“Best of Both Worlds”: Negotiated Identity of Second-Generation Youth of Asian Indian Descent

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Asian Children in Educational Contexts: Diverse Cultures and Perspectives

Abstract

Achieving a sense of identity includes the ability to know and understand oneself as an individual and recognize one’s particular place in society. Adolescents of Asian Indian descent carry the burden of straddling two cultures, two different worlds, often switching between the two in order to know and understand, and be known and understood.
This qualitative case study focused on the lived experiences of seven second generation adolescents of Asian Indian descent socially located as having middle class backgrounds. It explored nuanced meanings of what it meant to belong to both American and Asian Indian cultures. The findings validated the acceptance of subscribed and ascribed dualistic identities which in turn contributed to marginalization and public/private lives.

Author

• Lavina Sequeira, Bergen Community College