Negotiating the workplace: second-generation Asian American professionals’ early experiences

ABSTRACT

Research on Asian American educational attainment suggests that a combination of immigrant hyper-selectivity and ethnic capital enables second-generation Asian Americans to succeed according to a narrowly-defined success frame. However, recent quantitative work suggests that ethnoracialized advantages within the educational system do not translate into advantages in the workplace. This study therefore examines second-generation Asian Americans’ experiences as they seek work in the labour market. I draw from 30 semi-structured qualitative interviews with 1.5- and second-generation Asian Americans in the New York City area, all of whom had entered the full-time workforce within the previous ten years. I find that these recent labour market entrants faced three major constraints and enacted several strategies in response. Family and community networks no longer provided the same ethnoracialized resources and network ties that might enable educational success; in response, workers mobilised institutional resources and peer networks. Once in the workplace, respondents experienced racialized microaggressions; in response, they minimised the role of race. Finally, they encountered negative stereotyping; in response, they worked to distance themselves from such stereotypes. Overall, these findings shed light on how ethnoracialized processes impact the presumed link between educational and occupational success.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian Americans
• labour market discrimination
• second generation
• ethnic capital
• racial and ethnic minorities

Acknowledgments

For their support and guidance throughout this study, I am grateful to Van C. Tran, Jennifer Lee, Estela Diaz, Francisco Lara Garcia, Sharon Green, and Kate Khanna. Members of the Race, Ethnicity, and Migration workshop, Natasha Warikoo, and five anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier drafts. Most of all, I am deeply indebted to the participants who agreed to share their stories for this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Including the 1.5-generation – defined as those born abroad, but who arrived to the United States before the age of 12 - is consistent with prior work on the second generation (US-born, with one or both parents born abroad) (e.g., Kasinitz et al. 2008). Prior studies of 1.5-generation individuals find that their experiences are closer to the second generation than to individuals who migrated after the age of 12 (Portes and Rumbaut 2001). All respondents in this study received both their high school and college educations in the United States. For shorthand, I refer simply to ‘the second generation’ in the remainder of the paper.

2 All names are pseudonyms