Asian American College Students and Regional Constructions of Racial Identity

• In Event: Dis-Orienting Asian Pacific America: Emerging Perspectives on the Asian American and Pacific Islander Educational Experience

Abstract

Overview and Theoretical Framework:
Scholars have long advocated for extending the borders of studies on Asian Americans beyond that of the West Coast and California (Sumida, 1998; Lee, 2009), an argument of current relevance given recent demographic shifts that point to rapid increases in the Asian American populations of the Midwest and South (U.S. Census, 2012). This extends to the study of Asian American college students, a population also experiencing regional growth (Teranishi, 2010) and for whom racial identity exploration and development is a salient process (Alvarez, 2002). However, while studies have examined how gender, sexuality, class, faith, immigrant status, and other social dimensions interact and intersect with race to shape Asian American students’ experiences (c.f., Museus, Maramba, & Teranishi, 2013), little attention has focused on geographic region. Given that the social, political, and cultural contexts of geographic location have been shown to influence how people experience race and ethnicity (Berry & Henderson, 2002; Frazier, Tettey-Fio, & Henry, 2011), could there be nuances in how Asian American students from different areas of the country construct and develop their racial identities?

Drawing upon concepts from ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1994/2004) and theories of racial formation (Cheng, 2013; Omi & Winant, 2015), this qualitative study explored the relationship between geographic location and experiences of race and racial identity for Asian American students from the Midwest and the South – two regions that are traditionally overlooked in scholarship on Asian Americans (Joshi & Desai, 2013; Wilkinson & Jew, 2015).

Methodology:
Eight out-of-state Asian American undergraduates (four from the Midwest and four from the South) attending a large, public research university in Southern California participated in phenomenological, semi-structured interviews about their experiences with race and racial identity prior to and during college. The decision to recruit out-of-state students was to capitalize on the experience of being in a different regional context than where one grew up. Interviews were coded and analyzed via the constant comparative method of open, axial, and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

Findings and Significance:
The central theme that emerged was that contextual influences (e.g., historical, social, cultural, political) of geographic region shaped students’ racial identities by exerting distinct influences on students’ understanding of race. These understandings included: 1) race as an academic concept, 2) race as a cultural construct, and 3) race as a social identity. Regional nuances within these different understandings either diversified or constrained the options students perceived they could embody an Asian American identity within their respective geographic contexts, suggesting that racial formation and identity development processes may be regionally distinct for Asian American students. As colleges continue to navigate the complexities of race and diversity on their campuses (Harper & Hurtado, 2013), while also increasing their efforts to recruit students from different geographic regions (Hoover & Keller, 2011), understanding the potential influences of geographic context on students’ experiences with race will better equip campuses to engage and support their students with regard to race and related issues.

Author

• Jason Chan, University of California - Los Angeles