The Contours and Sources of Ethnic Identity Choices Among Asian Americans

How do individuals of Asian descent in the United States identify themselves in ethnic terms and why? In this study, we map the contours of ethnic self identities among adults in this immigrant community of color and explain their identity preferences with a new and large-scale survey that collects public opinion from randomly selected individuals of the six largest Asian American descents who reside in five major metropolitan areas at the dawn of the 21 century. Although only one in six respondents prefer to identify themselves as “Asian American”, close to six in ten respondents indicate acceptance to this panethnic term as part of their identification. Our results confirm ethnic identity as a fluid, malleable, and layered phenomenon that depends on context. Using multinomial regression analysis, we show that indicators of primordial ties and prior socialization, in addition to cultural, social, and political integration, are instrumental in structuring ethnic identity preferences among Asian Americans.