The multifaceted American experiences of the children of Asian immigrants: Lessons for segmented assimilation

This article aims to problematize the model minority image of Asian Americans. We argue that America’s racial and class systems of stratification have shaped and, to an important extent, determined second-generation Asian Americans’ multifaceted experiences and life chances. Consistent with the existing research, we find that assimilation outcomes among children of Asian immigrants are diverse but not random, depending on the interplay between individual, family, community, and societal factors, which are linked to unique contexts of exit and reception. We also find that, even though most children of Asian immigrants hold firm to the ideology of assimilation and aspire to achieving parity with the society’s dominant group, they are still keenly aware of their inferior racial status and are likely to internalize the disadvantages associated with it.