Education, Identity, and the New Asian Americans: The Case of Japanese Immigrant Families in the Midwest

While mindful of the institutional and structural conditions leading to their subordination, this study also locates how the process of self-definition has shaped how the participants have co-created a distinctive image of their cultural and ethno-national identities. Therefore, this research further assesses how the co-ethnic community, through cultural, language, and literacy education, has partially compensated for the potentially subtractive impact that assimilationist practices at the K-12 schools have had on Japanese American children's bicultural identity development. Thus, this study further explicates the dialectics of cultural continuity as a complex process by which compatriots have recreated representations of Japanese culture out of a collective desire to reconstruct the lost motherland, reinforce ethno-national pride, and ultimately resist societal pressures to assimilate to Euro-American expectations. The formation and maintenance of dynamic co-ethnic networks suggest that these new immigrants have contested societal messages that assimilation is in their children's best interest. Instead, like many other Asian American communities, they have used capital, kinships, and social networks to encourage their children to learn about their bicultural identities and heritage language that have otherwise not been affirmed at their respective K-12 schools. This study ends by detailing implications for practice and theory. The major recommendations pertain to what K-12 schools and teacher-preparation programs may do to better serve the needs of Asian American families and students.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Endo, Rachel Kazumi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Violet Harris

• Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3362778

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87851