The Educational Aspirations and Expectations of Japanese Immigrant Mothers: Narratives of Raising Bicultural Nikkei Children in the Post-1965 Diaspora

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis qualitative case study analyzed the diverse narratives of 10 Japanese immigrant mothers who reared their second-generation children in a midsize metropolitan community in the Midwest. The primary research questions are as follows: How have Japanese immigrant mothers envisioned academic success in relation to contemporary interpretations of diasporic Nikkei identity? How have the participants made sense of and negotiated their educational aspirations against the expectations of U.S. K–12 schools? Based on focus groups, individual interviews, and narrative analyses, this study captured the multiple ways by which Japanese immigrant mothers facilitated opportunities for their children to maintain a distinct but flexible Nikkei or diasporic Japanese identity (Nukaga, 2012; Takamori, 2010) that was centrally focused on rearing academically successful children who also exhibited cultural competence and confidence as bicultural Americans.