| Chapter 2: | Asian American Identity: A Review |
In the fifth stage, integrative awareness, minority persons develop an inner sense of security and can now appreciate unique aspects of their culture as well as those in the broader American society (Sue & Sue, 1990). An important contribution that the R/CID makes to the literature is that it provides a framework for understanding not only the stages of minority development but also how attitudes toward the self, others within the same minority group, other minorities, and the dominant group are formed (for a review, see Sue & Sue, 1990, p. 96).
The authors used Cross’ (1971) and Jackson’s (1975) Black identity models as frameworks for understanding the identification process of Asians into mainstream American society with a particular focus on cultural differences between various Asian American ethnic groups. However, no additional considerations were made regarding immigrant generational status and other sociocultural factors (e.g., oppression) that were key components in the operationalization of earlier Black identity models. In particular, there were no specific recommendations built into the framework regarding the unique social experiences of immigrants, particularly how language fluency and knowledge of social norms in a new context might influence how individuals progress through these identity stages. For example, do individuals go through a process of encounter and move through progressive stages as they gain new knowledge about the new context they live in? Or is their identity progression more complicated than those minorities who are born in the United States?
Similarly, there was also no discussion of the impact of oppression or discrimination on newer immigrants who might not have confronted similar experiences in their home countries. For instance, how do individuals who were not minorities in their home countries deal with racial or ethnic-specific discrimination in the United States. Are they even able to recognize it as such, particularly if they are still learning about how they are characterized as racial or ethnic-specific minorities?