| The purpose of this study was to assess the ethnic identity of biracial women and men of Chinese and White European descent in the U.S. and to investigate how the participants' Asian enculturation, Chinese cultural orientation, phenotype, and fluency in the Chinese language influence Chinese ethnic identity. The following 4 hypotheses were investigated: (H1) As Asian enculturation increases in biracial individuals, so will Chinese ethnic identity. (H2) As Chinese cultural orientation increases in biracial individuals, so will Chinese ethnic identity. (H3) Biracial individuals with Asian phenotypes will endorse a greater Chinese ethnic identity than biracial individuals with non-Asian phenotypes. (H4) As biracial individuals' fluency in the Chinese language increases, so will Chinese ethnic identity. A total of 99 participants completed 3 existing reliable and validated self-report measures: the Asian American Values Scale---Multidimensional (AAVS-M, Kim, Li, & Ng. 2005), the General Ethnicity Questionnaire - Chinese (GEQ-C, Tsai, Ying, & Lee, 2000), and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure-Revised (MEIM-R, Phinney & Ong, 2007). Because of the multicollinearity among the predictor variables, 4 separate, simple linear regressions were performed. The study's findings supported hypotheses 1, 2, and 4, but did not support hypothesis 3. This study supported various factors that lead to increased ethnic identity in biracial individuals. However, further research on phenotype, including improved measurement of this construct, is needed to better understand whether it influences ethnic identity in multiracial individuals. Rigorous effort should also be made to recruit participants who are more proficient in their heritage language, i.e., Chinese. Recommendations for clinical work and future research are made as it relates to ethnic identity in biracial individuals. |
