<p> The controversies and political conflicts associated with the Vietnam War led to three resettlement waves of Vietnamese refugees to the United States. Adapting to a new set of American customs and cultural traditions challenged many Vietnamese immigrants who were faithful to their own familiar traditions and were economically and linguistically challenged. In this autoethnographic study, I present the history of my family experience, beginning with my parents' urgent departure from Vietnam as boat people, their struggle to adapt to a foreign country, the development of their family, the cultural and generational clashes experienced by the family, the reunification with extended family members, and establishing a local cultural identity. This study is grounded in personal voice to illustrate the struggles that my Vietnamese family experienced in adapting to American society. It offers a view of Vietnamese immigrants and their second-generation children living in two worlds. The autoethnographic study revealed five social dynamics for Vietnamese American families: (a) escape from civil war, (b) reliance on social support network, (c) family generational conflict between immigrants and their children, (d) loyalty to family and culture, and (e) class conflict in native country. These findings were derived from the vignettes and analyses of a Vietnamese American family living in two worlds: Vietnam and the U.S.</p>

<p> This dissertation commences a critical examination of the issue of historical representation and draw on the fieldwork surrounding Bopiliao Historic District in Taipei to explore how the imagination and authentic sense of heritage influence the designation of historic sites and the way in which people use authenticity to negotiate their position in the progress of place making. The buildings cannot speak for themselves. Historical significance is not a given but something that needs to be interpreted and constantly reimagined. A sentimental yearning for a former time and place is not enough to explain the establishment of this historic district with twists and turns and the ambivalence over it expressed by the host community. </p><p> The first empirical chapter describes the historical background, preservation process, and the status quo of Bopiliao Old Street under the influence of the government-supported film <i>Monga</i>, which causes considerable controversy over heritage and culture representation and affects public image of the site and the host community. The second empirical chapter illustrates how an old urban neighborhood has been narrated, interpreted, and eventually certificated and accepted by the public as cultural heritage based on various social groups' heritage imagination and practice. The third empirical chapter examines how the stakeholders construct and employ the idea of authenticity to justify their viewpoint of cultural heritage and to strive for their position in the progress of place making. </p><p> My research seeks to contribute to the sociological literature on historic representation, heritage interpretation, and the construction of historical authenticity by exploring the increasingly central role played by media, activists and the locals. The tangible heritage is the production of the interaction between historic relics and the host community. Historical representation in the cinematographic media became a stimulus urging civil resistance to the existing official forms and strategy of historic preservation. Tourism continues to highlight the impact as well, for the opinions of the visiting tourists play an important role in reinforcing the image of destination. The contradiction in the sense of authenticity among social groups implies the existence of entirely different images of cultural heritage. The conflict represents the struggle of establishing local identity in contemporary Taiwan society. It is argued that the preserved heritage never denotes a successful end; rather, it is a start of the dialectical place-making process.</p>

<p> By exploring the experience of Armenian Americans who have enrolled in the American higher education system, this study investigated how the Armenian American identity influenced the experience of college students. The research explored the community and cultural wealth that Armenian Americans brought to their universities, which interacted with established institutional resources and structures. Data was collected through semi-structured, open-ended interviews of 21 participants from the Greater Los Angeles area. The major findings of the study include the emergence of the Armenian American student identity (AASI), customization and negotiation of the oncampus experience, and building networks on campus. The overarching metaphor for the AASI became <i> Two Circles. Two Worlds.,</i> refers to the code switching taking place with the Armenian American college student population. This code switching resulted in the two campus acculturative strategies of compartmentalization and integration. The discussion explicated three factors that impacted the selection of these acculturative strategies: (a) on campus presence, (b) campus hospitality and environment, and (c) shared experience. The research concluded with implications for practice within student affairs, administration, and faculty as well as multiple opportunities for future research to provide further insight into this student population.</p>

"No (person) is an island" (Donne J, 1975, p. 87). The importance of social support in the lives of human beings is evident and for immigrant adolescents the role of social networks is important to facilitate their adjustment within the majority culture and to navigate their identity within spaces of belonging. / This study aims to describe how Filipino immigrant adolescents in Cote-des-Neiges, a district in Montreal, organize social support and how this relates to their mental health. This research is a mixed design with a sequential strategy. Firstly, data about social support from an epidemiological survey of Filipino youth are analyzed. Secondly, ethnographic research elaborates the findings from the quantitative part. / The results suggest that social networks play a dual role of both support and conflict for the adolescents and that there is a complex interplay between migratory trajectory and the strategies for organizing social support and negotiating spaces of belonging.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1996. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-07, Section: B, page: 4694.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1999. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 59-10, Section: B, page: 5569. Adviser: Julia Shiang.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1999. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 60-05, Section: B, page: 2413. Chair: Phillip Akutsu.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1999. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 60-11, Section: B, page: 5802. Adviser: Evonne Schaeffer.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 2001. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-09, Section: B, page: 4975. Adviser: Julia Shiang.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 2001. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 62-11, Section: B, page: 5432. Chair: Julia Shiang.