To “Brown It Up” or to “Bring Down the Brown”: Identity and Strategy in Second-Generation, South Asian-Canadian Youth

ABSTRACT

There is a growing body of research examining how ethnicity and race are implicated in identity development among ethno-racially diverse youth. The current study explored the complex and dynamic ways that racialized youth describe and use their identities in the various social environments that they participate in. Techniques informed by a grounded theory approach were used to understand the personal, social, and situated identities of 26 young South Asian-Canadian women and men (aged 18–25). Findings suggest that these youth were influenced both by a distinct ethnic/racial history and a personal history grounded in “Canadian” experiences. These identities are multi-dimensional, flexible constructs that are created and re-created as youth interact with others around them. Youth actively negotiate various aspects of their environments and draw on their “identity capital” to make deliberate, strategic choices about whether to “brown it up” or “bring down the brown” within different human interactions. This reflects youths' resiliency in dealing with the potentially oppressive situations that arise when living in ethnically/racially heterogeneous environments. The implications of these findings for social work theory, research, and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• race
• youth
• identity

This study was conducted with financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in the form of a Doctoral Fellowship. The author would like to thank Dr. John Sylvestre, Dr. Sarah Todd, and the anonymous reviewers from this journal for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Throughout this text, the term “mainstream” or “majority” will be used to describe those from White, Euro-Western backgrounds, while the term “minority” will be used to denote those with diverse ethno-racial roots.

2. The term “second-generation” is typically used to refer to youth who are born in North America (or who arrived in Canada or the United States before reaching adolescence), but whose parents (described as “first-generation” newcomers) originate from elsewhere (Kibria, 2002; Perez & Padilla, 2000).

3. Consistent with Handa (2003), the term “South Asian” is use to refer to those with an historical and cultural connection to the South Asian subcontinent (which includes India, Pakistan, Republic of Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh), as well as those who have migrated from the South Asian subcontinent to other countries (e.g., East Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, the Caribbean, Fiji, etc.). Accordingly, then, this term was used in recruitment texts, and despite the geographic/linguistic/religious diversity characterizing the sample, those who participated in this research universally identified themselves as “South Asian.”

4. For a detailed summary of recent work related to the conceptualization of acculturation and its associated strategies, see Berry (2003) and Farver, J. M., Bhadha, B. R., & Narang, S. K. (2002).

5. In some cases, the percentages reported here do not total 100% because of rounding.

6. In order to protect the identity of participants, all quotations featured here are accompanied by pseudonyms that were generated randomly by the author.

7. Here, aline is drawn on the notion of “interlocking oppressions” rather than the more commonly used concept of “intersecting identities.” The idea of intersectionality helps to show how race, gender, class, and other political identities are factors that come together to contribute to our oppression (Crenshaw, 1989; hooks, 2000). The concept of interlocking oppressions, however, takes this analysis one step further by illustrating how racism, classism, sexism, etc. are social practices that are rooted in and sustained by unequal power relations embedded in the fabric of society. The key idea here is that in order for one system of oppression to exist, others must also exist; in order for oppression to be effectively eradicated, all systems must be unsettled together, rather than taking up one “ism” at a time.