"I Feel More Luxembourgish, but Portuguese Too" Cultural Identities in a Multicultural Society.

Abstract

The present investigation focused on cultural identity and the dealing with the belonging to different cultural frames as a migrant in a highly culturally diverse context by comparing two generations of Portuguese families living in Luxembourg. Quantitative standardized questionnaires complemented by in-depth qualitative interviews with parent-child dyads were used in order to assess possible (dis)similarities between first generation Portuguese immigrant parents and their adult children (i.e. second generation) concerning their cultural identities. Generational differences were found regarding the dealing with several cultural frames, language competences and attachment to both discussed cultures. Adult children were more prone to find themselves in a "compatible" identity orientation, compared to the parental generation. Yet, when focussing specifically on the second generation, qualitative data highlighted some issues regarding the perceived views of others on one's own cultural belonging and the perception of a certain sense of cultural identity denial from others. Our findings contribute to the existing theoretical literature on cultural identity by elucidating some major differences between immigrant parents and their adult children on how they enact the sense of belonging and the dealing with multiple cultural frames on a daily-life basis.