Coping with the culture clash

    Immigrants, in general, have always experienced problems assimilating or adapting to a different culture.  However, different ethnic groups experience different degrees of difficulty when they try to assimilate or adapt to the new society.  In particular, Asian immigrants have a difficult time adapting to the US culture because of cultural differences between their ethnic culture and the US culture.  This point can even be broken down further, where different Asian ethnic groups or ethnic groups within the Asian community have different experiences when it comes to adapting to the US culture because of language barriers, different degrees of acculturation, psychological stress, familial ties, and other factors between Asian ethnic groups.  For example, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos have been in the US longer than Vietnamese, Cambodian, and other South East Asian ethnic groups.  Therefore, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos have already established familial ties with their homeland and among themselves in their respective communities.  Therefore, their coping strategies are far different than more recent South East Asian groups who have not been here long enough to establish their own coping strategies, or in the process of dealing with cultural differences. One of the problems Asian immigrants face today is the change of  gender roles within the South East Asian community.

   Families play an important role in buffering out acculturative stress and attempt to teach coping and socialization strategies.  Families also transmit cultural identity from one generation to the next.  Changes in gender roles tend to disrupt family formation among Asian Americans because it goes against traditional Confucius beliefs about what responsibilities men should have and what responsibilities women should have.  Asian women have found that American culture (i.e. women’s rights, equal employment, etc) have given Asian women new opportunities outside the household, when compared to Asian women in their native countries.   Asian women have seen their economic and social statuses improve once they have settled in America, because in their homeland, Asian women did not have any social or economic status.  Asian men on the other hand, have seen their economic and social status decline once in America.  Asian men, who were once considered the breadwinners of the family, find a difficulty adjusting to American life because of language barriers, cultural differences, and no economic opportunities.  These men, who once held high paying jobs in their homeland, find themselves working at low paying jobs, or manual labor type jobs because they find out that once in America, their professional services are no longer useful in American society. Asian women, on the other hand, find opportunities in the service sector, where employers are more willing to hire women over men, or where language barriers are not very important in their every day work.  Therefore, anything outside of the household is seen as an improvement of social and economic status for Asian women.  Therefore, Asian women find it easier to assimilate into American life than Asian men.

   The psychological impact of gender roles can be devastating or have negative impacts among Asian families because stress caused by changing gender roles only add to the stress of trying to fit into American culture.  Traditionally, the family played a significant role in buffering the negative effects of trying to assimilate into a foreign culture.  If the family hierarchy changes or gender roles change within the family, the family becomes another area of stress, or is no longer an effective coping strategy for the immigrant (especially among Asian men).  Not only do these Asian men have to deal with outside stresses, but they also have to deal with stress or conditions within their families that they are not accustom to dealing with.  Within the family context, Asian women find themselves in a position where they do not have to follow traditional Confucius teachings.  Therefore, Asian women can use their socio-economic status they have in the workplace, and apply it within the family.  Therefore, Asian women have considerably more freedom within the family hierarchy, and are no longer positioned under the men in the household.  Asian men, on the other hand, are powerless within the family, and they find themselves picking up the responsibilities of raising the children, cooking, cleaning, and other household duties.  These gender role changes within the family also lead to stress, because it goes against traditional beliefs of what responsibilities men and women have within the household