Download or read book The Role of Contextual Influences on Ethnic Identity Formation written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exploratory study focuses on the adult children of Korean immigrants who arrived in the United States before the landmark Immigration Act of 1965. This particular cohort of second generation Korean Americans experienced an issue of authenticity as racial foreigners in an America that was predominantly White and later as cultural foreigners in a rapidly developing Korean community. Authenticity is constructed within particular contexts and the issue revolved around acceptance and the participants' self-conception because of how they were treated by others. Face to face interviews probed two research questions: 1) how do various contexts (social, historical, cultural, and the context of reception) influence ethnic identity formation and 2) how does age influence ethnic identity formation? Findings shed light on the factors that have contributed to the issue of authenticity for this cohort by illustrating how the various contexts positioned participants to encounter degrees of exclusion from the two primary cultures of their life. First, because participants were born during the Asian Exclusion Act, assimilation to the dominant White culture was the expected norm. However, full assimilation did not equal full acceptance as an American. Many in the White community continued to perceive them as racial foreigners because of their Asian physical features. On the other hand, full assimilation to American culture created social barriers to entry into the Korean immigrant community. Particularly because of the lack of heritage language skills, participants were perceived as cultural foreigners. However, between the two experiences, being a racial foreigner was easier to deal with because historically, Americans have "globally" been recognized as White. Authenticity was more of an issue because exclusion by the Korean community was confusing since participants perceived themselves to be ethnically Korean. Ultimately, participants were not socially isolated because of their familiarity to navigate within the White communities or they found alternate communities within the Asian American communities to associate with. As midlife adults, the cumulative experiences of these Korean American Baby Boomers resulted in a renewed appreciation of who they are as Koreans and many had developed multiple facets of self-identification as Korean, Korean American, Asian American, and American.