Finding one's place: shifting ethnic identities of recent immigrant children from China, Haiti and Mexico in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the ethnic identity adaptations of recently arrived immigrant children from China, Haiti and Mexico. Overall, three main types of ethnic identity categories emerged: country of origin (e.g. Chinese), hyphenated (e.g. Chinese American), and pan-ethnic (e.g. Asian or Asian American). These three ethnic identities were examined to assess their relationships with various social and structural variables. While most of the participants retained their country-of-origin label throughout the five-year longitudinal study, a significant number of them showed divergent paths of ethnic identity shifts and formations. As a whole, only gender, annual household income, and parental educational level were significantly associated with different ethnic identity changes. Analysed separately by national groups, Chinese participants' ethnic identity adaptations were influenced by parental educational level, and Haitian and Mexican participants' by gender. Potential explanations for the various ethnic adaptations are examined and limitations of the study discussed.

Keywords:

• Immigration
• race
• ethnic identity
• youth
• acculturation
• gender

Notes

1. Scholars have conceptualized ethnicity as an enduring aspect of one's social identity and self concept which is derived from one's knowledge of one's membership in a social/cultural group along with the values and emotional significance attached to that membership (Tajfel 1981; Keefe 1992). Within the field of social science, the term ‘ethnicity’ is often used to distinguish within a particular racial category (e.g. between Irish and Germans within the white population in the US). While acknowledging the complex debate on the topic of race and ethnicity (see Phinney 1996), the term ‘ethnicity’, as used in this article, will refer to the broad category of Americans grouped on the basis of both race and countries/cultures of origin.

2. The question on ethnic identity was asked only in Year 1 and Year 5.

3. Although all the participants were investigated in their ethnic changes over the same period of time, how long they had been in the country prior to the time of recruitment and the age at which they were recruited should both be considered. Based on past studies (e.g. Garcia and Lega 1979), one could argue that a 15-year-old immigrant child, for example, who has lived in the US for almost five years may have a different ethnic identity development compared to a same-aged peer who may have lived in the US for only a few months, perhaps due to varying levels of acculturation, language proficiency, and exposure to American society.

4. Proposition 187 was a controversial 1994 initiative designed to prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving social services, health care, and public education in the state of California.