GROWING UP ETHNIC IN TRANSNATIONAL WORLDS: IDENTITIES AMONG SECOND-GENERATION CHINESE AND DOMINICANS

Abstract

Transnationalism refers to the phenomenon of immigrants maintaining connections to their country of origin and using a dual frame of reference to evaluate their experiences and outcomes in the country in which they have settled. How does transnationalism matter in the identities among the second generation? This article argues that growing up with parents who want children to participate in their homeland imaginary and in a strong transnational social field does not necessarily mean second-generation Dominicans and Chinese will themselves adopt transnational orientations and/or practices. I find that my Chinese respondents, because of authoritarian parent-child relationships, relative loss of the ethnic language, and scarcity of contact with their parents’ countries of origin, viewed themselves as mainly ethnic subjects. Identities for my Chinese respondents involved a generational- and class-specific ethnic identity grounded in the enclaves and perceived rarefaction vis-à-vis mainstream America. My Dominican respondents, because of greater communication within the family, ethnic language maintenance, and the very frequent number of trips they made to the Dominican Republic, drew from both transnational and ethnic orientations, meaning they situated who they were within both national contexts. Although my Dominican respondents acknowledged the differences between Dominicans “back there” and themselves, they spoke cogently on class, gender, and the color line there as well as here. At the same time, their identities were informed by their pan-ethnicity in the United States, namely, how Latinos and Dominicans, in particular, are perceived.