Segmented assimilation and socio-economic integration of Chinese immigrant children in the USA

Abstract

Research on the new second generation has paid much attention to testing one of the hypotheses posed by segmented assimilation theory – downward assimilation into America's underclass – and has neglected to examine other possible outcomes. In this paper, I address a much understudied pathway – assimilation by way of the ethnic community – based on a case study of Chinese immigrant children in the USA. I show that the children of Chinese immigrants have made inroads into mainstream America through educational achievement, not only because of the strong value their parents put on education but also because resources generated in the ethnic community help actualize that value. The Chinese American experience suggests that, in order to advance to the rank of middle-class Americans, immigrant parents have chosen the ethnic way to facilitate children's social mobility and achieved success. Paradoxically, ‘assimilated’ children have also relied on ethnicity for empowerment to fight negative stereotyping of the racialized other.

Keywords:

• segmented assimilation
• second generation
• Chinatown
• immigrant selectivity
• ethnic community
• supplementary education

Notes

1. Data on which the analysis is conducted are from my qualitative fieldwork on Chinese immigrant communities in New York and Los Angeles in 1999–2004 and 2007–09, as well as from the 2009 American Community Survey, see S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States, Population Group: Chinese alone or in any combination (Data Set: 2009 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates). http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t

2. The CCBA is a federation of ethnic organizations. It used to be the quasi government of Chinatown in the USA prior to the Second World War and has remained one of the most influential ethnic organizations in the Chinese immigrant community. The CCBA New York represents sixty different family and district associations, guilds, tongs (or merchants associations), the Chamber of Commerce and the Nationalist Party.

3. Chinese School Association in the United States (CSAUS) official website: http://www.csaus.net/

4. CSAUS official website: http://www.csaus.net/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Min Zhou

MIN ZHOU is Tan Lark Sye Chair Professor of Sociology, Head of Sociology Division, and Director of the Chinese Heritage Centre at Nanyang Technological University.