Self-Development and Relationships through Acculturation

Abstract

The present paper sheds some light on difficulties experienced by Asian immigrant adolescents in North America while undergoing self-development and social relationships within the larger stream of acculturation processes. Given the strong emphasis placed by their original culture on collectivity and hierarchical harmony within the family, and given the family’s evolving lifestyle as new immigrants in the new society, immigrant parents do not sufficiently promote the adolescent’s sense of self to grow toward full independence. Faced with the different cultural practices of the broader society, both the parents and the adolescents in immigrant families need to shape new cultural rules to negotiate their social interactions in order for their relationships to develop continuously. Immigrant parents need not fear the apparently widening intergenerational distance following migration, since their children retain their core values of family loyalty and respect for parents. Instead, it is recommended that they allow their children to experience certain freedom to maneuver in their own self-construction and to learn responsibility from own socialization attempts through the acculturative contexts.