East meets West: Acculturation levels, parenting styles, and mental health outcomes of Vietnamese American adolescents immigrants

In the United States, the Vietnamese population is one of the fastest growing minority groups in the U.S. but mental health research on this population has been sparse. Upon arrival in the U.S., Vietnamese immigrants face an acculturation process where western and eastern cultural values are different. This process can be stressful since each member acculturates at a different rate, creating a strained parent-child relationship leading to family conflicts. This situation is exacerbated since most Vietnamese parents tend to use the authoritarian parenting method where dictatorial approaches are enforced. The opposite of authoritarian parenting is authoritative parenting where there may be more flexible and democratic. Focusing on the adolescents' perceptions of their fathers, this exploratory study surveyed 290 Vietnamese American adolescents in the greater Houston area to examine the relationship between their fathers' acculturation levels and parenting styles and between parenting styles and self-esteem and depression levels of the adolescents.;Findings revealed that most adolescents (92.4%) perceived that their fathers retained Vietnamese values, did not acculturate to the U.S. culture, and most (64.5%) perceived that their fathers continued to practice the traditional authoritarian parenting style regardless of length of time residing in the U.S. Further, results indicated that adolescents who perceived that their fathers utilizing the authoritarian parenting style reported lower levels of self-esteem and higher depression scores when compared to those whose fathers utilized the authoritative parenting style. Data reported that fathers who hold "blue-collar" jobs tend to utilize the authoritarian parenting style. Qualitative data also provided insights into the dynamics of the parent-child relationship. Of the 290 subjects, only 23 reported their perception of acculturation and parenting style on the mothers. Similarly, adolescents reported "low" acculturation rate for the mothers and most (74.0%) reported authoritarian parenting style. However, these adolescents reported higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression than the "fathers" group. Implications for social work practice, education, policy and future research are included.