Strategic Transformation: Cultural and Gender Identity Negotiation in First-Generation Vietnamese Youth

Immigrant Adjustment: Assimilation or Ethnic Pluralism?

Although the United States has a long history of immigration, as a nation we continue to grapple with the question of how to incorporate newcomers into social, cultural, and economic life. The debate between assimilation and acculturation or ethnic pluralism remains ongoing and at times contentious. Numerous scholars examining the issue of immigrant settlement have illustrated not only the ineffectiveness of assimilation as an approach to integrating immigrants but also its inclination to producing racial and economic inequality (Gibson, 1988; Lee, 2005; Ogbu, 1991, 2001; Olsen, 1997; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Rong & Preissle, 1998; C. Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999b); yet, assimilation continues to be a popular and conventional strategy for responding to newcomers in many social and public institutions, including schools.

Although many scholars find assimilation to be problematic, they agree that a system of social integration is necessary and important to sustain a sense of unity within the larger society (Banks, 2004; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). Several scholars suggest acculturation (Gibson, 1988; Rong & Preissle, 1998) or ethnic pluralism (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001) as alternatives to assimilation (Alba & Nee, 2003). Rong and Preissle (1998) define acculturation as a process that results from two or multiple groups having sustained contact with each other. Many immigrants and scholars view acculturation as a positive process. They consider acquiring new skills, such as learning English, to be important and additive rather than subtractive to maintaining an ethnic identity (Cummins, 2000; Gibson, 1988). For example, one particular ethnic group examined in the literature is the Sikh Indians of California. Gibson (1988) concludes that Sikhs resisted complete assimilation by pursuing a process of accommodation and acculturation. Sikh Indian immigrants rejected the notion that Americanization meant giving up their own cultural identity. In fact, parents encouraged their children to adopt the “good” ideas and practices of the Americans while maintaining Sikh culture. Gibson’s study illustrates that acculturation involves immigrants actively partaking in the process of redefining cultural practices and participating in the Americanization process, but on their own terms.

Although many scholars make important distinctions between assimilation and acculturation, the work of Portes and Rumbaut (1996 2001) problematizes the distinction and explanatory power of the two concepts. They define acculturation as an initial step toward eventual assimilation. These scholars pay close attention to the different strands of adaptation and the ways they impact family structures and dynamics. Portes and Rumbaut classify the different strands of adaptation as dissonant acculturation, consonant acculturation, and selective acculturation. Dissonant acculturation occurs when immigrant children’s acquisition of language and American culture have surpassed their parents’. This pattern of acculturation often leads to role reversal, where the parents’ role as adults is diminished. In consonant acculturation, acculturation between parents and children occurs at similar rates. Consonant acculturation tends to lead to an abandoning of the cultural identity and language. This pattern of adaptation closely connects to the more traditional definition of assimilation, as discussed above. Selective acculturation is the most ideal form of adaptation, which “takes place when the learning process of both generations is embedded in a co-ethnic community of sufficient size and institutional diversity to slow down the cultural shift and promote partial retention of the parents’ home language and norms” (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001, p. 54). Similar to Gibson’s notion of accommodation and acculturation, this selective acculturation creates less fragmentation between immigrant parents and their children.

Public schools have been at the center of this debate on assimilation and acculturation because they are one of the most important social institutions for absorbing and socializing newcomers to adapt to the larger mainstream culture (Gibson, 1988; Olneck, 2004; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Rong & Preissle, 1998; Tyack, 1974). In socializing students to adopt mainstream values and practices, researchers have highlighted how racialization serves as one of the components of the socialization process in school (Lee, 1996, 2005; Lopez, 2003; Olsen, 1997; Valenzuela, 1999b; Waters, 1996). The ways in which race is structured into the day-to-day practices in schools act as a mechanism of social conformity, contributing to the underachievement of many immigrant students (Stritikus & Garcia, 2003; M. M. Suarez-Orozco, 1987; Villenas & Deyhle, 1999; Valenzuela, 1999b; Waters, 1996, 1999). Portes and Rumbaut (1996) and Sassler (2006) suggest that the underachievement of many immigrant youth eventually leads to downward or segmented assimilation.

Ogbu’s (1991, 2001) notion of oppositional identity and C. Suarez-Orozco’s (2004) concept of social mirroring are two prominent theories that further explain how immigrants experience segmented assimilation. Ogbu’s oppositional identity refers to the process of resistance that youth of color, including immigrants, develop against assimilation. In many cases, the youth form attitudes and engage in behaviors that go explicitly against mainstream society. For instance, the West Indian youth in Waters’s (1999) study, particularly the male students, often experience overt hostility from mainstream society due to their Black racial background. The stereotypical racial representations of the immigrant youth as suspicious and threatening prevent many people, including neighbors, authority figures, and teachers, from seeing the youth as whole and multidimensional human beings. Although society has reduced West Indian immigrant youth to a series of unfavorable images, they are expected to assimilate to mainstream American culture. In articulating the dichotomy between Blackness and Whiteness, Lee (2005) writes that Blackness is considered “everything bad about being American,” whereas Whiteness is synonymous with “all that is ostensibly good about American and ‘being American’” (p. 4). Immigrant youth are pressured in various ways from teachers and peers to adopt White mainstream American values. However, adopting Whiteness does not afford the person of color the status of Whiteness (Lee, 2005). As West Indian youth continue to experience hostility and violence on a daily basis, many of them respond by rejecting assimilation and pursuing an identity that works in opposition to White mainstream American culture (Waters, 1999). In constructing an oppositional identity, immigrant youth also dismiss schooling, which they perceive as connected to mainstream culture. While they disassociate with what they perceive as assimilation, the attitudes and behaviors that the youth adopt put them at risk of academic failure and eventual segmented assimilation.

C. Suarez-Orozco’s (2004) notion of social mirroring provides another important explanation for segmented assimilation. Social mirroring suggests that the images and beliefs surrounding the students will be absorbed, internalized, and reflected in their behaviors. The low opinions reflected from teachers and others in the environment work to shape many immigrant students’ social and academic identities and contribute to their poor academic performances. A study by Valenzuela (1999b) provides an important case of social mirroring. The author argues that the students’ general perception of lack of caring on the part of the school and teachers contributes to their negative attitudes toward school. Students become discouraged and disinterested in school as they encounter teachers whom they perceive to lack compassion and a sense of caring. The low opinions reflected from teachers and others work to shape the immigrant students’ social and academic identities, which eventually become a form of self-prophecy as students accept these messages to be true and act on them. In this process, they get caught in the achievement gap and experience downward assimilation.

Immigrant Adjustment and Gender

Increasingly, research shows that immigration is a gendered process (Espiritu, 2001; Itzigsohn & Giorguli-Saucedo, 2005; Lopez, 2003; Valenzuela, 1999a; Waters, 1996, 1999; Zhou & Bankston, 2001). Studies reveal that men and women are received differently by their host society, which leads to different patterns of social interaction and participation in the new host society and in transnational spaces (Itzigsohn & Giorguli-Saucedo, 2005). Yet, only in recent years have scholars begun to bring gender into the core of migration studies (e.g., DeLaet, 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Pessar, 1984, 1985, 1999). To gain a fuller picture of the ways in which schooling influences the lives of recent immigrant students, we connect school-based studies of youth with the family- and labor-centered examinations of immigrants’ gendered experiences.

Much of the scholarship focusing on the role of gender in immigrant communities is situated in the family context (Espiritu, 2001; Kibria, 1993; Lopez, 2003; Louie, 2004; Pessar, 1984; C. Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999a). A common belief regarding men’s and women’s social status is that women tend to gain higher social status and become more emancipated in the United States (Espiritu, 2001; Pessar, 1984, 1999). However, the shift in social status for immigrant women is not consistent across the different domains of their social and personal lives (Pessar, 1999; Zhou & Bankston, 2001). They may gain higher status in one domain, such as at the workplace, but continue to be subordinated in their homes or in their ethnic community. Kibria (1993) found that even though young Vietnamese immigrant women may gain improved status at work, in their homes their roles remain relatively unchanged. Within the Hmong community, Lee (2005) observed a similar pattern developing between men and women. While Hmong women began to work outside of the home and develop a voice within the community, in the home, men continued to have more authority. Thus, workforce participation has not helped to restructure or dismantle the system of patriarchy within the home.

Immigrant men often experience a sense of loss in social and economic status after their arrival but continue to maintain their cultural practices and values in the home and in their community (Espiritu, 2001; Lopez, 2003; Kibria, 1993; Lee, 2005; Zhou & Bankston, 2001). To offset the loss of social and economic status outside of the home, many immigrant men emphasize the importance of cultural norms and practices in the home and community, which helps to maintain systems of patriarchy in many cases.

The structure of patriarchy not only persists for immigrant adults but also is reproduced in their children’s lives (Espiritu, 2001; Kibria, 1993; Sarroub, 2005; Valenzuela, 1999a; Zhou & Bankston, 2001) and often creates tension between the different generations within the home (Lee, 2005). Numerous studies show that double standards exist between male and female children (Espiritu, 2001; Kibria, 1993; Louie, 2004; Qin-Hillard, 2003; Sarroub, 2005; Valenzuela, 1999b; Waters, 1996; Zhou & Bankston, 1998, 2001). While immigrant males are afforded more opportunities and freedom to explore life outside of the home, girls’ social activities are usually under careful scrutiny because they are perceived as “keepers of culture” (Billson, 1995). Although immigrant families have always been concerned about passing on their culture and traditions to their children, daughters are often expected to preserve these practices for the next generation. In a study focusing on Filipino girls, Espiritu (2001) argues that the Filipino’s community-heightened emphasis on female chastity is “a way to counter the cultural Americanization of the Philippines, to resist the assimilative and alienating demands of U.S. society, and to reaffirm to themselves their self-worth in the face of colonial, racial, class, and gendered subordination” (p. 415). While this strategy of elevating female virtue is a way to counter assimilation and to differentiate their own cultural norms from those of the mainstream culture, it also ties girls and women to the traditional patriarchal structures.

While many immigrant families and communities embrace traditional values regarding gender roles and expectations, which tend to restrict women’s personal choices and movements, studies consistently show that young immigrant women have been excelling in school (Lopez, 2002; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Qin-Hillard, 2003; Rodriguez, 2003; C. Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Waters, 1996; Zhou & Bankston, 2001). These studies show that within the same ethnic group immigrant girls tend to demonstrate higher educational motivation and achievement than boys do.

Qin-Hillard’s (2003) work offers one possible explanation for the gender gap. Using survey data on student attitudes toward school, she finds a positive correlation between the maintenance of ethnic identity and positive attitudes toward school. Strong ethnic identity acts against the downward assimilation facing many first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants. Over time, Qin-Hillard found that boys, whose academic performance continued to slide, were more likely than girls to adopt a hyphenated identity, such as Chinese-American or Dominican-American. In addition to maintaining their ethnic identification, girls also tend to have stronger social networks that help them become more successful at school, such as supportive teachers, parental supervision, and female friends who are serious about school (Qin-Hillard, 2003). Immigrant boys, on the other hand, tend to have fewer social networks that would benefit them in school. At home, parents are less strict with boys and allow them greater personal freedom outside of the home. This personal freedom increases their chances of encountering negative forces on the street (Qin-Hillard, 2003), which decreases their chances of achieving in school. Meanwhile, parents tend to have closer supervision over their daughters’ social and personal activities and restrict their chances of having a social life outside of the home. Zhou and Bankston (1994, 1998, 2001) argue that the tight control immigrant parents keep over immigrant girls acts as a buffer to the negative aspects of American life. With few social outlets outside of the home, school not only becomes a place for academic learning for immigrant girls but also serves as a crucial place for social activities and gatherings.

The pattern of immigrant girls outperforming immigrant boys within the same ethnic group has been found to be consistent in smaller scale in-depth studies (Lopez, 2002; Rodriguez, 2003; Valenzuela, 1999b; Waters, 1996; Zhou & Bankston, 1994, 1998). In these different studies, researchers suggest that school plays an important role in shaping and perpetuating gender roles and racial stereotypes among immigrant students. Lopez (2002), Waters (1996), and Valenzuela (1999a), for example, all indicate that female immigrant students, who are often seen by teachers as more approachable, are able to gain access to greater social and cultural capital. Acquiring greater social capital helps female students build a more positive attitude about school than male students do. Meanwhile, male students often elicit feelings of fear, intimidation, and suspicion from their teachers. They internalize these messages from their teachers and begin to dismiss school, fulfilling the teachers’ initial perceptions of them as obstructive. In this process, the teachers’ actions and inactions reinforce gender roles and racial stereotyping among immigrant students and help contribute to differential achievement patterns between male and female immigrant students.

Research on the experiences of Vietnamese immigrant youth stresses the role that race, class, culture, family dynamics, and gender play in shaping the youths’ social conditions and patterns of adaptation (Kibria, 1993; Zhou & Bankston, 1994, 1998, 2001). Zhou and Bankston’s (1998) examination of Vietnamese refugees in New Orleans found that refugee youth were able to successfully adapt to aspects of life in the United States despite acute poverty. The authors attributed the academic success of the Vietnamese refugee youth to the existence of a strong and supportive ethnic community. In particular, the authors showed how Vietnamese children were able to attain upward mobility through the strong ethnic community and the maintenance of traditional cultural norms (cooperation, family loyalty, repayment of obligations).

What is clear from the work of Zhou (2001) is that Vietnamese immigrant youth, like other youth, learn to straddle social and cultural spaces. They adopt the language and cultural skills to be able to navigate within the mainstream culture. At the same time, they develop important networks, similar to what Brittain (2002) and Schwartz and Montgomery (2002) define as transnational spaces, within their ethnic community to help maintain their cultural and ethnic identities.

Transnational participation may include connecting with an ethnic and cultural community at both the local and global levels. Through the power of technology, such as the Internet and mass media, immigrant youth find ways to remain connected to their cultural communities (Brittain, 2002; Maira, 2004). Brittain describes transnational spaces within schools to mean “a human collectivity of immigrant students from a particular country where students engage in activities that cross the boundaries of two nation-states . . . and create a sense of belonging that overlaps these two nation-states” (p. 49). Crossing the boundaries in this sense refers to a symbolic crossing as opposed to a physical crossing. As they engage with the two social and cultural worlds, the physical and symbolic boundaries that immigrant youth cross on a daily basis reveal a complex practice of assessing and constructing meanings related to cultural and ethnic identity.

Toward a Process and Practice View of Gender, Culture, and Identity

We draw on feminist and sociocultural theory to frame gender, culture, and identity to offer a full account of the complexity of immigrant student adjustment and the role that initial schooling plays in that process. The research on immigrant student adjustment and on gender and immigration has important explanatory power related to how schools shape the initial experiences of immigrant students. One aspect in which the research literature could offer keener insight relates to how various scholars define, either explicitly or implicitly, culture and, consequently, cultural identity. In this sense, the research on immigrant adjustment has a great deal in common with the research on the achievement and learning of immigrant students because it has tended to frame culture as “a system of meanings and practices, cohesive across time, which individual members carry with them from place to place. This view characterizes individuals as somewhat passive carriers of culture, where culture is a set of rituals, beliefs, and fixed traits” (Nasir & Hand, 2006, p. 450). A prime example of how this definition gets operationalized is the manner in which shifts in cultural identity are often measured in seminal studies—survey measurements of self-identified shifting beliefs, values, or ethnic identification (e.g., Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Qin-Hillard, 2003).

We utilize a sociocultural definition of culture forwarded by Nasir and Hand (2006) that “culture is both carried by individuals and created in the moment-to-moment interactions with one another as they participate in (and reconstruct) cultural practices” (p. 458). From this practice-based perspective, socially patterned activities influenced by community norms and values are important contexts through which identity is enacted (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998; Nasir & Saxe, 2003). This perspective allows us to examine the fluidity of culture and the tensions between and within groups (Lowe, 1996; Ngo, 2002). Cultural identity, then, is seen as a social process that is always in development and that finds meaning in social relationships and practices (Hall, 1996; Lowe, 1996).

Through detailed examinations of the way Vietnamese students talk about and negotiate aspects of the cultural and gendered meanings of the communities to which they belong and observe, we attempt to build an emic understanding of American and Vietnamese cultural norms. These terms do not describe fixed essential elements of life but rather sets of values, practices, and discourses that swirl for students as they negotiate and form their identities. Thus, for the purpose of this study, discourses and practices that attempt to “hail subjects into place” (Hall, 1996, p. 5) constitute a meeting site for the processes and practices that shape identities. We use the concept of identity to mean a production that is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation (Hall, 1990). For the purpose of this study, we define norms as the cultural meanings the Vietnamese immigrant students make from the group expectations surrounding their behaviors and interactions. As rules that are used to control groups and society, norms are closely linked to issues of power (Alasuutari, 1995).

In terms of gender, we also adopt a process-based explanation and argue that it is the construction of roles and expectations related to femininity and masculinity (Sunderland, 2004). Freeman and McElhinny (2001) argue that gender is a “structure of relationships that is often reproduced, sometimes challenged, and potentially transformed in everyday linguistic practices” (p. 221). The ideas and meanings connected to gender roles and expectations continue to be reshaped as they encounter new cultural practices and social discourses. Discourse is broadly defined as a social and cultural lens for understanding and guiding social relations and behaviors. Sunderland (2004) writes that discourse is a “way of seeing the world” (p. 7). Discourse can be manifested through spoken or written language or through social interactions among people. Gender identity construction, Butler (1993) writes, “not only takes place in time, but is itself a temporal process which operates through the reiteration of norms; sex is both produced and destabilized in the course of this reiteration” (p. 373). It is through the process of reconstitution and redefinition that gender takes on meaning and purpose in people’s lives.

As an interactive process, people’s prior experiences and notions of gender, which may initially be informed by one set of cultural practices, contribute to the construction of new meanings and ideas around gender (Freeman & McElhinny, 2001). Central to the formation of new meanings and ideas are the concepts of culture and identity—terms that take on multiple and often contradictory meanings in research on immigration. In adapting to the school, the Vietnamese immigrant youth began to recognize and engage with other discourses on gender that exist within the institution. The youths’ ideas and meanings of gender can manifest in various and contradictory ways as they interact with different cultural perspectives. Framing gender as a process of ongoing redefinition allows us to examine more closely how immigrant youth participate in constructing meanings around cultural and gender identity in school. This article positions gender at the core of its analysis, providing a different angle from which to understand how immigrant youth take part in defining gender as they encounter new social and cultural contexts.

Research Context

The research project was conducted over a 2-year period in an urban school district with a substantial Vietnamese student population in the Pacific Northwest.2 The district is highly diverse, with a student-of-color population of 58% in the 2004–2005 academic year. As Table 1 illustrates, the ethnic makeup of the student population is 22.3% African American, 22.9% Asian, 11.2% Latino, 2.4% Native American, and 41.2% White for the 2004–2005 year. The table also includes demographic information dating back to 2002, when this research project began.

The English-language-learner (ELL) student population makes up 21.4% of the district’s total school-age population. As a whole, Asians make up the largest ELL group, with Vietnamese students representing the highest percentage in the past decade. Table 2 illustrates the numbers and percentage of ELL students in the school district over the past 3 years. Data collection took place at three different high schools: Northwest Newcomer Center, Greenfield High, and Englewood High.

Northwest Newcomer Center

The research project initially began at the Northwest Newcomer Center (NWNC), a first stop for all immigrants in the school district with beginning-level English proficiency. In the Northwest School District, immigrant and refugee students who do not meet the English-language proficiency level are placed at the newcomer center. NWNC provides beginning classes in English as a second language (ESL) and helps to orient students to U.S. schooling. At NWNC, a team of three researchers recruited Vietnamese immigrant students of secondary school age who had been in the country fewer than 6 months. We observed students at NWNC for 1 academic year as they began to adjust to school in the United States. After the 1-year period, we followed the students as they transferred to one of two mainstream high schools—Greenfield or Englewood.

Greenfield High School

Greenfield High is located in a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood. It is a comprehensive 9–12 high school. It has a reputation as a good school, and many of the Vietnamese participants wanted to attend this school. Of the 1,672 students that attend the school, 10% receive ELL services. Of the student population, 62.5% is White, 17% Asian, 12% Latino, 7% African American, and 2% Native American.

Englewood High School

Englewood High is a comprehensive 9–12 high school located in a mixed-income neighborhood and serves 1,167 students. It has one of the larger ESL departments in the district, and 15% of the total school population is classified as ELL. The large ELL student population in part contributes to the school’s high level of diversity. Thirty-four percent of the student body is Asian, 34% is Caucasian, 22% is African American, and 9% is Latino.

Previous schooling context

In addition to our fieldwork at these three schools, we spent 3 weeks conducting fieldwork in Vietnam—observing two schools formerly attended by select focal students. We visited one school in a small town in Dong Nai Province and one in Ho Chi Minh City. This fieldwork was an attempt to provide a description of what the realities of schooling and cultural context might have been for the students in Vietnam. This previous cultural context helps us to gain insight into the students’ transnational spaces, which they frequently invoke as Vietnamese cultural norms. These transnational spaces include physical spaces and those recalled from memory (Brittain, 2002).

Our data collection in Vietnam was influenced by the composition of the research team, which was a 1.75-generation Vietnamese immigrant whose family arrived in the United States as refugees in the late 1970s and a second-generation European American immigrant whose previous work had largely focused on Latino students. In much of the existing literature on Vietnamese Americans, the main points of reference to Vietnam are closely tied to postwar conditions (Cargill & Huynh, 2000; Do, 1999; Kibria, 1993; Rutledge, 1992; Takaki, 1989; Zhou & Bankston, 1998). However, the ways that many of the 1.25-generation Vietnamese immigrant students in our study depict social, political, and economic conditions in Vietnam seem to differ vastly from the existing narratives. As we became more familiar with the focal students, it became clear that the Vietnam that they had left was much different than the Vietnam that Nguyen fled. While many aspects of the beliefs and values of the recent immigrants were familiar to Nguyen, which provided insight into constructing the design and questions for the study, it seemed clear that as a research team we did not have sufficient knowledge of the modern context of Vietnamese schools. Given this gap in the literature, and our experiences as outsiders to the cultural context of the 1.25-generation Vietnamese immigrant students, we made the decision to go to Vietnam to visit the schools that the former students attended. We visited the schools during winter break of the 2nd year of the study. The visit allowed us to more deeply understand the experiences of the focal students.

Study Participants

The participants for the initial phase of the 2-year study consisted of 30 Vietnamese immigrant students who had recently arrived in the United States (see Table 3). We recruited the participants to join the study when they first arrived at NWNC. Half of the participants were male students and half were female students. They ranged in age from 12 to 21. They all received free or reduced lunches. With the assistance of teachers and Vietnamese instructional aides, we recruited 30 of the 54 Vietnamese immigrant students that we approached to be in the study.

At NWNC, we shadowed all 30 students throughout their core academic subjects including ESL, ESL reading, math, social studies, and science. We conducted 40 observations of classroom periods and spent an additional 150 hours interacting with the youth outside of classroom spaces, through student shadowing and observations during breaks and between classes. If teachers consented, we interviewed all teachers in whose classrooms we spent significant time. While the students were at NWNC, each was interviewed once for a full hour. Informal follow-up interviews were also conducted throughout their time at NWNC. We conducted an additional 60 observations of the students in their advisory periods, which was a homeroom class conducted by Vietnamese instructional assistants. Advisory period was designed to provide primary language support to immigrant students. Nguyen also spent approximately 250 hours observing and interacting with the youth in after-school programs (dance practice and homework tutoring) and field trips (zoo, science center, aquarium, city parks, hiking trip, baseball game, Asian art museum, city art museum, harbor tour, and grocery store).

The analysis in this article highlights the experiences of the select focal (22 of the original 30) students who matriculated to either Greenfield or Englewood high schools. Of the 30 students who were initially recruited at the newcomer center, 22 transferred to the two main high schools, while 5 dropped out due to age and 3 enrolled in middle school. We chose these two high schools because they were the primary destination for the Vietnamese immigrants who attended NWNC. While at NWNC, students were given some degree of choice in selecting the high schools they wished to attend. Many of the Vietnamese students had relatives or friends who attended these schools. Consequently, they became popular choices. All of the students were in ESL programs. At their mainstream high schools, ESL students were also required to take an elective, such as art, music, or gym, which were all considered mainstream classes.

We conducted 60 observations of core academic subjects at these two high schools and interviewed ESL teachers and students a minimum of one time during our time at the school. For each of the focal students, we also conducted two informal follow-up interviews during the school year. In addition, we conducted more than 100 hours of participant observation at Greenfield High and more than 200 hours at Englewood High. Participant observation consisted of student shadowing and observations during lunch, before school, in student clubs (Vietnamese American Student Association), and after school. Over the course of the academic year, Nguyen also conducted more than 250 hours of observations in students’ homes and community settings (temple, favorite eateries, and bubble tea shops).

In total, we conducted approximately 1,100 hours of observation, both in school and in community settings over the course of 2 years. We spent approximately 3 days a week observing in the school, home, or community. We conducted more than 50 semistructured interviews and more than 70 nonstructured follow-up interviews. We also spent 3 weeks of fieldwork in Vietnam, interviewing school administrations and students’ former teachers.

Data Sources and Analysis

The data for this research project consist of field notes from school and classroom observations, field notes from the 3 weeks of observation in Vietnam, interview transcripts, student work, and curricular materials. Interview data consist of both semistructured and nonstructured interviews with the 22 focal students. Student interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and then translated by an interpreter into English during the transcribing process. The interviews were translated by an independent translator. Each translated manuscript was then reviewed by Nguyen. Nguyen read the translated manuscript and listened to the audiotapes simultaneously for consistency and accuracy.

The data analysis occurred in several different stages. In the beginning stages, classification or coding of the data took place. The codes were initially generated from the research questions, existing research literature, and conceptual framework (Thomas, 1993). Drawing on feminist and sociocul-tural theory allowed us to frame gender and cultural identity as a process of ongoing redefinition. We developed a coding system that allowed us to probe the meanings that Vietnamese youth constructed around the categories of gender, culture, and identity.

These initial codes provided a starting list, which continued to be revised during the interaction with data (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Miles & Huberman, 1994). We used a software program called Atlas ti, to code the data. Categorizing the data under different codes allowed us to see different patterns and themes emerging (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). Consequently, we examined the data for ways that immigrant youth constructed meanings in the day-to-day moments of schooling. These different themes were interpreted within the broader social and cultural contexts of the school (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2002). Socially situated and interpretive examinations of the different school contexts provide an understanding of the social and cultural factors that constrain and enable students, offering a more nuanced perspective on the ways in which school culture informs recent immigrant students’ social identities.

The Transnational Context: School and Society in Vietnam

Vietnam is currently undergoing tremendous social, cultural, and economic changes. As forces of modernization and globalization move the Vietnamese people into the new free-market economy, public policies and everyday cultural practices come together through different social and cultural institutions to help steer a sense of balance between the old and the new and public and private spaces. Over the past 30 years, since the end of the Vietnam-American War, Vietnam has shed its war-torn image to become a growing and thriving economic force in the Southeast Asian region.

We observed that from big cities to small villages, the social and cultural life in the public spaces—markets, streets, Internet cafés, and public and religious institutions—was vibrant and lively, constantly brimming with people. In a sense, Drummond (2000) argues, as people congregate and appropriate the public sphere, they help to blur the boundaries between public and private worlds. The blur between public and private worlds seems to come together in almost seamless ways as we encountered situations such as groups of people congregating in front of people’s homes to watch television, making the private television set and the neighbor’s living room part of the public domain, or when the national anthem and public announcements came over the public address system and into everyone’s homes in the wee hours of dawn, disrupting and, in many ways, regulating people’s morning routines.

Public schools were an important merging point between the public and private spheres of social and cultural life in Vietnam. The school context was made up of a striking juxtaposition between a Marxist ideologically positioned policy and a long-held Confucian-influenced system of social relationships and hierarchy (Dalton, Pham, Pham, & Ong, 2002; Hirschman & Loi, 1996). From our observations and nonstructured interviews with different school leaders, we learned that public schools were centrally regulated and highly structured, from staffing appointments to curriculum planning. From one place to the next, the schools exuded a sense of uniformity, as the facilities were similarly structured around a big square courtyard, classrooms were equipped with long wooden benches and desks, and a single portrait of Ho Chi Minh hung above each teacher’s desk. This sense of sameness was further punctuated by the students’ uniforms—boys in white button-down shirts and black pants and girls in white ao dai, or long dresses.

Both the Confucian-influenced social order and the Marxist-ideology-driven educational policy seemed to instill in pupils a general sense of social propriety, orderliness, and responsibility. These qualities connected to the larger goals of the national educational plan to teach youth life skills and proper behavior to uphold the socialist ideals (Nguyen, 1998). We witnessed many instances of students leading and regulating each other, such as upper-class students directing younger ones to class in the morning; older students leading the morning flag-raising procession; students taking responsibility for cleaning their school; and upper-class students reprimanding younger ones to “behave accordingly.”

While the Marxist-based ideology seemed entrenched in the school culture, many of the social behaviors were aligned with Confucian values, especially the ideas of personal propriety and strict hierarchical relationships between teacher and student and between peers (Hadley, 2003; Hirschman & Loi, 1996). For example, students practiced a great sense of deference toward their teachers. They formally greeted their teachers by standing up and slightly bowing their heads when their teachers entered or left the classrooms. Students also expressed and performed these Confucian-influenced notions of filial piety toward each other (Hirschman & Loi, 1996). They addressed one another in formal ways, using anh or chi, or older brother or older sister. Students also seemed to move in gender-segregated groups, maintaining a proper sense of propriety between male and female peers.

The social and cultural contexts that informed how many of the students in the study perceived schooling, culture, and cross-gender relationships prior to their arrival in the United States were guided by a national culture entrenched in Confucian values and Marxist ideology. However, these traditional values and cultural practices were also met with the fast-growing presence of globalization and the free-market economy, altering aspects of popular culture, such as recreation and street life. While we do not contend that there was a one-to-one match between the performances of social identity that we observed in Vietnam and the actual social identity of the students, we do believe that the examination of the actual backgrounds of students is instructive for understanding how students’ prior experiences influence their initial transition and their continual process of reconnecting to this transnational cultural context. This prior cultural context provides an important understanding of how the new generation of Vietnamese immigrants might interpret American cultural norms in their first years of schooling in the United States.

NWNC: Constructing Initial Perceptions of America

Prior to arriving to the United States, many of the Vietnamese immigrant youth had already established ideas about the United States. These initial impressions, usually shaped by common media portrayals, influenced the youths’ future goals and expectations and were characterized by notions of America as the land of opportunities and material goods. These images can serve as a powerful pull factor for many to immigrate to the United States (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). These ideas also contribute to the way immigrant youth construct their future goals and dreams. However, as they adjust to school, the youths’ perceptions of American culture and way of life take on new meaning. For the youth in this study, their schooling experience begins at NWNC.

NWNC consists of two old brick buildings and three portable units. During breaks or between class, the 400 students, representing more than 20 countries of origin, fill the corridors and courtyards. This vibrant multilingual setting is the initial schooling context that greets the new Vietnamese immigrant students enrolling in the Northwest School District. The cultural and linguistic mélange of NWNC contrasts sharply with the uniformity of their previous schools in Vietnam. As the Vietnamese immigrant students carve out space and establish routines at NWNC, they begin to observe and learn about other cultural norms and practices at the school.

While they observe and make sense of the different cultural practices in their new school, the youth compare these practices to the Vietnamese cultural norms. Hanh, for example, begins to understand some of the different cultural approaches to social decorum and accepted behaviors between males and females. Initially, lack of comfort and understanding prevent Hanh from interacting with students from other countries than Vietnam. However, as Hanh and other Vietnamese youth continue to absorb new meanings from their new social and learning contexts at NWNC, their ideas relating to gender norms and expectations begin to change.

The context of NWNC plays an important part in helping students to adjust to school and to learn about other cultural norms and practices. The structure of the school, the curriculum, and cultural diversity all contribute to the Vietnamese students’ academic engagement and how they construct perceptions of American culture. One of the main social and learning spaces at NWNC is the advisory period, which serves as a homeroom for each language group. Advisory period is a critical component of the immigrant students’ learning experiences at NWNC, as many of them use the time and space to clarify ideas, exchange stories about school, and in general reminisce about life in Vietnam. The supportive environment of the Vietnamese advisory period has lent itself to becoming a transnational space (Brittain, 2002; Schwartz & Montgomery, 2002). It provides students with a sense of network and safety to be able to explore the meanings and purposes of the different cultural practices they observe from classrooms and other social contexts. The networks created within the advisory period then serve as the basis for other social interactions beyond the advisory period. The following data segments provide examples of the ways in which students utilize their transnational spaces to respond to new ideas that they learn from their other classes.

During the spring semester, Level 3 science classes at NWNC spent 2 weeks on reproductive health and sex education. In a discussion on women’s reproductive rights, a group of Vietnamese girls sat huddled together trying to make sense of the discussion.

After each session during the reproductive health and sex education lesson, students found different strategies to express themselves. Male students had various outbursts throughout the 2 weeks regarding the topic. Hieu, for example, could not believe that he had to learn these “embarrassing things. I sat there in class sweating nonstop. Why do we have to learn these things?” Thanh had a similar reaction. He tried to find ways to take his mind off of the class. He said to a group of Vietnamese male students nearby,

While the male students tried to avoid these discussions, the girls congregated in small circles and whispered questions and clarifications to each other during their advisory periods. They continued discussing these ideas weeks after the lessons were over. During a tutoring session one afternoon, the girls brought up the topic of reproductive health. While they were chatting, the girls suddenly burst out giggling.

As Hanh and her friends engage in different social and learning contexts at NWNC—from academic learning to transnational cultural spaces—they begin to explore different meanings attributed to cultural and gender norms and the implications these meanings have in their lives. The different discourses on gender norms, such as equity and choice, that the youth pick up from their classroom learning contexts, begin to shape their thinking. Initially, Hanh, informed by her understanding of Vietnamese cultural expectations, believes that all women should have children. As she and her friends recognize the choices and opportunities available to women in the United States, Hanh’s perspective on women shifts as she integrates the notion of choice. Her perspective on gender shifts from what she defines as a Vietnamese cultural norm to a perceived American cultural norm. The ways in which Hanh discursively ascribes new meanings to gender identity show a subtle yet strategic form of transformation in gender identity. Realizing that girls and women have more choices in the United States than in Vietnam, Hanh strategically redefines gender expectations to capitalize on these opportunities.

Having the opportunity to engage with her classmates helps Hanh and her female friends explore and exchange meanings on gender roles and expectations. The various social and learning spaces that the Vietnamese immigrant youth occupy within the school present different opportunities for them to discuss, challenge, and negotiate ideas and cultural beliefs, helping them to examine and rethink their social identity. This process of social identity negotiation continues to take place after the youth transfer to their mainstream high schools and engage in new social and learning contexts.

Mainstream Contexts: Interpreting American Cultural and Gender Norms

The ways in which schools structure classroom locations and implement ESL programs impact how new immigrant students interface with the larger school community. These physical and social spaces play a significant role in shaping students’ sense of belonging or marginalization (Olsen, 1997). For immigrant students in ESL classes, mainstream contexts consist of spaces that are beyond the ESL-designated areas. At NWNC, the entire school is created for ESL students. There are not specific spaces for mainstream or ESL students. As the Vietnamese immigrant youth transition to their new high schools, they realize that spaces within the school are more defined. In the initial months at their new high schools, their limited language skills keep them in the ESL classes and prevent them from interacting with mainstream culture except on a peripheral level. These different designated social and academic spaces eventually isolate the youth from the mainstream culture. In the portraits of the two high schools that follow, we begin to see the ways in which the Vietnamese immigrant youth adjust to and navigate these various social spaces.

Peer Group Interactions Among Vietnamese Youth

In peer group contexts, students’ understandings of American cultural norms begin to shape their conversations and behaviors. The students’ interpretations of cultural, ethnic, and gender identities become strategies to maintain or elevate social status and power within their group contexts (Collins, 2000; Norton, 2000). In particular, for male students, who may feel a sense of displacement and loss of power and social status as they enter a racialized culture (Kibria, 1993; Olsen, 1997), the struggle to regain social status becomes even more urgent. Gender becomes a critical point of difference and tension between the Vietnamese youth. Male students strategically use Vietnamese cultural norms to exert power in their social groups, while female students strategically incorporate perceived American cultural norms to elevate their own status. An example of how males and females struggle over cultural, gender, and academic identities is illustrated in an exchange between Hai and Linh.

Making sense of gender roles and expectations can create tension between group members (Pavlenko, 2001) as they arrive at different interpretations of what it means to be male and female and also Vietnamese and American. Hai, for example, attempts to define and enact gender in ways that curtail females’ achievements and abilities so that they do not surpass his. In the excerpt above, instead of acknowledging Linh’s efforts in helping him access the Internet, Hai discredits her by attributing her success to luck and timing. When Hai could not persuade Linh to agree with him about males being more capable with computers, he accuses her of being influenced by American cultural norms and practices. He comments that nice girls do not talk as much as Linh and warns that she may not “find a husband.” Unable to make way with his academic argument, Hai redirects the exchange to social and cultural norms and expectations. He asserts that Linh’s expressiveness is not characteristic of nice girls, which could lead to undesirable consequences for her marriage outlook. Instead of backing down, Linh replies that girls have to respond and speak up because “boys are not always right.”

Disagreements and conflicts between male and female students, as in the case of Hai and Linh, often arise from different expectations and interpretations of cultural and gender norms. Many of the male students posit that they can adopt American culture yet maintain their Vietnamese identity. However, they argue that the female students’ attempts to redefine their gender identity result in a rejection of their Vietnamese identity. In a conversation among Trung, Minh, and Nguyen in the Englewood High School cafeteria, the two male youth explain the difference between how male and female students change and adapt.

At all the schools in this study—NWNC, Greenfield, and Englewood—Vietnamese girls and boys tend to sit at separate tables during lunch. However, these tables are usually next to each other, creating a Vietnamese ethnic section within the cafeteria. These social groupings are the Vietnamese students’ primary group, which they maintain in other contexts.

Trung and Minh make it clear that they do not like the changes that many of the Vietnamese female students have adopted. They see girls “becoming American” as “distasteful.” However, they do not hold the same standards for themselves. When this double standard is raised, the students quickly distinguish the different levels of changes. They express that male students’ changes are surface level (appearances, dress, and hair) while the females’ transformation, including their thinking about relationship and gender roles, are deep and lasting. Trung and Minh believe that their surface-level changes do not make them American, but they view the girls’ transformation as becoming American “both inside and out.”

As the students grapple with the meanings of the different sets of cultural and gender norms, their various attempts to position culture and gender are tied to their struggle to maintain and/or elevate social status and power in group contexts. Both male and female students actively take part in interpreting and constructing cultural and gender norms to enhance their social status and future opportunities. The different ways that the students perceive and represent cultural and gender identities have important consequences for how they attempt to adapt to U.S. schooling and life outside of school. In another discussion between Hai and Linh, Hai acknowledges that male students adopt American culture; however, he clarifies that these changes take place only in public not “in the home.”

While many female students find the notions of freedom and gender equality critical in reshaping their gender identity, male students believe these changes are permanent, leading to shifts in perspective on relationships between males and females. Assigning traditional Vietnamese cultural and gender roles to females serves as a strategy for males to maintain their social status and power. Within traditional Vietnamese cultural norms, males tend to have higher status and more authority than females do (Kibria, 1993). As girls incorporate aspects of American cultural norms and reposition their gender identity, they often acquire higher social status and power. Perhaps sensing that their power and status will be further diminished, the male students, such as Trung, Minh, and Hai, struggle to keep in tact the Vietnamese social and cultural structures. While they object to females’ adaptation process, allowing female students to “do what guys can do,” male students undergo their own social and cultural transformation. Their strategic transformation of learning English and incorporating important social and cultural practices into their lives allows them to benefit from the material goods of their host country while maintaining social power and status in Vietnamese cultural contexts.

In learning contexts, tension between male and female students can be exacerbated when teachers incorporate group work or friendly competition. The following excerpt illustrates an example of how friendly competition can lead to tension and feelings of opposition between male and female students. The project consists of group members competing against each other in a science class. Trung, a male student, and Hoa, a female student, are chosen to be partners by the teacher. Trung expresses some anxiety about having a female partner. When the teacher asks him to leave his all-male Vietnamese group, Trung announces loudly in Vietnamese that as a “man” he could not lose, otherwise “he would lose face”—an important part of social relationships in Vietnamese culture (Nghe, Mahalik, & Lowe, 2003).

Trung seems to believe that as a male student he should perform better than girls academically or else he will lose face. While he tries to reassure Hoa that she is smarter than him, he also states that he cannot let her win. During the class exercise, Trung even tries to “trick” and “disrupt” Hoa’s thinking process. In the end, when Trung wins, he uses an American cultural notion of chivalry toward Hoa, which he even said in English, “Gentlemen should never beat up a girl.” These changes in cultural and gender positions in the male student seem to suggest that the adoption of the new cultural norms and practices are acceptable as long as those new norms, values, and practices do not threaten or lessen his social status and power. These different interpretations of gender, culture, and ethnicity between male and female students suggest that these social categories are constantly shifting and are reconstituted in ways that serve different functions for different people in their social contexts.