Acculturation strategies among Vietnamese-Americans

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Abstract

The present study tested the effects of four predictors (education, years in the US, level of involvement with the American culture, and level of involvement with the Vietnamese culture) in predicting Vietnamese-Americans’ acculturation strategies which, in turn, predicted the Vietnamese-Americans’ self-esteem. Berry's Acculturation Model was used as the theoretical tool to identify the Vietnamese-Americans’ predominant acculturation strategy. One hundred thirty-eight participants from the Washington DC metropolitan area and the Midwest US completed the Acculturation Questionnaire. Path analyses supported the strategies of integration, marginalization and separation acting as mediators between the four predictors and the dependent variable of self-esteem.

Introduction

Since the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, between 1 and 2 million Southeast Asians have sought refuge in the United States. From this number, the Office of Refuge Resettlement reported 723,971 Vietnamese refugees (including AmerAsians) in the US as of September 1992 (Nguyen, 1994). After living in the US for several months, many Vietnamese were able to adjust to the new environment but others were unable to, especially those who were older, less educated, and had not lived as long in the US (Rumbaut, 1989; Sue, 1993).

As noted in past research (Berry & Kim, 1988; Krishnan & Berry, 1992; Rutledge, 1992; Berry, 1998), attitudes and involvement with the host society greatly influence the psychological consequences of refugee adjustment. Furthermore, attitudes can strongly influence the strategies that individuals use to adapt to their environment as they participate in different cultures. The present study examined four predictors (education, years in the United States, involvement with American culture, and involvement with Vietnamese culture) to determine their effects on Vietnamese-Americans’ acculturation strategy. Furthermore, acculturation strategy was predicted to act as a mediator between these four predictors and self-esteem.

Section snippets

Acculturation

Acculturation, as defined by Graves (1936), Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits (1954), is a process of adaptation to a new environment as a result of two independent cultures coming in contact with each other. Graves (1967) suggested there are two levels of acculturation: individual and group. Graves referred to the individual level as psychological acculturation or changes that an individual experiences due to being in contact with another culture. Acculturative changes at the group level for both

Participants

One hundred and sixteen participants were recruited from Vietnamese club meetings, mall sites, and supermarkets in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. An additional 22 participants were members of the Vietnamese Student Association and their families at a Midwestern university. Seventy-four percent of the questionnaires were completed in English, and 26% were completed in Vietnamese. Sixty-four participants were males and 73 were females. A majority of the participants were born in Vietnam

General description

To determine whether our hypotheses that the four acculturation strategies would act as mediators between the predictors (education, years in the US, involvement with American culture, and involvement with Vietnamese culture) and self-esteem, we used the LISREL8 structural equation modeling program (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993) to test our proposed mediated model. The analysis also tested several other variables and their interactions (e.g., age, gender, SES, and ethnicity). These variables did not

Discussion

Berry (1986), Berry (1998) theorized that, as acculturating individuals participate in the host culture, they develop certain attitudes about both the host culture and their own culture, which in turn influence their adaptation process. These attitudes influence individuals to adopt certain strategies to deal with the changes they experience as part of the acculturation process. Using Berry's theoretical model of acculturation, past studies (Kim & Berry, 1985; Berry, Kim, Minde, & Mok, 1987;

Conclusion

Past research have shown that the acculturating individuals’ attitudes of the host culture and their own culture do influence their adaptation to their new environment. Using Berry's Acculturation Model, the present study hypothesized that the four acculturation strategies would act as mediators between several predictors and Vietnamese-Americans’ self-esteem. More specifically, by using path analyses to test for causation, the present study demonstrated that the Vietnamese-Americans who lived

Future direction

A possible future direction for examining Vietnamese-Americans’ adaptation to living in the US is to survey the elderly population. Tran (1988) suggested that one possible cause of the generation gap among Vietnamese-Americans is due to how each has adapted to living in America. Younger Vietnamese-Americans assimilate much faster than elderly Vietnamese-Americans for several reasons. For example, younger Vietnamese-Americans have more options open to them in terms of getting an education,

Acknowledgements

This study was conducted by Thuy B. Pham in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the master's degree at Kansas State University. Portions of the paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, IL, May 1997. The authors wish to thank Catherine Cozzarelli, Janet Benson, and Andy Karafa for reviewing the drafts of this paper. In addition, gratitude is extended to Thoa Pham, Tien Pham, Thuy Dang, and Thu Phan for the distribution and the

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