AAS Midterm

What is the way Americans think of intelligence?

speed

What is ethnopsychology?

psychology of races and people

What is race?

sociohistorical construct - used to categorize people based on perceived physical or social characteristics - given meaning by social, economic, and political forces; inherently unstable and not fixed, as it is constantly being transformed by political and social change

What is ethnicity?

social categorization based on culture of individual’s ancestors’ national or heritage group

What is racial identity?

How one deals with the effects of racism, gives up dominant cultural views of own racial group in exchange for self-definition, develops positive attitudes towards own racial group

What is Helm’s POC racial identity model?

Conformity (aka pre-encounter) - seek self-definition and self-esteem from Whites and feel no loyalty or obligation to POC groups

Dissonance - confused about racial issues and sense of belonging to either majority group or racial group; enter when mode of seeking self-definition from Whites begins to conflict with increasing awareness of racism

Immersion/emersion - idealize racial group, denigrate Whites, define selves and other primarily according to race, look for positive characteristics of racial group and turn to them for support

Internalization - use internal criteria for self-definition and practice acceptance and tolerance for own racial group as well as Whites - Whites defacto standard of comparison and rejection of that standard

Integrative awareness - integrate identities as members of multiple groups such as those defined by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, … - Kinship with members of other racial groups and other oppressed groups, eliminate racism and other forms of oppression

What is ethnic identity?

attachment to, sense of belonging to, and identification with members from ethnic group and ethnic culture - not always grounded in oppression and racism

What are Phinney’s Stages of Ethnic Identity Development

Unexamined ethnic identity - lack of concern/lack of thought about issues of ethnic identity; disinterest or absorption of passed down attitudes without questioning or evaluating personal meaningfulness; diffused - low exploration/low commitment; foreclosed - low exploration/high commitment

Ethnic identity search - triggered by significant experience; immerse in activities and experience; moratorium - high exploration/low commitment; sense of confusion and ambivalence as struggles to abandon familiar identity and adopt new one (e.g. traveling to country, classes like language and martial arts)

Achieved ethnic identity - identity achievement; appreciation of ethnicity and commitment to ethnic group; doesn’t necessarily imply high degree of involvement and maintenance of ethnic customs

What are the substantive content areas for Asian American psychology?

acculturation, identity development, academic achievement and career development, parenting and family dynamics, biracial identity, multicultural psychology, psychopathology, cultural competence in psychotherapy and mental health services

What is cross-cultural psychology?

How certain cultural factors influence people

What are the most frequent cultural explanations in Asian American psychology?

Confucianism (derivatives: filial piety - blind obedience to authority figure, prescription of roles), and face (derivatives: loss of face, shame)

What are common Asian American values?

collectivism, conformity to norms, emotional self-control, family recognition through achievement, humility

What is the bidirectional model of acculturation (Barry)?

person can identify with and become competent with two different cultures and the degree of such acculturation to each culture can be independent of one another

What are the critiques of the bicultural model of acculturation? (after typing out the answer, idk if he actually went over this in class)

middle-class, upwardly, voluntary immigrant perspective

no conclusive evidence that biculturalism consistently associated with positive outcomes

seldom takes into account power and status asymmetry between dominant host culture and immigrant culture

What are the critiques/challenges of AA identity models?

biracial, multiracial, and transculturally/transnationally adopted Asian Americans

What are the critical points of entry of psychological experiences?

migration histories (includes “flexible citizenship - 21st century - multinationalities, citizenship in more than one country; tertiary migration from other countries (e.g. Mexico, Brazil))

population trends (mixed Asian identities, interracial/interethnic marriages)

internal processes (includes middle-class mythology (upward mobility) - actually downward occupational mobility - trying to survive in America; meritocracy illusion)

What is a parachute child?

Kids who come to West for education while parents and families remain in Asia

How did parachute children come about?

Initially from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore; children of elite; method to escape country’s conditions - early 90’s

practical response to political concerns and military conscription

What are parachute children like now?

Middle class; escape overly competitive Asian university system

Yuna - parachute child

eating disorders and alcoholism

parents lived together on and off - infidelity and marital separation sent her to to Australia - felt erased because not as needy as younger siblings

began dating older men

went drinking with dad

mother obsessed with healthy eating and beauty regimes

What is the traditional power structure in America?

White, male, heterosexual, cisgender, Christian

What is the “Orient”?

fiction created by White people for style, artifacts, or traits considered to be characteristics of peoples and cultures of Asia

behaviors don’t have stable reference

What are some code words for race?

multicultural, high-risk, alien, urban, at-risk, thug, posse, unskilled and illiterate illegals, welfare queens, undeserving poor, Sharia law

What is pretext?

A reason given to justify a course of action that is not the real reason

What is historical trauma?

collective complex trauma inflicted on group of people who share specific group identity or affiliation - legacy of numerous traumatic events community experiences over generations and encompasses psychological and social responses to such events

What is intergenerational trauma?

impact of historical trauma upon subsequent generations

What are the five ways Asian Americans are portrayed in the media?

perpetual foreigners (seen as unassimilable, joke, accent, ethnic specific occupations, white hero more skilled at Asian-born art form to defeat Asians

mysterious (exploit unknown aspects of community, inscrutable, weird and strange, psychological effects: if mysterious then unknowable, then why try to get to know them)

exotic (another part of world, charm of unfamiliar, something else from notes, positive for women negative for men, dragon lady stereotye - conniving woman using powers of seduction to entice men and backstab them to reach own gains)

arm candy for White males (1924 - Thief of Baghdad, desirability of White women over Asian men, no Asian couples unless based on true story, Asian men not presented as desirable option)

invisible (rarely play hero, White people play Asian characters

What does inscrutable mean?

someone who never laughs, smiles, or grimaces - total lack of emotion

What are stereotypes?

cognitions about people based on categorization into identifiable group

can be based on fact, fiction, or exaggerated grain of fact

entails the belief that individuals or groups of individuals should act in certain common and predictable manners based upon classification

What are the two most common Asian American stereotypes?

model minority

perpetual foreigner - different because viewed as unassimable

What is prejudice?

bias against or in favor of group of people based on categorization - typically involves negative evaluation of members in target group

What is discrimination?

behavior towards people based upon categorization

typically intentional but can be unintentional

What is racism?

institutionalized mistreatment of people based upon classification in racial/ethnic group on downside of power

How does Passing for Perfect present the model minority?

As an identity

What does success frame parenting involve?

associated with immigrant families; intense discipline + scant consideration for niceties of child’s well-being:

earning straight A’s

graduating as valedictorian

earning degree from elite university (Ivies)

attaining advanced degree

working in one of four high status professional fields (medicine, law, engineering, science)

What are scammers?

stand to gain clear material advantage from deceptions (cash money or cultural capital)

What are shammers?

pose for months or years as students without official status - motives more idiosyncratic and less discernable

What are passers?

model minority identity whose primary audience is loved ones, and performance is powered by widely held expectations, even if they don’t match reality

Sara Kim

Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) in VA - Asian American population 70%

reproachful speculations made about parents - parents doubled down when she was exposed

Korean media

Stanford-Harvard combined program (one year at Stanford one year at Harvard and then decide where to complete degree)

Azia Kim

passed as Stanford university freshman

used opened dorm room as living space

didn’t have tiger parents

parents owned dry cleaner business

involved in Church - didn’t want a lot of attention, reliable, seen as good person

bought books for classes not registered for

audience - Stanford freshmen, sister, parents, extended family, friends, church members in Fullerton, CA

Jennifer Pan

first started forging report cards in 9th grade after not getting 8th grade valedictorian

pack bag to take to downtown library in order to fill notebook with notes

parents Chinese Vietnamese refugees who worked in factories, but saved lots of money, so could live in upper middle class community

controlling, no dating

boyfriend was pizza manager

What is the first leading cause of death amongst Asian American adults?

Suicide

What is acculturation?

process by which individual’s behaviors and group’s cultural knowledge, identity, and behavior styles change in direction of those in dominant group

What is a salient indicator of a willingness to fit in?

Language

What were the results of the study comparing Japanese vs. American subjects looking at an underwater scene?

Japanese subjects made 70% more statements about aspects of background environment and twice as many statements about relationships between animate and inanimate objects

Americans were much more likely to zero in on the biggest, fastest, brightest fish

What were the results of the study comparing Korean vs. American subjects?

asked to read essay about opinion on French conducting atomic tests in Pacific

Americans were more likely to believe the writer actually believed in the viewpoint they were presenting compared to it being “just as assignment”

solidify opinions vs. modify opinions

What were the results of the study comparing Chinese vs. American subjects?

mother-daughter conflicts

American - analytical - resolving contradiction

Chinese - dialectical - accepting of contradiction

What is the fundamental attribution error?

tendency for people to give a certain explanation for a behavior even if larger and powerful forces were at play

What is the White racial frame?

Striving for Whiteness; psychological impact, rejecting Asianess, internalized racism, searching for White partner, Asian on Asian stereotyping and discrimination, stereotyping other BIPOC

What are nicknames for Asian Americans?

honorary whites, darlings of whites

Phan

Vietnamese from East Coast

name is Phat but knew it meant something else in English

lied about sister’s name becoming Jennifer instead of Tuyen

Joel

Hmong American

Hmong commonly viewed by whites in same negative way as Black Americans

tried to achieve to combat that

May

Hmong American

blames own people who typically immigrated as impoverished refugees for economic and social failures today, and credits white ways as necessary route to Hmong success

Frank

Korean American

relishes in being a “banana'“

argues White ways “correct” and Asian ways “wrong”

hires White girls for sales

What are the four prisons, and how do we escape them?

imposed by history and geography - gaining knowledge of science and technology

history - understanding how historical forces operate

society’s social and class structure - revolutionary ideology

self - everyone has good and evil and we must choose between them

Who influenced Asian American activist movements from the 60’s and 70’s?

Malcolm X

What does grassroots mean?

organizing political power from the bottom up

What were the values of the earlier movements?

Third World consciousness, participatory democracy, community building, historical rooting, liberation, transformation

What is the corporate offensive?

1970s - economic crisis and staggering inflation

one-sided class war

corporate executives decided it was because Americans were earning too much and there was too much democracy

either people accept less or corporations accept less - decided it would be the people

destroyed grassroots groups in African American communities

What does neoconservatism entail?

proud to be Asian American but denounce movement of late 60’s and early 70’s as destructive

oppose Asian-American quotas at colleges, but anti-affirmative action

acknowledge continuing discrimination, but don’t see racism

What are some issues of today?

racism, sexism, economic justice, human rights, coalition building

What is a counterframe?

narrative set by minority communities themselves (???)

e.g. Black is beautiful

mainly African Americans have done this

What is there tension between in terms of facing discrimination?

social acceptance vs. social justice

What is an Uncle Tom?

A POC who does the dominant group’s bidding

What is Danny Chen’s background?

NYC

obedient, studious, devoted, attached to mom

caring - didn’t press charges for people who stole from him

started lifting weights in high school, but tall and thin

What happened to Danny Chen in the Army?

racism

only Chinese-American in group

racial slurs

spring with sandbags

pushups with water

What are the sources of stress?

minority status/racism (audience, token representative, somatic symptoms)

cultural conflicts (foreign-born children adopt Western ways more quickly than parents because more exposed to Americanizing pressures and greater need for acceptance from age-mates than parents do)

immigrant status (rapid changes in short amount of time, downward occupational mobility, pressure to succeed in school, lack of social support)

refugee experience

What does being a token representative entail?

high visibility and lack of anonymity - accentuation of differences

Elaine

risk of failing first year of college

Father professor mother homemaker

Nelson

chronic struggles with depression associated with racial conflict

attachment with mom disrupted because language

What is attachment?

secure sense of connection with caring people which is the foundation of personality development

How are social connections important?

quantity and quality directly linked to mental and physical health

benefit more from implicit form of social support (sharing meal, spending time together)

What is a key mechanism of oppression?

betrayal

What is parenting?

caring and providing for children, keeping children healthy and safe, passing down social and cultural customs and values, guiding children’s social/emotional/cognitive development

What is the role of extended family in parenting?

grandparents

conflict with in-laws

How do gender roles manifest in parenting?

more acculturated - nuclear family, shared decision making between parents, less favoring of sons over daughters

What is enculturation?

changes in culture-specific behavior, values, knowledge, and identity along norms of indigenous culture

What is an aspect of acculturation vs. enculturation?

Asian American children exposed to majority culture learn that path to popularity, success, happiness lies in being more like European American peers

What is role reversal?

relying on children to assume adult roles

What are the effects of social support in terms of parenting?

lack of community - increased isolation

community - fewer parent-child problems and more connection to ethnic communities

What is triple minority status?

discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation

What are some other aspects of parenting not mentioned yet (sorry I didn’t know how else to cover this)?

parental expectations for academic performance, religious and spiritual values, instilling positive ethnic identities in children

How can parents deal with racism?

prejudice, racism, discrimination - things parents should address

recipients of both positive and negative stereotypes

openly discuss experiences of racism and how to deal with them - children better equipped with how to respond to racism

What is assimilation?

process of taking on dominant group’s cultural knowledge, identity, and behavior

What is model minority?

first coined by William Patterson in NYTMag in Jan 1966

success of Asian Americans proved equal opportunity existed for all races - held up as model for racial minorities to emulate

post-WWII - spent lots of years distrusting Asian people - bring them back into fabric of society

What is trauma?

inner experience that includes symptoms such as anger, fear, panic, and disassociation

What are racial microaggressions?

form of racism whose appearance is much less dramatic than overt violent acts often seen but ubiquitous in lives of BIPOC

What are the critiques of the model minority stereotype?

masks diversity (hides poverty rates of lots of SE Asian, median household income - more earners per household)

hides differences in educational attainment and achievement (unique needs of Asian students ignored; SE Asians (war, relocation, family separation)

pits Asian Americans against other POC (social benefits and affirmative action presented as unnecessary)

self-silencing (silence issues against model minority; higher achievement - higher depressions, social isolation (rest from notes)

Effects of parachute children

higher depression, anxiety, alcohol/substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, legal troubles

separate families, physical and psychic isolation