Chinese Americans And Their Immigrant Parents

Based on culture-related themes derived from the author's psychotherapeutic work with young Chinese-American professionals, this important book relates personal problems and conditions to specific sources in Chinese and American cultures and the immigration experience. Unique and practical, this is a nonclinical work that will help Asian Americans connect historical and cultural meanings to their Chinese roots. It will also give educators, mental health professionals, and those working with Chinese populations firsthand insight into the lives and identities of Chinese-American immigrants. Exploring the meaning and arrangement of Chinese family names, the bonds among family members, and the different contexts of “self” to Chinese Americans, this valuable book offers you insight into the dilemma between “self” and “family” that both the younger and older generations must face in American society. In order to help you understand Chinese immigrants or help your clients, Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents provides you with information about several differences found between the two cultures, such as: understanding that words and concepts may not relate to the same emotions or translate exactly between languages realizing that strong family bonds of the Chinese fosters interdependence, unlike Americans who admire self-assertiveness and independence recognizing the fear that Chinese immigrant parents have of losing their strong family ties and seeing their children forsake customs because they do not want to be seen as “different” discovering why risk-taking and adventurous acts are discouraged by many Chinese parents comprehending the great importance to Chinese parents of continuing their family and raising successful children acknowledging the different roles of men and women within several different contexts in American and Chinese societies With personal vignettes, humor, and interesting insights, Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values demonstrates how some Chinese Americans are connecting historical and cultural meanings to their Chinese roots and bridging generational gaps between themselves and their parents to create a truly cross-cultural identity.

Raising a child is challenging for many parents, especially for a new, immigrant family. For those parents, they not only have to face the challenges of integrating themselves into a new environment, but they also need to handle the conflicts coming from two cultural backgrounds. Like many Chinese Americans, the authors inherited the traditional Chinese culture. Yet they also opened their minds and embraced their new culture. Through the collisions of these two cultures, they developed a unique parenting strategy: a combination of the best of both worlds to educate their children. This approach offered them a cutting edge in developing their children to be among the most competitive. As they raised their children, they • held parties to build their children’s social groups; • used teamwork to create a harmonious family, strengthening the family bonds; • helped their children excel in academic competitions; • taught their children how to be rigorous and strive for perfection; • inspired their children to explore innovative strategies to overcome obstacles; • developed their children’s creativity, leadership, and initiative; • encouraged their children to be involved in the community; and • gave their children freedom to develop their individual personalities and discover their full potentials. The authors believe that their story will be beneficial to other parents and also provide a new perspective of Chinese American families for mainstream Americans.

Asian Americans are often stereotyped as the “model minority.” Their sizeable presence at elite universities and high household incomes have helped construct the narrative of Asian American “exceptionalism.” While many scholars and activists characterize this as a myth, pundits claim that Asian Americans’ educational attainment is the result of unique cultural values. In The Asian American Achievement Paradox, sociologists Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou offer a compelling account of the academic achievement of the children of Asian immigrants. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the adult children of Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese refugees and survey data, Lee and Zhou bridge sociology and social psychology to explain how immigration laws, institutions, and culture interact to foster high achievement among certain Asian American groups. For the Chinese and Vietnamese in Los Angeles, Lee and Zhou find that the educational attainment of the second generation is strikingly similar, despite the vastly different socioeconomic profiles of their immigrant parents. Because immigration policies after 1965 favor individuals with higher levels of education and professional skills, many Asian immigrants are highly educated when they arrive in the United States. They bring a specific “success frame,” which is strictly defined as earning a degree from an elite university and working in a high-status field. This success frame is reinforced in many local Asian communities, which make resources such as college preparation courses and tutoring available to group members, including their low-income members. While the success frame accounts for part of Asian Americans’ high rates of achievement, Lee and Zhou also find that institutions, such as public schools, are crucial in supporting the cycle of Asian American achievement. Teachers and guidance counselors, for example, who presume that Asian American students are smart, disciplined, and studious, provide them with extra help and steer them toward competitive academic programs. These institutional advantages, in turn, lead to better academic performance and outcomes among Asian American students. Yet the expectations of high achievement come with a cost: the notion of Asian American success creates an “achievement paradox” in which Asian Americans who do not fit the success frame feel like failures or racial outliers. While pundits ascribe Asian American success to the assumed superior traits intrinsic to Asian culture, Lee and Zhou show how historical, cultural, and institutional elements work together to confer advantages to specific populations. An insightful counter to notions of culture based on stereotypes, The Asian American Achievement Paradox offers a deft and nuanced understanding how and why certain immigrant groups succeed.

This volume explores cross-cultural encounters with schooling among Chinese immigrant mothers in Canada. Using a narrative inquiry approach, the author sets out to spotlight the challenges facing immigrant parents and students as they begin to integrate into Western society and culture, specifically focusing on aspects of their experience including the intergenerational relationship between students and parents, home-school relations, and interactions with other Chinese immigrant parents. Chapters address intercultural differences as a reference point for understanding immigrant parents' views on schooling, moral education, and parenting practices.

Based on culture-related themes derived from the author's psychotherapeutic work with young Chinese-American professionals, this important book relates personal problems and conditions to specific sources in Chinese and American cultures and the immigration experience. Unique and practical, this is a nonclinical work that will help Asian Americans connect historical and cultural meanings to their Chinese roots. It will also give educators, mental health professionals, and those working with Chinese populations firsthand insight into the lives and identities of Chinese-American immigrants. Exploring the meaning and arrangement of Chinese family names, the bonds among family members, and the different contexts of “self” to Chinese Americans, this valuable book offers you insight into the dilemma between “self” and “family” that both the younger and older generations must face in American society. In order to help you understand Chinese immigrants or help your clients, Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents provides you with information about several differences found between the two cultures, such as: understanding that words and concepts may not relate to the same emotions or translate exactly between languages realizing that strong family bonds of the Chinese fosters interdependence, unlike Americans who admire self-assertiveness and independence recognizing the fear that Chinese immigrant parents have of losing their strong family ties and seeing their children forsake customs because they do not want to be seen as “different” discovering why risk-taking and adventurous acts are discouraged by many Chinese parents comprehending the great importance to Chinese parents of continuing their family and raising successful children acknowledging the different roles of men and women within several different contexts in American and Chinese societies With personal vignettes, humor, and interesting insights, Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values demonstrates how some Chinese Americans are connecting historical and cultural meanings to their Chinese roots and bridging generational gaps between themselves and their parents to create a truly cross-cultural identity.

Tiger Mom. Asian patriarchy. Model minority children. Generation gap. The many images used to describe the prototypical Asian family have given rise to two versions of the Asian immigrant family myth. The first celebrates Asian families for upholding the traditional heteronormative ideal of the “normal (white) American family” based on a hard-working male breadwinner and a devoted wife and mother who raises obedient children. The other demonizes Asian families around these very same cultural values by highlighting the dangers of excessive parenting, oppressive hierarchies, and emotionless pragmatism in Asian cultures. Saving Face cuts through these myths, offering a more nuanced portrait of Asian immigrant families in a changing world as recalled by the people who lived them first-hand: the grown children of Chinese and Korean immigrants. Drawing on extensive interviews, sociologist Angie Y. Chung examines how these second-generation children negotiate the complex and conflicted feelings they have toward their family responsibilities and upbringing. Although they know little about their parents’ lives, she reveals how Korean and Chinese Americans assemble fragments of their childhood memories, kinship narratives, and racial myths to make sense of their family experiences. However, Chung also finds that these adaptive strategies come at a considerable social and psychological cost and do less to reconcile the social stresses that minority immigrant families endure today. Saving Face not only gives readers a new appreciation for the often painful generation gap between immigrants and their children, it also reveals the love, empathy, and communication strategies families use to help bridge those rifts.

In the contemporary American imagination, Asian Americans are considered the quintessential immigrant success story, a powerful example of how the culture of immigrant families—rather than their race or class—matters in education and upward mobility. Drawing on extensive interviews with second-generation Chinese Americans attending Hunter College, a public commuter institution, and Columbia University, an elite Ivy League school, Vivian Louie challenges the idea that race and class do not matter. Though most Chinese immigrant families see higher education as a necessary safeguard against potential racial discrimination, Louie finds that class differences do indeed shape the students' different paths to college. How do second-generation Chinese Americans view their college plans? And how do they see their incorporation into American life? In addressing these questions, Louie finds that the views and experiences of Chinese Americans have much to do with the opportunities, challenges, and contradictions that all immigrants and their children confront in the United States.

A compelling saga of mothers and daughters, survival and striving, women, family, and culture that will resonate with all Americans who have immigrant roots. This fascinating book takes a new and different look at the immigrant experience of Asian Americans. Through the voice of her Chinese mother, the author examines perennial themes of separation, loss, guilt, and bicultural identity in the lives of immigrant families. Grounded in a historical context that spans events of more than a century, World War II, McCarthyism, Civil Rights, the Women's movement, this volume: Uses oral history to show how families rely upon myth and legend as they adjust to a new culture. Illustrates how strong cultural and intergenerational bonds can both support and oppress Chinese American families; Uses Asian mythology and symbols to understand the psyche of Chinese Americans and their immigration experience, illustrating the contrasting world views of Asian and Western culture. Provides strategies for coping with the immigration experience for use by counselors and other professionals.