which illustrate the interconnectedness between black and white Americans from slavery through segregation--works created by authors who themselves represent, in their persons as well as their politics, a variety of subject positions--this dissertation seeks to locate itself in the context of current efforts to produce a new canon of American literature, one more truly reflective of the varied nature of American life. It examines a literature not of race, but of race relations; one which repeatedly describes positions on a racial continuum too complicated to be characterized in terms of black and white.