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Children and the Shifting Engagement with Racial/Ethnic Identity among Second-Generation Interracially Married Asian Americans

Chong, Kelly Haesung
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Abstract
Asian Americans have historically enjoyed one of the highest rates of intermarriage of any racial/ethnic group. By exploring the dynamics of interracial marriages among middle-class, professional Asian Americans in Chicago, this article examines what interracial marriages mean for these putative racial/ethnic “boundary crossers” and what they signify about assimilation, racial/ethnic identity, and redrawing of color boundaries in America. This article finds that for Asian Americans in this study, interracial marriage is far from an unproblematic indicator of assimilation; rather, it is a terrain in which complex subjective negotiations over ethnic/racial identities are waged over lifetimes. For both female and male Asian Americans, personal struggles over racial/ethnic identity are thrown into full relief when they begin the process of raising mixed-race children, which forces a reexamination of their own identities, and of those of their children. This article makes a distinctive contribution to the interrelationship of intermarriage, race, and ethnic identity development by comparing the views of Asian Americans and those of their non-Asian spouses regarding marital dynamics and children, which helps to further illuminate the uniqueness of the Asian American experience.
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This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_asian_american_studies/v016/16.2.chong.html
Date
2013-06
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Johns Hopkins University Press
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Sociology Scholarly Works
Center for East Asian Studies Scholarly Works
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Citation
Kelly H. Chong. (2013). Children and the Shifting Engagement with Racial/Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Interracially Married Asian Americans. Journal of Asian American Studies 16(2):189-221
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/14641
DOI
10.1353/jaas.2013.0019
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