Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Pawan Dhingra is Associate Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College and Museum Curator (2011-2012) at the Smithsonian Institution.

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Managing Multicultural Lives

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments...........................................................................................ix1 Introduction: Opening Up the Margins in the Mainstream..................................................12 Uncovering Asian Americas: Examining Korean Americans and Indian Americans in Texas.....................163 Growing Up Takes (Identity) Work: Developing Ethnic Identities..........................................444 Model Americans and Minorities: Racial Identities and Responses to Racism...............................845 Multiculturalism on the Job: The Work Domain............................................................1246 Aspiring to Authenticity: The Home Domain...............................................................1577 Becoming Cultural Citizens: The Leisure and Civil Society Domains.......................................1898 Conclusion: Reconciling Identities, Recognizing Constraints.............................................226Appendix: Questions.......................................................................................253Notes.....................................................................................................259Bibliography..............................................................................................285Index.....................................................................................................309

Chapter One

Opening Up the Margins in the Mainstream

HOW DOES AN INDIVIDUAL MAKE SENSE of and handle his or her multiple, sometimes conflicting identities? When I asked how he hoped to maintain his self-defined Indian culture, Samit, a twenty-four-year-old second-generation Indian American, replied:

The biggest way is marrying an Indian. Getting involved in the community and temple and attending its cultural events. Language is a big deal.... There are things you can talk about with Indians that you can't talk about with others.... I think growing up here it's very hard; a lot of culture and attributes of being Indian are lost. Sometimes I think I'm no different than Joe Smith who lives next door.

Later in the interview he also fondly recalled a ras garba festival held at his parents' home, which involves dancing in concentric circles while clapping sticks and hands-part of a traditional religious event for Gujarati Indians:

We used to have garba at our house growing up. My [White] American friends came over and they loved it. We had a blast. It was fun teaching them how to do it and doing it with them.

These two quotes suggest the multifaceted nature of an answer to how people maintain multiple commitments. Samit feels highly Americanized yet still attached to an ethnic culture that distinguishes him from the majority, as seen in the first quote. At times he is able to bridge those parts, such as with a ras garba festival that translates well to other Americans, as seen in the second quote.

Similarly, when I asked James, a twenty-seven-year-old second-generation Korean American, what effect the model minority stereotype of Asian Americans as diligent had on him at work as a financial advisor, he smiled and said:

That's why I wear glasses. I wear glasses because I think [that] people think "Asian American, glasses, studies hard, works hard." I wear contacts on the weekend when I am with my friends. Maybe I play the race card a little bit. Sure, why not, if people think, especially in financial advising, [that] I am good with numbers.

He works in the primary labor market, is fluent in standard English, and has the dress, accent, and other commonplace signifiers of middle-class Americans his age. Yet, contrary to popular assumptions, he does not leave his minority status at the door when he enters the workplace. Instead, he makes an effort to appear racialized. By consciously acting as a "model minority," he hopes to climb the job ladder. Like Samit, he looks for ways to bring together the various elements of himself.

These anecdotes draw attention to how people deal with contrasting identities, whether as an ethnic minority who grew up in middle-class America, a mother with a full-time career (Blair-Loy 2003), a gay man living in suburbia (Brekhus 2003), and so on. This study analyzes second-generation Korean American and Indian American professionals living in Dallas, Texas-a geographic region under-explored for Asian Americans-to investigate how they both differentiate and integrate their ethnic, racial, and American identities in daily life. I frame these professionals as the margins in (instead of versus) the mainstream in order to move away from the presumption that minorities always separate, both cognitively and in practice, their ethnic and racial identities from the majority. The term "margins in the mainstream" refers to people who are connected to yet separated from a social space, in this case the mainstream. As a result, they have multiple sets of commitments. Allowing for both tensions and associations between group identities not only captures the experiences of ethnic minorities, but also draws attention more broadly to the agency we all have in dealing with contradictory interests. Moreover, this perspective offers new insights into assessing identity development and performance, immigrant adaptation, and racialization. The study is based on in-depth interviews with almost ninety individuals as well as participant observations (see chapter 2 for research design). Informants' voices dominate in the text. I emphasize how the experiences of Korean Americans and Indian Americans overlap, while noting their particularities.

So much of the discourse on ethnicity, including fiction, autobiographical essays, and academic research, refers to American culture as modern and as prioritizing the individual relative to a traditional and constraining immigrant heritage. This discursive dichotomy conceals the cultural conservatisms found in America, including the constraints placed on women and the rise of overt religiosity. The West is extolled at the expense of "Oriental" countries, which are criticized as pre-enlightened (Said 1978). Yet Asian Americans themselves often interpret their experiences within this framework, and denying its power would misrepresent their subjectivities and practices. "Asian" and "American" values presumably contrast with one another. The former is read as an emphasis on family, elders, and social conservatism, and the latter as a prioritization on personal autonomy and individualism (Ahn 1999; Jo 2002; Kibria 2002; Maira 2002; Min and Kim 1999). I accept that people understand their lives within this dichotomy, but in this study I demonstrate how they also move beyond it in their expressions of their identities (Zhou and Lee 2004), signaling the constructed nature of this dualism while recognizing its felt effects.

MAKING SENSE OF ETHNIC AND RACIAL IDENTITIES

Samit and James make sense of their backgrounds in ways that both differentiate them from and allow for association with Whites. This latter possibility breaks with the standard framing of ethnic communities-that immigrant groups' identities only create a severance from the majority. Previous research suggests that rather than maintaining divergent identities, the second generation privileges one over others. Groups presumably either assimilate into a segment of American society while keeping a weakened symbolic ethnicity, or they remain embedded in an ethnic community (that may or may not encourage success in mainstream institutions) (Alba and Nee 2003; Child 1943; Gans 1979; Waters 1990, 1998). Child (1943) posited three resolutions to the second generation's internal conflict between ethnic and American interests: to assimilate and break ties with one's ethnic community, to assert one's ethnic culture and fortify relationships within one's local setting, or to be "apathetic" and feel lost between cultures. Each of these scenarios hypothesizes choosing primarily one community as the healthiest means of adaptation. If one is extremely committed to a role identity, then that identity might always be active, merging with the person to form a core part of the self (Heiss 1992). For instance, Blair-Loy (2003) finds that many career women, particularly those of earlier generations, opted not to have children because of a commitment to their professions, which seemed at odds with being a mother (see also Stryker and Macke 1978). From a different perspective, postcolonial scholars argue that the nation incorporates diversity often by essentializing immigrants as the "Other" rather than by treating them as equal competitors for resources, which still affirms the either/or binary of identities (San Juan 2002).

Other researchers accentuate groups' sustained ties to multiple identities, rather than a primary one-identities that lack any connection, as if they were in distinct worlds (Uba 1994). One acts "Asian" at some times and "American" at other times, with no interaction between the roles. Even theorists who allow for ethnic lifestyles to change and emerge from one's local environment emphasize the distance that such identities create from other groups, rather than a possible alignment of group commitments (Roosens 1989; Yancey, Ericksen, and Juliani 1976).

As fitting a margins in the mainstream perspective, I consider how individuals develop an ethnic identity in order to be not only distant from but also at times accepted by other Americans, with whom they also identify, as in the case of Samit. Informants noted significant tensions between their self-defined ethnic and American lifestyles, as fitting the standard dichotomous framing discussed earlier. As explained in chapter 3, they also believed that a commitment to an ethnic community would give them group pride and allow them to associate with Whites despite tensions. First-generation immigrant parents prescribed a selective assimilation, hoping that honoring cultural differences in private and selectively presenting them in public would facilitate mobility despite one's minority status. The second generation tried to adhere to parental expectations in developing ethnic identities, although in often overlooked ways and with varying results. Actors hoped to integrate by developing salient ethnic identities, rather than preferring a "post-ethnic" America in which group differences are voluntary and secondary (Hollinger 1995). Still, even when parts of informants' background were accepted by others, they were not automatically embraced. When Samit invited his friends to take part in a ras garba, it became simply a dance in which they learned how to clack sticks and move their feet, rather than to be part of the religious significance behind it. The majority culture's selective tolerance of ethnic differences impacts how Korean and Indian Americans form ethnic identities and ultimately adapt.

Informants interpreted their racial minority status in a similar way, as both distinguishing them from and allowing for links to Whites. Asian Americans are racialized as foreigners (Ancheta 1998). This means that they encounter a general discrimination as non-Whites and a more specific and pronounced racial treatment as inherently Asian and un-American. How they make sense of race relative to other minorities and the majority remains in question. These second-generation professionals' class status does not erase the effects of race but instead alters them in a way that suits the needs of the state and capitalism (Omi and Winant 1994; Small 1999). For instance, middle-class-specific stereotypes include the model minority, who is passive and lacking social skills but who contributes to the economy, and the "yellow peril," whose hyper-feminine sexuality (for both women and men) and accomplishments construct one as a foreigner who threatens the nation's purity, safety, and prosperity during times of economic decline and war (Fong 1998). Asian Americans' ethnic background (including religion or food preferences) also becomes racialized, that is, evaluated not based on its merits but on members' racial status. Emphasis within this perspective falls on deconstructing essentialist depictions of Asians and Asian Americans, such as that of the "Easterner" not only as different from the enlightened "Westerner," but as his or her inferior opposite (Okihiro 1994; Said 1978). Other research examines individual and institutional discrimination within the social structure, along with actors' resistance to it (Collins-Lowry 1997; Feagin and Sikes 1994; Massey and Denton 1993; Pattillo-McCoy 1999). Such standard framing of minorities and immigrants is necessary in order to draw attention to injustices and group agency. In all the chapters, but especially chapters 3 and 4, I explain participants' general critique of discrimination from their perspective as supposed non-White foreigners, discrimination that includes instances of cultural intolerance, property damage, and physical threats.

Still, this critique of racism is not the total sum of Korean and Indian Americans' identities as racialized communities within the mainstream. As explained in chapter 4, contrary to common assumptions regarding U.S.-born minorities, actors did not embrace a pan-ethnic or person-of-color identity or develop a reactive ethnicity of themselves as "real minorities." Indian Americans in particular had weak pan-ethnic and even South Asian ties. This is despite the fact that both ethnic groups live in supposedly one of the more racist states of the country. These college-educated professionals did not claim to be beyond the effects of racism but instead made sense of the racialized image of potential invaders in ways that connected them to the majority, in particular to other immigrants, and kept them distinct from other minorities. In this way Asian Americans, rather than identifying themselves as either marginal or mainstream, can critique Whites for racism while still maintaining camaraderie with them. This in turn has implications for other minorities and class groups. Overall, informants made sense of both their ethnicity and race in ways designed to encourage their integration into mainstream society as ethnic minorities, not despite that status. I pay particular attention to the question of whether their efforts likely lead to an equal status with Whites or perpetuate stratifications.

PERFORMING IDENTITIES IN CULTURAL SPACES

Understanding the ethnic and racial identity formations of the second generation explains only half of how individuals handle their status as margins in the mainstream. I now turn to how they deal with their commitments to their dissimilar ethnic, racial, and American identities in daily life. How do Asian Americans decide which identity to act on and in which manner as they encounter racial, class, gender, religious, and other hierarchies, and as they cross distinct contexts? For instance, do women and men go out of their way to act "American" at work, or do they allow themselves to express an ethnic identity? Do they accept parents' expectations of how to act in the home sphere, and if so, how easy is it to fulfill those expectations? Do they support an ethnic community but engage in leisure activities, such as drinking, in order to appear "American"? Although much has been written on multiculturalism from the perspectives of philosophy, history, politics, and cultural studies, how individuals embody multicultural lives remains underexplored. To understand how groups perform their identities, we must appreciate two factors: the influence of a cultural space on people's behaviors, and how that influence in turn impacts their commitment to multiple, at times contrasting, interests.

People do not present any identity they wish or in any way that they please. Everyday actions occur within cultural spaces, which I refer to as domains, and must be contextualized. Little attention has been paid to the effects of domains, including one's office, home, leisure activities, and civic associations, on identity choices (Brekhus 2003). Recent research on culture and cognition argues that the culture of a place itself, apart from the particular actors within it, shapes how people think of themselves and process information (Cerulo 2002; DiMaggio 1997; Zerubavel 1993). Individuals make sense of the same stimuli differently based on the setting, even when the same persons are present across them (Lave 1988; Resnick 1991). More research is necessary on the effects of context on individuals' self-expressions (Hall and Okazaki 2002). As Douglas (1986) argues, institutions "think" for us, telling us how to make sense of items and events within them. Regardless of one's personal inclinations, a cultural schema impacts which self-conceptions and skills we consider most appropriate in that context. How people decide how to act depends, then, not only on others in the interaction, but also on the cultural code, or implicit cultural rules, of each domain (Swidler 2001). Though there are subtle differences between the terms code, schema, frame, and script, I use them to refer to people's mental image of a setting's expected mode of behavior (Fiske and Taylor 1984).

Interviewees put in concerted efforts to conform to the cultural frame of a setting (Goffman 1974). For example, Sangeeta, a twenty-three-year-old Indian American woman, said she engaged in "silly" practices in the home that she felt obligated to do given its cultural code, which is to create an atmosphere reminiscent of one's own upbringing, as explained in chapter 6:

In my little apartment I have a little area, and I do my thing in the morning and ... at night I do my prayers. And I feel bad if I don't, like I am neglecting something, and it is all mental. It's kind of silly. I don't know what I am doing, but I still need to do it to fulfill my own desire. A lot of it is based on how I was raised; it is pretty much a family tradition. It is a family tradition not related to God, but to the house.

Even though she lived on her own, she felt the "need to fulfill" a desire attached to the notion of her "house." Understanding the effects of space explains why people engaged in emotional reactions and practices that did not feel natural. Informants similarly made an effort to fit the codes of civil society, the leisure sphere, and the workplace. In chapters 5-7, I elaborate on each location's cultural frame, and on how participants went out of their way to observe them.

(Continues...)

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