An Investigation Into Ethnic Identity And Acculturation Of Asian American Colleg Students

The ethnic identity and acculturation of different ethnic groups in America has been widely discussed and studied in the past decades.Since Asian Americans have been exposed to both the Asian and the American cultures,it is worth investigating how Asian Americans have identified and constructed their ethnic identities and to what extent they get acculturated into the American culture.This thesis investigated how Asian American students identify themselves in terms of ethnic identity and how they get acculturated to the American culture in the aspects of language proficiency,friend selection,social activities,and so on,and it made specific efforts to find out how generational status and length of residence in the U.S.A.correlate to ethnic identity and acculturation.This empirical study conducted a survey among 67 Asian American college students in a Midwestern American university.The study used questionnaires,consisting of Sunni Lew-Asian Asian Identity Acculturation Scale(Sunni et al,1992)and three demographic questions.The findings have shown that about two thirds of the participants were born and have been raised up in U.S.A.,of whom more than half have identified themselves as Asian or Asian Americans but very westernized.As far as language proficiency is concerned,half of the Asian Americans lack literacy in their native Asian languages.In terms of friend selection,the participants reported that the number of their Asian friends has been increasing as they grow up,and most of them like both Asian and non-Asian friends now.Socially,most participants prefer English songs and films to Asian languages.Quite a few participants reported they prefer Asian foods at home and enjoy both Asian and western foods when they stay in restaurants.The majority of the participants prefer English to their Asian languages.The correlational analysis showed that generational status has a significant role in predicting ethnic identity,but not correlated with acculturation.Length of residency in the U.S.,however,has a significant correlation with both ethnic identity and acculturation.This investigation has important implications for the study of the ethnic identities of both Asian American college students and other ethnic minority college students in the United States.