Interaction Rules and Ethnicity: The Japanese and Caucasians in Honolulu

Abstract

The concept of ethnicity has traditionally embraced varying customs, structures, languages, attitudes, histories, and ideologies. More recently, ethnic identification has been studied as it sets boundaries between diverse subcultures. This report examines ethnicity as a function of distinctive interaction rules in encounters both within and outside the Japanese American community in Hawaii. Cost and reward criteria derived from exchange theory are related to interaction rules in an effort to account for dissonance in interethnic communication. The study of ethnic groups has generally involved an analysis of social structure and value systems within an assimilation model (Gordon; Matsumoto etal.; Meredith; Taft). Although some social scientists have been concerned with ethnic boundary maintenance (Barth), the examination of persistent cultural system (Spicer), or a combination of historical, structural, and ideological orientations (Meadows), the major emphasis has been on degree of integration into the larger society. Despite these empirical and analytical contributions, ethnicity remains a murky concept because it is all too frequently associated merely with abstract ideologies and sentiments of one's ethnic heritage. Most research fai Is to spel I out how this attachment can be translated into a determination of present behavior (Goering; Greeley; Nahirny and Fishman). This report on the Japanese Americans in Honolulu poses the question: How does ethnic membership determine the character of in-group and outgroup interaction? First, we illustrate how the Japanese American standards of evaluation used in interaction determine an ethnic category and delimit behavioral boundaries acceptable to the members of this category. Second, by comparing the Japanese American rules of interaction with Caucasian American rules, a model of interethnic encounter is constructed. Third, symbolic interaction and exchange theories are used to explain how ethnic boundaries are maintained. This analysis views the responses between interactants as proceeding through a selective transformation of past experiences and meanings (Mead). Furthermore, selection can be seen to involve a continual assessment of costs and rewards which are expected to accrue in ongoing associations (Homans). *Revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, 1972. The article stems from field research supported by the National Institute of Mental Hygiene, MF-263-71, and the Department of Mental Hygiene, State of New York.