Abstract
Although academic and popular interest in how digital media affect youth has exploded in recent years, research rarely addresses the roles of culture and cultural identity in youth digital media use. Especially conspicuous is the inattention to Asian Americans—the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the United States. This study explores how 17 Hmong American emerging adults’ (Mage = 21.94 years) digital media use shapes, and is shaped by, their cultural identity development. To construct a nuanced portrait, this study draws from multiple data sources: (a) participant framings of their digital media use in relation to their cultural identity during in-depth interviews, (b) the type of cultural content that a selection of participants posted on their social media profiles, and (c) participants’ ethnic identity scores (included to contextualize qualitative results). Inductive thematic analysis revealed that participants use digital media to explore and express their cultural identities, and to escape and reshape Hmong values. Results further revealed that participants’ digital media use elicits awareness of—and for some, assists in reconciling—tensions between Hmong and American values. Altogether, findings highlight the complex role of digital media in the cultural identity development of Hmong American youth.
In spite of the recent wave of academic and public interest in the effects of digital media on adolescent and emerging adult development (e.g., Anderson & Jiang, 2018; Crone & Konijn, 2018; Davis et al., 2020; Nesi et al., 2022), research articles and popular discourse alike rarely attend to how culture shapes digital media use and its effects on youth (Manago & McKenzie, 2022). To illustrate the rarity of research on the intersection of youth digital media use and cultural identity development, let us consider a recent PsycInfo Search. In March 2022, entering “digital media OR social media” in the abstract or as a keyword AND “cultural identity OR ethnic identity OR racial identity” anywhere in the article yielded a total of 59 empirical studies. These studies were overwhelmingly published in one of two outlets: media journals (e.g., Computers in Human Behavior and New Media and Society) and communication journals (e.g., Communication Research). Adding the developmental piece (“adolescence OR emerging adulthood OR young adulthood” anywhere in the article) yielded just two empirical studies. Neither study focused on Asian American youth.
As the previous paragraph makes obvious, a distinct lack of attention to the intersection of digital media and cultural identity development plagues the field of developmental science. Especially conspicuous is the inattention to Asian American youth—the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the United States (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021). The current study contributes to our emerging understanding of how digital media intersects with the cultural identity development of Asian American youth. It does so by examining how digital media use shapes, and is shaped by, the cultural identities of Hmong American emerging adults.
Cultural Identity Development
Ethnic and racial identity (ERI) is central to the normative development of youth of color, who now make up half of all children in the United States (Brown, 2021; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014). For this reason, understanding how ERI develops, and the social contexts that shape ERI development, is of critical importance for developmental scientists. One enduring conceptualization is Phinney’s (1990, 1992) view that ethnic identity development entails two distinct processes: exploring one’s ethnicity and its personal meaning, and accepting and internalizing one’s ethnicity. Research suggests that, as with identity development more generally, ethnic and cultural identity development intensifies in adolescence and emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000; Jensen et al., 2011; Phinney, 1990). Although identity (and cultural identity) exploration is considered a normative and healthy characteristic of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000; Schwartz et al., 2009), some research with emerging adults from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the U.S. has linked greater ethnic identity exploration with elevated anxiety and depression—although ethnic identity commitment may serve to protect against psychological distress (Mills & Murray, 2017; Torres & Ong, 2010).
Mounting evidence further reveals that young people can and do identify with cultures that extend beyond their racial/ethnic and national cultures, due largely to exposure to non-local cultures via media (e.g., Ferguson & Bornstein, 2015; McKenzie, 2020; Nguyen & Ferguson, 2019). For instance, exposure to U.S. media contributes to some Jamaican adolescents’ remote acculturation to European American, and others to African American, culture (Ferguson & Bornstein, 2015). Other research points to hip hop as a salient third cultural identity that transcends racial and ethnic culture for Southeast Asian adolescents (Nguyen & Ferguson, 2019). These examples highlight the utility of a broader scope of interest in how youth develop cultural identities. Because cultural identity refers to one’s experience of cultural ingroup membership (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022), the concept includes—but is not limited to—one’s ethnic or racial identity.
Although theoretical work portrays media as central and enduring social contexts of cultural identity development from early childhood through emerging adulthood (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014) and youth media preferences and practices are commonly used as proxies to assess the extent of behavioral acculturation (e.g., Cuéllar et al., 1995; Ferguson & Bornstein, 2015; Unger et al., 2002), the exact role of media in young people’s cultural identity development remains opaque. Research seldom investigates whether and how young people use digital media to explore and commit to their cultural identities—a key developmental task in adolescence and emerging adulthood (Jensen et al., 2011).
Constructing Cultural Identities Via Digital Media
Taking interest in how young people’s identities inform their media use, Steele and Brown’s (1995) media practice model frames young people as agentic in what media they select, how they interact with that media, and how they apply media content to explore their individual identities. Although research that is theoretically grounded in this model points to the influence of young people’s “lived experiences” (including race) in their media selection, interpretation, and application, there is little explicit consideration of the role of cultural identity. Indeed, a caveat of this model is the relatively imprecise delineation of how exactly cultural—and for that matter, individual—identity informs youth media practices. Steele and Brown (1995) acknowledge this, writing:
As media researchers, our primary focus is the media components rather than the identity component of the model. However, this foregrounding of media should not be interpreted as diminishing the relative importance of identity. Identity anchors the model, explaining more variation in practice than any other component. (p. 554)
Scholars who have endeavored to unpack the intersection of cultural identity development and media use have highlighted that media guide how youth think about race and ethnicity—including their own racial and ethnic identity (Behm-Morawitz, 2020). This work underlines the dualistic nature of media in simultaneously supporting and challenging ERI development. On one hand, media can strengthen youth ethnic identity via exposure to media-based representations of their own ethnicity; on the other hand, the absence of media models and stereotypic media portrayals can threaten the ethnic identities of youth from underrepresented minority groups (Behm-Morawitz, 2020; L. M. Ward et al., 2020).
Another way of thinking about the relationship between culture and media use, which balances Steele and Brown’s (1995) heavy focus on media components and Behm-Morawitz (2020) and L. M. Ward et al.’s (2020) focus on ethnic and racial identity, is the Vygotsky (1934 [1987]) inspired conceptualization of digital media as cultural tools (Manago et al., 2022; Manago & McKenzie, 2022), which considers how cultural values and motivations show up in people’s media use. This view holds that culture shapes how and why people use digital media, and that digital media are spaces for cultural transformation. For example, the fact that parents in Thailand use digital and traditional media largely to connect with their children (McKenzie, Castellón, et al., 2022) illustrates how, for this cultural and age group, media are perceived as satisfying the fulfillment of collectivistic aims. In turn, the digital media expertise possessed by urban-dwelling Thai adolescents renders them cultural brokers for their parents’ participation in digital culture (McKenzie et al., 2019). As a result, digital media contribute to cultural transformation by reshaping traditional age-based hierarchies in family relationships.
Framing digital media as cultural tools shifts the focus from simply seeing that, to understanding how, culture matters (Raeff et al., 2020) for youth digital media use. This framing centers culture in studying and understanding the developmental implications of media use, a field that rarely attends to the cultural shaping of media use and effects (Manago & McKenzie, 2022).
Hmong Culture and Cultural Identities
Hmong people are an ethnic minority group with origins in East and Southeast Asia who came to the United States as refugees after the Vietnam War—when, after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, they became targets of genocide due to their partnership with the U.S. military (Livo & Cha, 1991). Today, the largest Hmong settlements are in central California and Minneapolis-St. Paul (Budiman, 2021). Although Hmong represent a quickly growing ethnic minority in the U.S. (owing largely to a higher-than-average fertility rate (Budiman, 2021; Dennis, 2018)), psychological research on this ethnic group remains stunted, in part, because of the common practice of collapsing multiple Asian ancestries into a single “Asian American” panethnic category (e.g., Chan et al., 2020; Chung et al., 2004; Suinn et al., 1992; Thompson et al., 2016)—a demographic descriptor that often holds little meaning for those who are lumped into the category alongside individuals with distinct languages, national heritages, immigration histories, traditions, and values (Kang, 2021).
As previously noted, cultural identity refers to one’s experience of cultural ingroup membership. Two critical components of an individual’s sense of cultural ingroup membership, and whether other people judge that ingroup membership as legitimate, include the extent to which their values and practices align with those of a particular cultural group. To set the stage for this study, let us consider salient Hmong values and practices that are likely to inform the cultural identity development of youth in this community.
Research focusing on salient cultural values among Hmong Americans has highlighted the centrality of family (including extended family) and community (including the entire clan; Livo & Cha, 1991; McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022; Tatman, 2004). Anthropologists have long drawn attention to the importance of religion and spirituality—most notably, shamanism and animism, which include beliefs in natural, supernatural, and ancestral spirits—in Hmong conceptions of self (Hickman, 2014; Livo & Cha, 1991; Tapp, 1989). Developmental, cultural, and counseling psychologists have also pointed to other pertinent Hmong values, including: collectivism and interdependent decision-making, age-based hierarchy, gender-based hierarchy, and emotional stoicism (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022; Meschke & Juang, 2014; Tatman, 2004).
The fact that these traditional Hmong values contradict mainstream American values of individualism and independent decision-making, gender egalitarianism, and emotional expression contextualizes the challenges that Hmong American adolescents and emerging adults at times experience with balancing ethnic and national cultures both internally and externally in family relationships (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022; Meschke & Juang, 2014; Peng & Solheim, 2015). Research with Hmong American emerging adults suggests commonly held frustrations with a lack of communication, and concomitant lack of bond, with their parents (Juang & Meschke, 2017; Meschke & Juang, 2014). The discrepancies between Hmong and American value systems may, in part, explain why Tsai (2000) found that Hmong American emerging adults are more oriented to American culture than to Hmong culture. Indeed, research suggests that Hmong American emerging adults are forced to compartmentalize their Hmong and American identities because they are stuck between conflicting cultural ideologies (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022). It is possible that digital media play a role in exacerbating the distance between or bridging Hmong and American cultural identities.
Another important aspect of cultural identity that psychologists have long emphasized includes behavioral cultural identity markers, such as language and dress (LaFromboise et al., 1993; McKenzie, 2019; Nguyen & Brown, 2010). Research with Hmong American youth has highlighted the centrality of Hmong language both in demonstrating one’s ethnic group membership (Nguyen & Brown, 2010) and in ensuring the maintenance of Hmong culture (Bosher, 1997). Although wearing traditional Hmong clothing is not generally practiced on a daily basis among Hmong youth in the U.S. context (Nguyen & Brown, 2010), it is often worn during Hmong New Year celebrations in late December (Wang & Rodriguez-Delgado, 2021). Though worn relatively infrequently, Hmong dress is a cultural identity marker that is imbued with meaning as it has historically linked the individual to their family and clan via clan-specific colors and patterns (Torntore, 2004).
Research generally suggests that behavioral change (e.g., English language use and mainstream interpersonal manners) occurs faster than value change in the context of acculturation (Yoon et al., 2020). One study, for instance, found that Hmong American emerging adults adopted American behaviors with greater frequency than they adopted American values (Bosher, 1997). More recent research, however, suggests that the current generation of Hmong American emerging adults largely endorse American values of autonomous choice, exploration, freedom, and gender equality (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022).
Asian American emerging adults spend more time using smartphones than the average emerging adult in the U.S. (“Asian Americans,” 2018), rendering the digital sphere a social context that is sure to shape cultural identity development for this population. At present, though, little is understood about how Asian American, and especially Hmong American, cultural identities are negotiated on digital media. Little is known, too, about how digital media contribute to cultural reproduction and transformation for members of this cultural group.
Current Study
Theoretical and empirical work suggest that media are important social contexts for cultural identity development among minority youth in the U.S. (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014), and that individual and cultural identity matter in youth digital media use (Manago & McKenzie, 2022; Steele & Brown, 1995). Little is known, however, about how cultural identity development and digital media use intersect for Asian American youth—a demographic for whom digital media is bound to be a particularly salient developmental context. This study explores how Hmong American emerging adults use digital media and frame their digital media use in ways that inform their cultural identity development. Given its novelty, this study uses an inductive qualitative approach that draws from multiple data sources—detailed in the section that follows.
Although familiar with Hmong culture via both long-term residence in a city that boasts among the largest Hmong settlements in the U.S. and a research agenda that centers the developmental trajectories of Southeast Asian youth, the author did not enter data collection and analysis with a pre-established framework for interpretation. Rather, aligning with the tradition of inductive qualitative research (e.g., Boyatzis, 1998; Nowell et al., 2017), the present analytic framework was developed gradually throughout data collection and analysis. The Analytic Approach section provides additional information about how and when relevant literatures were integrated into data analysis.
Method
Participants
This study was part of a larger research project examining the psychological experiences of biculturalism among culturally diverse emerging adults in central California. Data collection took place over the course of 5 months, after obtaining approval from California State University, Fresno’s Institutional Review Board.
Participants were recruited via the circulation of study information and a flyer that invited prospective participants to “contribute to science by sharing [their] experience growing up bicultural.” The flyer was distributed by faculty members in multiple departments at the authors’ home institution, posted in the university library and in other campus buildings, and shared on a social media page geared toward prospective, current, and former university students.
Twenty-four Hmong American emerging adults took part in in-depth semi-structured interviews in which they discussed their experiences of biculturalism, constructed cultural identity maps in which they depicted what it means to be Hmong American, and completed the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Phinney, 1992). Given the focus of this study, the remainder of this paper focuses on the 17 participants (Mage = 21.94 years, SDage = 2.63, 15 females) who spontaneously discussed the role of digital media in their cultural identity development during the interview.
Of these 17 participants, 13 were pursuing an undergraduate degree at the time of data collection, one had obtained an associate’s degree, one had obtained an undergraduate degree, and two were pursuing a master’s degree. Table 1 provides additional relevant demographic information.
Participant Demographic Information and Multigroup Ethnic Identity (MEIM) Scores.
Interview Procedure
Data analyzed for this study center participants’ discussions of how digital media intersect with their experience of biculturalism. Participants most commonly highlighted the role of digital media when discussing the contents of their cultural identity map, their responses to individual MEIM questions, and the roles of Hmong culture and American culture in their life at present. 1 As such, these three parts of the interview are detailed in the paragraphs that follow.
Interview materials were developed by the author (a White European American female) and reviewed and modified upon consultation with the author’s undergraduate research assistant, a Hmong American emerging adult. The author conducted all interviews in her office, which was modified to offer an informal interview environment. Participants were offered tea, coffee, and snacks, and the interviewer sat beside (rather than across the desk from) participants during the conversation in an effort to minimize potential power imbalances.
To begin, the interviewer explained the study in detail, particularly emphasizing the bottom-up nature of this study, wherein the participant is in the role of “teacher,” and the interviewer perceives herself as a conduit to sharing participants’ stories with an academic audience and within the local community. By envisioning and treating participants as experts, this study draws from the community-based participatory research framework (e.g., Collins et al., 2018), which aims to equitably involve communities and their constituents in the research process.
After participants’ questions were addressed and written consent was obtained, participants chose a pseudonym (a fictitious name by which they would be known for the purposes of this study in order to protect their identities). Participants were then asked to begin the conversation by constructing a cultural identity map in which they depicted what it means to them to be Hmong American using a blank piece of paper, colored pencils, and a pen. Participants were told that they could depict this in any way they wished, as long as it represented their bicultural experience. Participants were also asked to complete the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure [MEIM] (Phinney, 1992), a 12-item survey that assesses the strength of participants’ ethnic identity on a 4-point scale. 2
The interviewer stepped out of the room while the participant constructed their cultural identity map and completed the MEIM. Upon the interviewer’s return, the participant described the contents of their cultural identity map in detail and discussed the thoughts that arose while completing the MEIM. The interviewer regularly probed participants, seeking maximal clarification and depth. Following this discussion, participants responded to a variety of more pointed questions, including considering separately the roles of Hmong culture and American culture in their lives at present.
Following the interview and post-interview conversation, participants received a $20 Visa Gift Card.
Analytic Approach
The primary data source for this study was audio-recorded interviews, which were analyzed with the aim of understanding how participants frame their social media use in ways that intersect with their cultural identity development. To understand how participants’ perspectives shared during the interview aligned with their online practices, the researcher also examined cultural identity-related content that a handful of participants who “friended” her shared on their Facebook profile in the months leading up to and after the interview. Each Facebook friendship emerged organically. Some participants friended the researcher prior to their participation in the study (e.g., one participant friended the researcher and proceeded to send direct messages to convey her interest in participating in the study), and others friended the researcher after their participation in the study. Among the latter group, participants proceeded to stay in touch with the researcher in a number of ways (e.g., sending direct messages to: share memes that reflected their experience of growing up bicultural, sharing Hmong-centered local resources, and inquiring about the status of this study). That is, Facebook friendship and continued contact with the researcher was volitional, rather than a requirement to participate in this study.
Before analyzing the social media profiles of these participants, the researcher contacted each participant directly to ask if they would be comfortable with the researcher analyzing and referring to their cultural identity practices on their social media profiles for the purpose of this publication. When doing so, the researcher described both the kind of Facebook profile data from which she would draw and how their identities would be protected. Each participant expressed enthusiastic agreement.
The author (who holds a PhD in psychology) analyzed interview and social media data using inductive thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998). This qualitative analytic approach, which is grounded in a social constructionist epistemology, entails the identification of underlying ideas, assumptions, and conceptualizations that shape participant discourse (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In keeping with the qualitative tradition of concurrent data collection and analysis (Creswell, 2007; Nowell et al., 2017), the researcher maintained detailed field notes that documented initial analytic thoughts, questions, and interpretations. It was at this stage of preliminary data analysis that it became clear that participants commonly wove discussions about media and their media use into the overarching conversation about their cultural identities.
After data collection was complete, audio-recorded interviews were transcribed and formal data analysis focusing on the intersection of participant media use and cultural identity development began. First, each participant transcript was searched for the following keywords: “social media,” “digital media,” “online,” “Facebook,” “Instagram,” “YouTube,” and “Twitter.” As a result, the current 17 participants were identified. After identifying these 17 participants, all data pertaining to media use were compiled, and data were analyzed.
In the first phase of initial coding, the researcher focused on participant discourse that surrounded social or digital media discussions in the interview, and on the social media platforms of those participants who friended the researcher on Facebook. At this stage, the coding process focused on capturing all relevant cultural identity concepts that pertained to participants’ discussions about their media use and their actual media use. In keeping with the inductive analytic tradition, this round of coding was completely data-driven (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Nowell et al., 2017). That is, the researcher focused exclusively on what participants said about how their cultural identities intersect with their media use, and on evidence of that intersection on Facebook. A running list of all 45 codes (depicted in Figure 1) was maintained.
Thematic analysis process.
In the next analytic phase, patterns (or inferential “meta-codes”; Elliott, 2018; Punch, 2014) were determined by synthesizing conceptually similar codes, with the aim of examining the interplay between codes by identifying connections between, and examining the meanings of, codes in relation to one another. This synthesis was informed by a review of literature addressing Hmong values and behavioral cultural identity markers (as detailed in the introduction). The probing of codes and concomitant literature review resulted in a total of eight patterns (also depicted in Figure 1).
In the final analytic stage, the eight patterns were combined to generate, name, and define three overarching themes: Digital Media Use to Explore and Express Cultural Identity; Digital Media Use Elicits and Reconciles Cultural Tensions; and Digital Media Use to Escape and Reshape Cultural Values. Thematic conceptualization was informed by the integration of literature addressing the intersection of cultural identity development and digital media use (as detailed in the introduction). Themes were finalized by assessing the fit between each theme and the overarching focus on the intersection of participants’ digital media use and cultural identity development.
To depict how codes were collapsed into patterns, and how patterns were combined to constitute themes, an example follows. The conceptually related codes of “culture clash,” “patriarchy,” “Bride kidnapping,” “feminism,” “freedom,” “individual choice,” “female silence,” “self-expression,” “restriction,” “expectation,” “stoicism,” “family closeness,” and “family distance” were collapsed into a pattern entitled “Hmong vs. American values on digital media.” This pattern illustrates the experience of digital media eliciting a recognition of the antithetical nature of Hmong and American values. In the final phase of theme construction, this pattern was combined with two related patterns (“Yearning to be ‘more American’” and “Digital media help bridge antithetical Hmong and American values”) to constitute the “Digital Media Use Elicits and Reconciles Cultural Tensions” theme, which explores the challenging and beneficial consequences of media use for cultural identity development.
Four qualitative validity procedures (Creswell & Miller, 2000) were employed in this study: data triangulation across multiple sources, thick description of participant discourse, researcher reflexivity (introduced in this section and revisited in the limitations section), and the seeking out and inclusion of disconfirming evidence in data analysis and interpretation. Disconfirming evidence (or counterexamples) are integrated into the results section and revisited in the discussion section.
Results
Some participants discussed digital media in somewhat general terms, such as Patricia and T, who each framed social media as cultures to which they belong in addition to the more obvious Hmong ethnic and American national cultures. Many participants, however, discussed how digital media intersect with their cultural identity development in more complex ways. The three themes that follow focus especially on those participants and this complexity.
Digital Media Use to Explore and Express Cultural Identity
Participants used digital—and particularly social—media to explore and express their cultural identities. The visible consequences of this exploration commonly took the form of Facebook posts pertaining to two cultural identity markers: Hmong dress and Hmong language.
Shila, Samantha, and Nicole each represented Hmong clothing front and center on their cultural identity maps and on their social media profiles. During the interview, all three participants suggested that Hmong clothing is core to their cultural identities, and that wearing Hmong clothing makes them feel connected to their ethnicity. Nicole highlighted the importance of clothing for achieving cultural validation and in-group belonging, explaining that wearing Hmong clothing “makes me feel like I belong to a group, you know? And that’s a really big thing, feeling like you belong.” Samantha couched her appreciation of Hmong clothing in both its esthetic beauty and its power to symbolically represent her own cultural identity and the cultural identity of future generations:
I love Hmong clothes. [I: What do you like about Hmong clothes?]
3
I think the cultural representation. I mean, now it’s a really modern style, so I think it’s really trendy looking. But I think it’s really beautiful when you get to wear your clothes out and represent who you are, your ethnicity. Hmong people work so hard to have an identity. . .it’s something that represents us and you can always pass onto your kids in the future.
The social media profiles of Shila, Samantha, and Nicole each featured photographs of themselves wearing Hmong clothing—particularly in December, a time of year when Shila “feels most Hmong” because it aligns with the Hmong New Year. Nicole posted photographs of herself wearing Hmong clothing for each of the 3 days that she attended the Hmong New Year celebration. 4 During the other months of the year, Samantha posted photographs of herself wearing specific pieces of Hmong clothing (e.g., headdress) that she had purchased in preparation for that year’s Hmong New Year celebration.
Even those participants who posted photographs of themselves wearing Hmong clothing, though, made some modifications that rendered their outfits less conservative than traditional Hmong dress. In the photographs they posted, Shila, Nicole, and Samantha seldom wore the traditional white collared shirt underneath their Hmong dress, therefore exposing a few inches of their upper chest. In one photograph that Shila posted of herself wearing Hmong clothing, her hair was down, with loose curls (rather than pulled back in a bun or braid, as has traditionally been expected of Hmong women). In one photograph that Nicole posted of herself in Hmong clothing, her sleeves were made of a light gauze material, rending her arms visible to those attending the Hmong New Year celebration and viewing her photo online. In one of Samantha’s photographs, she stood in front of two friends, who held one another’s hand as they walked through an arid California landscape. Although all three women wore Hmong dresses, none had layered their dress atop the traditional collared white shirt, none wore Hmong headdress, and all three wore their hair down, styled with loose waves.
Shila and Nicole further used their social media profiles to post Hmong language music videos, reflecting concerns that both raised during their interview about Hmong language loss across generations. Shila lamented, “Youth nowadays don’t really know the Hmong language because parents aren’t teaching their kids.” Nicole discussed her own Hmong language loss over the years—a source of frustration because she hopes to teach her future children to speak Hmong. Nicole further used Facebook to highlight the accomplishments of Hmong athletes who had made it to the global stage. During the recent summer Olympic games, Nicole regularly posted updates about gold medalist Sunisa Lee, with the accompanying words, “You have made the Hmong community PROUD!”
One participant, who had among the lowest ethnic identity scores in the sample and felt disconnected from her Hmongness because she disagreed with so many Hmong values, gave herself a Thai pseudonym: Arisaya. Although neither ethnically nor nationally Thai, Arisaya expressed a connection to Thai culture both during her interview and on her social media profile. She explained that connection in the following way:
It’s reallllly hard for me to accept Hmong, but when it comes to other Asian cultures, it’s easier. I don’t know why. . . With Thailand, I know there are so many things that I don’t agree with—like patriarchy, oh my God, I hate that stuff, right? They have a lot of that, but I’ve also been able to take that in without hating on it too much—maybe because it’s not me. I’ve thought about that, too, and I think I’ve been super embedded in Thailand and Korea in general. I grew up watching K-Pop and oh my gosh, I used to be the biggest freak. I literally learned Korean and took in the culture. It was crazy.
Were you on a quest to accept your Asian identity through—
Right! Through other [Asian cultures]. So when I embedded myself in that, I felt proud, you know? But that’s where I’m like, you know what? You can think what you want about me, but I’m Asian, and I’m proud to be Asian.
On Facebook, Arisaya posted a photograph of herself wearing a blush dress, long pearl earrings, and a black net hat and gloves. In the accompanying photo description, she wrote: “Joaying ♥.” The word jao-ying (เจ้าหญิง) means “princess” in Thai language.
Like Shila, Samantha, and Nicole, Arisaya also posted photographs of herself attending the Hmong New Year celebration—though she often wore Thai (rather than Hmong) clothing to this celebration. More recently, Arisaya posted an album with over a dozen portraits of herself wearing hanbok (traditional Korean attire) while posing amid autumn trees and a setting sun. Arisaya’s case illustrates the use of social media to assert third and fourth cultural identities (Thai, Korean) via dress and language use—including in spaces, such as the Hmong New Year celebration, in which a Hmong performance is expected.
For Shila, Nicole, and Samantha, social media afford spaces to convey in-group belonging and support cultural preservation—albeit with a hint of transformation (in which and how Hmong clothing is worn). For Arisaya, whose cultural identity commitment was challenged due to misaligned values, social media afford spaces to assert belongingness to other cultures. In totality, this theme reveals that participants use social media to explore their cultural identities and to express their cultural identity commitments—even if that commitment does not neatly align with one’s ethnic identity.
Digital Media Use Elicits and Reconciles Cultural Tensions
Participants expressed that digital media elicited their awareness of the antithetical nature of Hmong and American cultural values. For some, this cultural value dissonance engendered internal tensions.
Jim described American films and videos as responsible for spurring his discovery of emotional closeness that characterizes European American parent–child relationships. As a result of this discovery, Jim grew critical of the emotional distance that characterizes his own relationship with his parents. Speaking about the role of American culture in his life at present, Jim explained:
American culture is, for me, having family time. Growing up, I’ve seen videos or movies where American families would sit together at dinner. They would eat and they would talk. . .I realized that I wanted those conversations, to create that bonding. And I was seeing this in movies—.
Were these mostly White families you’d see?
Yes, yes. . .I realized that because we weren’t doing these things, [my family] wasn’t close. I didn’t know what my brothers were going through, I didn’t know what my sisters were going through.
For Jim, digital media were sites for recognizing American cultural values of family bonding and emotional connectedness. As a result of this recognition, Jim tried to instigate a cultural shift in his own household—though it was ultimately unsuccessful.
Lao similarly described the role of digital media in realizing that the Hmong value of stoicism clashes with the American value of emotional closeness. She explained that American films commonly portray parents expressing their love for their children, which she never heard as a child. “Hmong parents don’t tell you, like, ‘Oh, I love you,’” Lao said. She continued, “[In] American movies. . .you see how parents are, and you kind of wish your parents would do that to you.”
Willow suggested that her use of Instagram highlights individual choice, which American culture allows and Hmong culture denies. Describing the role of American culture in her life, Willow said:
For me personally, I can just scroll on Instagram and be like, ‘I like this,’ and go and do it. . . ‘I like how that looks,’ and I can just do it. That’s American culture. . .With my American culture, I can explore and express more of myself, whereas I feel more restricted in Hmong culture.
For Willow, Instagram is fundamentally American, as it is a space in which individual choice and self-expression reign. Conversely, spending time on Instagram elicits recognition of the restrictions and constraints that she feels in her ethnic culture.
Several participants pointed to social media as a source of discovering or solidifying their frustration with patriarchal beliefs held by Hmong men and the problematic treatment of Hmong women. Cactus explained her frustration with Hmong men who feel threatened by educated women such as herself. Rolling her eyes, she explained, “On social media, [men] will be like, ‘Just because she has a Bachelor’s degree, she thinks she’s better than me.’” This frustration is part of the reason why Cactus identified more with American than with Hmong culture. Shila shared her frustration with domestic violence in the Hmong community, which she “sees while scrolling through Facebook.” Arisaya linked the anti-feminist practice of bride kidnapping in Hmong communities outside of the U.S. (which she sees evidence of on Facebook) 5 with her inability to identify with Hmong culture.
For two participants who had among the highest ethnic identity scores in the sample, social media aided in reconciling incompatible values systems. Ntxawm, who had been dating her current Latino boyfriend for years, shared her frustration with her mother’s regular warnings that marrying him would erase her Hmongness. (Her mother’s warning is grounded in a concern that upon death, one’s spirit embarks on a journey to find their ancestral land. In this line of thinking, Ntxawm’s spirit would likely experience challenges with locating her ancestral land in Southeast Asia if her spouse is unable to offer her a traditional Hmong funeral.) Ntxawm explained why she wrote “I will always and forever be Hmong” on her cultural identity map:
I wrote [it] because I have a partner who’s Peruvian-Salvadorian American. It’s been interesting cause my mom’s like, ‘How are you gonna be Hmong if you marry a non-Hmong person?’ I was like, ‘How do I become not Hmong if I marry [him]?’. . .‘How does that detract from my Hmongness?’
To reconcile the tension between the Hmong value of endogamy and the American acceptance of exogamy, Ntxawm took to YouTube. There, she discovered the Shaman Memoirs Channel, which belongs to former Hmong Shaman Tassie Vang. Ntxawm spoke about an episode entitled, “Dating Outside Your Race,” in which Tassie emphasizes the role of individual choice in where one’s spirit goes in the afterlife, which is not necessarily to one’s ancestral land. Ntxawm said: “[Shaman Memoirs] really reassured me. . .that it’s up to me. I do have a choice. I’m not going to get lost [after I die] just cuz I didn’t have a Hmong funeral. After I heard that, I became less fearful.” Ntxawm’s case illustrates that social media are venues for reinterpreting Hmong beliefs such that they are compatible with American beliefs. For Ntxawm, that reinterpretation entailed embracing the role of individual choice both in her afterlife and in her current life.
Eleanor similarly used digital media to reconcile distinct Hmong and American life scripts. She described digital media as shielding her from negative self-talk that could otherwise emerge as a result of her mother’s criticism for not being married or marriage-bound at age 22:
Parasite single—maybe it’s common in Asian cultures? My mom calls me that. . .she says [I’m] gonna be one.
Does it bother you when she says that?
Not really. In Hmong culture, someone who’s very traditional would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not going to get married!’ But I think because I’ve been in American culture, it’s OK not to be married. In the media, I’ll see that sometimes it’s OK to get married in your 40s. So when [my mom] says that, I’m just like, ‘OK.’
The media—?
Television, books, social media show that it’s OK not to get married.
For Eleanor, social media (among other forms of media) helped her embrace an American cultural script that creates space for delayed marriage—or perhaps even no marriage at all.
Altogether, this theme points to the role of digital media in eliciting recognition of tensions between Hmong and American values: stoicism versus emotional closeness, individual choice versus constraint, and patriarchy versus feminism. For some, this recognition cut to the core of their ability to identify with Hmong culture. Yet this theme also illustrates that digital media can assist the navigation of these cultural tensions and contribute to reduction of perceived cultural dissonance.
Digital Media Use to Escape and Reshape Cultural Values
Some participants used social media to escape Hmong values they deemed problematic—particularly those related to gendered life scripts, mental health and illness, and familial obligation and reputation. Other participants used social media as tools for reshaping these Hmong values.
One previously introduced participant, Cactus (who had the lowest ethnic identity score in the sample), described specific social media tactics she employed to escape the watchful gaze of community members (especially elders) who rejected her because she had a baby out of wedlock at a young age. To avoid further rejection, Cactus has detached herself from Hmong culture, both in her real life (saying: “I stopped going to family events, I stopped joining Hmong culture stuff. It didn’t matter if it was birthdays or religious events or weddings, I just cut it out. I didn’t like going. I hated explaining myself to them”) and in her virtual life. Online, Cactus “hides” from community members by changing her Facebook name every few months and regularly deactivating her Facebook account. Using social media in this way facilitated Cactus’s nimble escape from judgment for having failed to adhere to Hmong gendered life scripts. Indeed, although Cactus friended the interviewer on Facebook and regularly contacted her via Direct Message to inquire about the status of the research and resultant publications, the interviewer was unable to locate Cactus when writing this article because she had recently deactivated her account.
Lilah also used social media to escape a Hmong value that caused considerable strife in her life: the denial of mental illness and the expectation that each family member must individually contribute to maintaining a positive family reputation. Early in her interview, Lilah described her experience with depression as a teenager, and her mother’s failure to recognize it as a valid experience. Lilah recalled her mother’s reaction when she confided her fragile mental state:
My mother was worried about the family reputation—about me being this crazy person. . .I remember very clearly that she started talking about the reputation of the family and of my father, cause my father has a good reputation in the clan.
To navigate the emotional suppression that Lilah suggested is characteristic of the Hmong community, she took to social media to form friendships with others experiencing similar mental health struggles. That is, Lilah dealt with this effective silencing by developing what she called “unhealthy friendships” online centered on suicidality. Her mother’s discovery of these friendships is what finally prompted her recognition of Lilah’s depression and the assistance she offered in seeking therapy for her daughter.
Other participants used social media as sites to reshape Hmong values they deemed problematic. Reflecting Lilah’s frustration with the lack of mental health awareness and support in the Hmong community, Nicole posted on her Facebook profile: “We get it. The Hmong community lacks knowledge and empathy for the mentally ill.” Though succinct, this post was likely motivated by the hope that publicly stating the problem would contribute to a solution.
During her interview, Samantha spoke about the many parts of Hmong culture that she would like to change, especially those revolving around expectations of female silence and gender inequality. On her identity map, she drew a Hmong woman with her mouth sewn shut. Samantha contextualized that depiction, saying, “As a Hmong woman, it’s really hard to speak out about anything. You’re not allowed to voice your opinion at the table. You’re just quiet—like a tiny little mouse off to the side.” She expressed optimism that this cultural norm might be changing, as she has seen Hmong women “talking” with one another (especially online) much more over the last 2 years than in the past. Samantha framed the “talking” that women do—and she does—online as antidotes to Hmong expectations of female silence.
Samantha’s own social media use enabled her to find community and to push back against cultural taboos of Hmong women having a voice and expressing their voice in ways that support each other. She explained:
On social media, like Facebook, there’s so many pages you can join where it’s all Hmong women or Hmong culture and beliefs, or Hmong jewelry and clothes, you know? And there’s so many women out there that have empowered each other. You can post a picture of, ‘This is my Hmong outfit! What should I wear?’ And people will be like, ‘Oh my God girl, you look so good!’ Or Hmong discussion pages like Hmong Women Today—I absolutely love that page!
Samantha expressed appreciation of social media for enabling emotionally vulnerable dialogue which would be uncomfortable for her and other Hmong women offline:
I think it’s easier to talk over social media than in person. If a girl was having problems, I could easily message her and ask what’s wrong. But if we were talking face-to-face, I’m sure she would feel obligated to hold back a lot of what she wants to say. But [online], if I cry, you’re not gonna see me cry, you know?
For Samantha, social media provide a space to challenge cultural expectations by seeing, supporting, and empowering other women—from the relative safety of behind the computer screen.
Willow also used social media to speak out against gendered life scripts, albeit much more directly. Several years ago, Willow wrote a rousing poem that portrays what it is like to grow up as a Hmong daughter—stuck between her father’s expectations (i.e., that she should “pursue medicine as a career and still cook rice at home, still wash the dishes”) and what she wants to do (i.e., have the freedom to pursue an identity-based career, among other things). That is, her poem highlights the tension between Hmong expectations of obedience and interdependent decision-making and the American emphasis on freedom and autonomous decision-making. Once posted on social media, her poem received considerable negative attention from Hmong community members. She recalled:
The whole Hmong community saw [my poem]. I got backlash from certain people—mostly men and elders. The older generation had a lot of things to say. . .People said very hurtful things, like, ‘This girl would put her parents in a senior citizen home.’
Shaking her head, Willow followed, “There’s still some people who aren’t open to the idea that girls may want to do more than start families and be quiet and cook and clean.” More than simply being a cathartic exercise, Willow used her social media presence to voice the challenges of living between two cultures. She couched the writing and public sharing of her poem alongside her desire to “be a part of the change for the better” in the Hmong community—aiming to open up the scope of possibilities for young Hmong women, even if prodding this change along meant that she would have to shoulder some rebuke.
This theme illustrates that digital, and especially social, media are spaces in which participants can exercise individual agency that is relatively restricted in their offline worlds. In so doing, participants are able to avoid—and in some cases, transform—cultural values that they experience as oppressive.
Discussion
Results illustrate that digital media are powerful developmental tools, insofar as they support young people’s cultural identity exploration and commitment. Results also illustrate that digital media are powerful cultural tools, insofar as they enable Hmong American youth to promote the preservation and transformation of Hmong culture. These two points are explored in greater detail in the sections that follow.
Digital Media Assists and Challenges Cultural Identity Development
The Hmong American emerging adults in this study used digital media to explore their cultural identities and to assert their cultural identity commitments. This suggests that not only do digital media assist personal identity exploration and clarification (Manago, 2015; Sebre & Miltuze, 2021), but that they also assist cultural identity exploration and clarification. The first theme revealed that participants used social media to communicate with others about their ethnic group, to express cultural pride, and to shore up feelings of belonging. Posting photographs of oneself wearing traditional (and not so traditional—a point to which we return shortly) Hmong clothing, posting Hmong language content, and sharing the successes of star Hmong gymnast Sunisa Lee on Facebook served as mechanisms through which cultural identity commitments could be solidified.
Importantly, though, some of the same participants who used digital media to express their cultural identity commitments also used digital media to reshape Hmong values with which they disagreed. For example, in the first theme, we were introduced to Samantha—who expressed her Hmong pride and affirmed her Hmong belongingness by regularly posting photographs of Hmong clothing on Facebook. In the third theme, we saw that Samantha explored her cultural identity via her activity in Facebook groups specifically geared toward Hmong women. She used these Facebook groups as vehicles to effect cultural change in the Hmong community (i.e., by expressing herself openly and encouraging other women when they did the same). That is, Facebook offered a safe space for Samantha to behave in ways that contradict gendered cultural scripts of female silence, which she found stifling, and align more with expressive American scripts.
The first theme further revealed that, for those who feel disconnected from Hmong culture, social media can offer a space to remotely acculturate (Ferguson & Bornstein, 2015) to non-local identities. Arisaya had not yet attained a sense of ingroup belonging in Hmong culture, as we see reflected in her low ethnic identity score. For her, social media offered a back door through which she could accept her cultural identity by reframing herself as a member of a broader “Asian” identity—a panethnic category that she reclaims as meaningful in spite of its obvious shortcomings (Kang, 2021). In Arisaya, we see, on the one hand, that youth remote acculturation is driven by exposure to digital media (Ferguson & Bornstein, 2015). That is, Arisaya’s affinity for Thai culture was formed via watching Thai soap operas and listening to Thai music. We also saw how digital media can be used in ways that assist the solidification of one’s commitment to remote cultures—for her, by posting photographs of herself wearing Thai and Korean clothing, and writing in the Thai language. Arisaya’s case further illustrates how remote and proximal acculturation intersect (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022)—perhaps, especially for young people who experience barriers to ethnic identity commitment. An affordance of social media where cultural identity is concerned, then, is that they offer space to solidify and express commitment to one’s cultural group—even if that commitment imperfectly aligns with one’s ethnic group.
On the other hand, digital media present challenges for cultural identity development by exacerbating the distance between Hmong and American cultural identities. As illustrated in the second theme, what Hmong American youth learned via digital media at times made it difficult to fully embrace their ethnic culture. The fact that watching American films made Jim and Lao critical of their own emotionally distant family relationships suggests that digital media may be vehicles through which Hmong American emerging adults recognize and become frustrated with the lack of open communication in the family (Juang & Meschke, 2017; Meschke & Juang, 2014). For Cactus, Shila, and Arisaya, what they saw on social media reinforced their awareness of the deep entrenchment of Hmong patriarchy. They experienced this awareness as challenging their sense of belonging in Hmong culture and their pride for being Hmong (two key components of ethnic identity commitment; Phinney, 1992). One can imagine how this digital media-facilitated cultural identity exploration may contribute to the anxiety that can accompany ethnic identity exploration (Mills & Murray, 2017; Torres & Ong, 2010).
For some participants, the more they learned about American culture via digital media, the more critical they became of, and the more alienated they felt from, Hmong culture. Yet results also revealed examples of those who used digital media in ways that helped to lessen the distance between Hmong and American cultural values. Ntxawm and Eleanor, for example, both used digital media to explore the interface of Hmong and American cultures. For them, digital media offered alternative (American) ways of interpreting traditional Hmong expectations that they heard from their parents. These cases reflect the promise of digital media for the cultural identity development of bicultural youth in promoting the perceived integration of ethnic and national identities (Benet-Martinez & Haritatos, 2005). This function of digital media is significant because research with Hispanic youth in the U.S. suggests that those who perceive their ethnic and national identities as more integrated tend to experience positive psychological and relational outcomes (Schwartz et al., 2015). Digital media, then, may help Hmong youth synthesize incongruent cultural scripts and bridge Hmong and American cultural identities. This digital media-enabled bridging of cultural identities offers a promising alternative to feeling forced to compartmentalize (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022) or choose between (Tsai, 2000) Hmong and American identities.
It is also possible, however, that the promise of digital media in assisting the bridging of cultural identities may be more within reach of those Hmong youth who already possess certain cultural identity strengths. Drawing from research which suggests that the “rich get richer” in social media (e.g., Cheng et al., 2019; Kraut et al., 2002), it may be that those Hmong American emerging adults who are already more oriented toward biculturalism and feel strongly rooted in their Hmong cultural identity (such as Ntxawm and Eleanor) are likely to notice and to seek out information online that helps them manage cultural inconsistencies. In turn, their use of digital media may serve to enhance their pre-existing cultural identity strengths. Meanwhile, those who are less oriented toward biculturalism and more critical of Hmong culture (such as Cactus and Arisaya) may be likelier to notice cultural inconsistencies on digital media, thereby deepening pre-existing perceptions of cultural discord and contributing to a more troubled relationship with Hmong culture.
Digital Media Enables Cultural Transformation and Preservation
Results also reveal that Hmong American emerging adults used digital media as tools that enabled cultural preservation (particularly in the behavioral domains of language and dress) and cultural transformation (particularly in the domain of values, but also subtly in the domain of modernized dress). The final theme showed that participants used social media to assist their avoidance of cultural restrictions and constraints they experienced offline, and to assist the alteration of Hmong values experienced as oppressive—especially rigid gender roles, gender-based hierarchy, emotional stoicism, and lack of mental health recognition. Although the Hmong American youth in this study experienced barriers with attempts to alter cultural values offline (McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022), the lower-stakes and more anonymous space of Facebook afforded opportunities both to exercise personal agency over values enacted and to broker cultural change in the Hmong community (Manago et al., 2022; McKenzie et al., 2019).
Nicole (via posting about the lack of mental illness awareness and sensitivity in the Hmong community) and Willow (via sharing her poem that spotlit the contradictions and frustrations associated with being a Hmong daughter), in particular, used digital media to transcend cultural expectations and to spark cultural change. As with adolescent girls of color in the rural midwestern U.S., social media offer Hmong American emerging adults spaces to transcend cultural pressures they experience offline (Rickman, 2018). This function of social media is perhaps especially mobilized by youth who experience a great deal of external cultural pressure and internal cultural dissonance in their offline lives.
That participants in this study used digital media to preserve Hmong behaviors and to transform Hmong values is perhaps surprising when considering previous research that points to behavioral change occurring more quickly than value change in the face of acculturation (Bosher, 1997; Yoon et al., 2020). Several potential explanations for these findings exist. First, the current participants were overwhelmingly born in the U.S., and attending post-secondary education. The fact that the current participants have spent much of their lives in spaces that are saturated with American values may contribute to their desire to change Hmong values (which do not neatly cohere with American values; McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022)—in part via social media. Relatedly, the desire to preserve Hmong clothing and Hmong language does not necessarily implicate the desire to preserve Hmong values. In this way, using digital media to share evidence of one’s engagement in Hmong behaviors could offer an onramp for ethnic identity commitment without requiring ethnic value alignment. One final possible explanation is that posting photographs of oneself wearing Hmong clothing simultaneously satisfies (Hmong) cultural belongingness and (American) gendered beauty norms—for when wearing Hmong dress, participants also wore a full face of makeup, styled hair, and jewelry. This final explanation calls to mind Samantha, who couched her appreciation of Hmong clothing both in its “trendy” esthetic appeal and its power to visually stake claim to her Hmongness.
More generally, this study highlights the intimate relationship between cultural identity, cultural values, and cultural behaviors. Results suggest that digital media is a salient landscape for cultural identity development because it is a space in which young people negotiate cultural values and behaviors. Some participants used digital media in agentic manners (i.e., to effect cultural change [e.g., Nicole and Willow] and to reconcile inconsistent cultural values [e.g., Ntxawm and Eleanor]). Others used it more passively—such as Cactus and Lilah, who used digital media to escape culture. It would be helpful to know whether using digital media in particular ways is linked to having a stronger ethnic identity. Although quantitative ethnic identity scores are backgrounded in this study, it is noteworthy that the average ethnic identity score for Ntxawm and Eleanor (who used digital media agentically to reconcile inconsistent Hmong and American values) was 3.64—quite a bit above the 3.11 overall mean, while the average ethnic identity score for Cactus and Lilah (whose digital media use was more passive) was 2.5—far below the overall mean.
For the latter participants, is their digital media use (at least partially) responsible for their lower ethnic identity scores, or do their lower ethnic identity scores inform their orientation toward digital media? Considering Steele and Brown’s (1995) media practice model, which proposes that one’s sense of who they are shapes their encounters with media and those encounters, in turn, shape one’s sense of themselves, it is perhaps most likely that both explanations are true. This study points to the promise of extending Steele and Brown’s (1995) proposed continuous relationship between identity and media use to a continuous relationship between cultural identity and media use. As such, one’s sense of who they are culturally is bound to shape their media encounters, and those media encounters, in turn, shape one’s sense of who they are culturally.
Limitations and Future Directions
This qualitative study captures how digital media shape the cultural identity development of Hmong American emerging adults. Results, however, should be interpreted alongside several limitations. First, the fact that interview questions did not probe for digital media use rendered the current sample size rather small, thereby limiting the generalizability of the results (though qualitative research generally does not intend to be generalizable). On the one hand, this lack of explicit questioning is advantageous. The fact that many participants guided the conversation about their experience of biculturalism in the direction of social and digital media speaks to the salience of digital media in their cultural identity development. On the other hand, there are likely functions and consequences of digital media in participants’ cultural identity development that were not captured because of this.
Relatedly, had the researcher required Facebook friendship as a requisite for participants’ involvement in this study (rather than allowing friendships to unfold organically), this would undoubtedly have widened the scope of analyzable data. In turn, this would likely have contributed an understanding of layers of the social media—cultural identity development intersection that was not revealed in the present study. For example, other academic work with the present sample suggests that, like other immigrant groups (Eitle et al., 2009), Hmong American emerging adults engage in selective acculturation by adopting certain U.S. cultural values (e.g., the prioritization of higher education) and retaining certain ethnic cultural values (e.g., the centrality of family and community; McKenzie, Leighton, et al., 2022). Indeed, the fact that family-centered codes dominate both explicitly (e.g., family closeness, family distance, family reputation) and implicitly (e.g., marriage—delayed, marriage—interracial) in the initial codes list for the current study speaks to the salience of the Hmong value of family for this sample. Yet the results of this study reveal that this family value is also fraught—at least when considering its intersection with digital media. If the researcher had access to the social media profiles of all participants in this study, it is possible—perhaps even likely—that additional information about how digital media can assist the synthesis of Hmong and American values would have been revealed. This is an area that warrants further investigation.
Generalizability is also limited beyond the current cultural group in question. The themes in this particular study may not map onto themes that would appear in a similar study with other youth of color in the U.S. Indeed, following the conceptualization of digital media as cultural tools (Manago et al., 2022; Manago & McKenzie, 2022), it is likely that digital media would be used in culturally specific ways based on salient concerns. Future research would do well to examine how cultural identity informs, and is informed by, digital media use among other cultural groups (e.g., other ethnic and racial groups in the U.S., and in international contexts).
Another important limitation deals with the interviewer’s social position as a White female academic. Although she has conducted research with Asian populations for over a decade, the fact that her ethnic heritage did not align with those of her participants could have influenced what they were willing to share. The interviewer worked to minimize this social distance in multiple ways—most notably, by: (a) constructing a comfortable and informal interview environment and describing her previous work with Asian populations prior to the interview, (b) emphasizing to participants prior to the interview that they occupy the role of educator during the conversation, and (c) working closely with Hmong research assistants. Still, the findings may have differed if the interviewer and participants shared an ethnic heritage.
Conclusion
This study reveals that Hmong American emerging adults use digital media as cultural tools (to effect cultural change) and as developmental tools (to facilitate the exploration of and commitment to one’s cultural identity). Findings highlight the complex role of digital media in the cultural identity development of Hmong American youth. On the one hand, digital media can assist the exploration of and commitment to Hmong culture, and the synthesis of divergent Hmong and American values and expectations. On the other hand, digital media can reinforce awareness of cultural dissonance, thereby threatening one’s commitment to their Hmong cultural identity. More broadly, this study speaks to the utility of a layered analytic approach that centers bicultural youth’s views of digital media in relation to their cultural identities, while also considering digital media practices that relate to cultural identity and ethnic identity scores to contextualize—but not crowd out—qualitative results. Such triangulation promises to offer depth and breadth in our nascent understanding of the co-shaping of digital media use and cultural identity development.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments and Credits
My deepest appreciation goes to those who took part in this study, and to the following indefatigable undergraduate research assistants: Emily Leighton, Jasmine Navarro, Jose Reyes, Kajai Xiong, Macy Davis, and Trae Lewis.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author is grateful to the Department of Child and Family Science at California State University, Fresno, whose financial support made this research possible.
