Asian American Identity Essay

What makes people American? Is it the fact that they live in America? Is it the fact that they can speak perfect English? Is it the fact that they contribute to America? Although we can raise a number of possible definitions of “American,” none of them seem to help Asian Americans become “real” Americans. As Tuan argues, the word American “is reserved for describing white ethnics and would not be accepted by others if used to describe themselves” (Tuan 127). It means that Asian Americans possess few available choices regarding their identification in contrast to white people. As a result, some Asian Americans struggle between how others perceive them and how they see themselves. In this paper, I mainly focus on later generations of Japanese

Moreover, I aspire to identify the variety of identities among different classes, genders, generations and neighborhoods and measure the impact of each category on identification. By citing and comparing different scholars’ work, I hope to see the underlying distinctive characteristics of late-generation Japanese Americans in their identification.
First of all, how do people define and negotiate their own identity? According to Dhingra, “The salience of individuals’ ethnic/racial identities depends on their exposure to four major factors: culture, institutions, interests and categorization” (Dhingra 160). In other words, people become more attached to their ethnic/racial groups as they learn more about their culture, have greater access to ethnic/racial communities, share common interests and are categorized in the same group. Compared to the first and second generations of Japanese Americans who lived in Japanese American residential areas and possessed strong ethnic ties, the later generations of Japanese Americans live dispersedly and are in multiracial areas. Thus,

In contrast to the first and second generations of Japanese Americans who stay connected with the ethnic community and maintain the cultural heritage, fourth-generation Japanese Americans are completely assimilated and they have little exposure to the Japanese culture. In spite of these circumstances, according to Tsuda, fourth-generation Japanese American youth have become more interested in reconnecting with the Japanese heritage and three factors can be raised as causes of this phenomenon. The first one is the rise of multiculturalism in the U.S. According to the Pew Research Center survey 2015, the multiracial people makes up 6.9 % of the adult American population and the number of interracial marriage has increased almost fourfold since 1980. As a consequence, people embrace diversity more and ethnic minorities come to see their ethnic heritage as uniqueness and pride it instead of losing it. Some people feel that the Asian ethnic background makes them special because white people’s life seems to lack culture. The second cause is the Japan’s economic rise. Japan’s economic success since the 1960s has enhanced its image in the U.S and American people no longer associate Japanese Americans with uneducated and poor immigrants. Consequently, Japanese Americans increase their interest in their ethnic