To highlight the continuing growth and vitality of Asian American Studies, the following is a list of recent articles published in academic journals from scholars in the social sciences and humanities that focus on Asian Americans. As you can see, the diversity of research topics is a direct reflection of the dynamic and multidimensional nature of the Asian American population.”

These academic journal articles are generally available in the libraries of most colleges and universities and/or through online research databases. As always, works included in this list are for informational purposes only and do not imply an endorsement of their contents.

Cheng, Yen-hsin Alice and Nancy S. Landale. 2011. “Adolescent Precursors of Early Union Formation Among Asian American and White Young Adults.” Journal of Family Issues 32:209-236.

• Abstract: Using a framework that emphasizes independent versus interdependent self-construals, this study investigates the relatively low rates of early marriage and cohabitation among Asian Americans compared with Whites. Data from Waves 1 and 3 of Add Health are used to test five hypotheses that focus on family value socialization and other precursors measured in adolescence. Analyses of early marriage indicate that the Asian-White difference is driven primarily by differences in adolescent sexual and romantic relationship experiences and that several measures of family values play a stronger role among Asian Americans than Whites. Asian-White differences in cohabitation persist net of socioeconomic status and other adolescent precursors, but differences are attenuated when parental value socialization, intimate relationship experiences, and educational investments are controlled. These results are interpreted within a culturally sensitive conceptual framework that emphasizes interdependent construals of the self among Asian Americans.

Greenman, Emily. 2011. “Asian American-White Differences in the Effect of Motherhood on Career Outcomes.” Work and Occupations 38:37-67.

• Abstract: U.S.-born Asian Americans are unique among American minority groups in that they lack earnings disadvantages relative to Whites with similar education levels. Controlling for education and age, there is little difference in the earnings of U.S.-born Asian and White men, but Asian women have higher earnings than comparable White women. Using data from SESTAT, this study tests the hypothesis that Asian American women’s high earnings may result from adjusting their labor supply less than White women in response to parenthood, leading to greater work experience over time. Findings show that Asian American women are less likely than White women to reduce labor supply in response to parenthood and that their resulting greater work experience explains their high rate of earnings growth.

Tamaki, Emi. 2011. “Transnational Home Engagement among Latino and Asian Americans: Resources and Motivation.” International Migration Review 45:148-173.

• Abstract: Is immigrant groups’ assimilation to host society at odds with their engagement with the country of ancestral origin? This study divides the concept of assimilation into socioeconomic resources and attachment to host society, and argues that assimilation and transnational perspectives are coexisting paradigms. Analyses using the nationally representative samples of Latino and Asian Americans indicate that higher-order generations reduce the odds of home country engagement, i.e., frequent return visits; attachment to American society does not discourage return visits; socioeconomic resources increase frequent visits; and the country of origin is a significant predictor of home country visits.

Greenman, Emily. 2011. “Assimilation Choices Among Immigrant Families: Does School Context Matter?” International Migration Review 45:29-67.

• Abstract: This article explores the relationship between social context, measured in terms of school characteristics, and the assimilation of immigrant adolescents. First, it develops a measure of assimilation based on comparing immigrant adolescents to native peers within the same school. Second, it investigates whether immigrant adolescents’ degree of assimilation varies systematically according to school socioeconomic status (SES). Third, it explores the role of parental and adolescent behavior in creating such variation. Results show that both Asian and Hispanic immigrant youth are less assimilated to native youths’ substance use and delinquency patterns in lower-SES schools. This association can be explained by parenting behaviors and adolescent friendship choices for Asian youth, but not Hispanic youth.

Kim, Chigon and Pyong Gap Min. 2010. “Marital Patterns and Use of Mother Tongue at Home among Native-Born Asian Americans.” Social Forces 89:233-256.

• Abstract: This article examines marital patterns and use of mother tongue at home among native-born Asian Americans using the 2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Public Use Microdata Sample. There are variations in mother-tongue use across Asian ethnic groups, but variations among different types of marriage are even greater. Those who marry within their ethnicity (in-married) have a greater likelihood of mother-tongue use at home than those who intermarry. Among the in-married, those having 1.5- and first-generation co-ethnic spouses are far more likely to use a mother tongue than those having native-born, co-ethnic partners. Results of logistic regression analyses indicate that marital patterns are the strongest predictor of mother-tongue use at home, and that ethnic variations in mother-tongue use are significantly reduced when marital patterns are taken into account.

Chhuon, Vichet and Cynthia Hudley. 2010. “Asian American Ethnic Options: How Cambodian Students Negotiate Ethnic Identities in a U.S. Urban School.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 41:341-359.

• Abstract: Research suggests that Cambodian students often endure conflicting ethnic stereotypes from larger society and their school and communities. We examine the ways in which Cambodian youth negotiated their ethnic identities in response to these stereotypes and argue that Cambodian students adopted, rejected, and affirmed certain ethnic identities in relation to perceived advantages associated with different labels across varying school contexts.

Cheng, Wendy. 2010. “‘Diversity’ on Main Street? Branding Race and Place in the New ‘Majority-Minority’ Suburbs.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 17:458-486.

• Abstract: The emergence in the United States of an increasing number of spaces across the socioeconomic spectrum with majority nonwhite populations merits close attention because of these spaces’ potential in reconfiguring historical and contemporary claims to place. In an era in which the neoliberalization of urban development has spurred local governments toward more active involvement in defining relationships between race, ethnicity, consumption, and space, ‘majority-minority’ suburbs are particularly important sites of study. In the late 2000s, two branding campaigns in majority-Asian American and Latina/o municipalities in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley-a densely populated region popularly known as a ‘suburban Chinatown’-put forth specific discourses of race, ethnicity, and culture in attempts to actualize specific visions and claims to place, identity, and history. In doing so, these campaigns illuminated and reinforced larger racial, geographic, and ideological divides. ‘Diversity’ on Main Street embraced pluralist multicultural discourses of the nation, while the ‘Golden Mile’ proposal sought to showcase the transformation of a central thoroughfare by ethnic Chinese capital and immigration. A close examination and comparison of these two campaigns shows how struggles over race, geography, and history are intertwined in the contemporary identities of places and integral to the shaping of civic landscapes.

Kim, ChangHwan and Arthur Sakamoto. 2010. “Have Asian American Men Achieved Labor Market Parity with White Men?” American Sociological Review 75:934-957.

• Abstract: The emergence in the United States of an increasing number of spaces across the socioeconomic spectrum with majority nonwhite populations merits close attention because of these spaces’ potential in reconfiguring historical and contemporary claims to place. In an era in which the neoliberalization of urban development has spurred local governments toward more active involvement in defining relationships between race, ethnicity, consumption, and space, ‘majority-minority’ suburbs are particularly important sites of study. In the late 2000s, two branding campaigns in majority-Asian American and Latina/o municipalities in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley-a densely populated region popularly known as a ‘suburban Chinatown’-put forth specific discourses of race, ethnicity, and culture in attempts to actualize specific visions and claims to place, identity, and history. In doing so, these campaigns illuminated and reinforced larger racial, geographic, and ideological divides. ‘Diversity’ on Main Street embraced pluralist multicultural discourses of the nation, while the ‘Golden Mile’ proposal sought to showcase the transformation of a central thoroughfare by ethnic Chinese capital and immigration. A close examination and comparison of these two campaigns shows how struggles over race, geography, and history are intertwined in the contemporary identities of places and integral to the shaping of civic landscapes.

Chang, Esther S., Jutta Heckhausen, Ellen Greenberger, and Chuansheng Chen. 2010. “Shared Agency with Parents for Educational Goals: Ethnic Differences and Implications for College Adjustment.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 39:1293-1304.

• Abstract: This study proposed and confirmed three ways in which college students can perceive shared agency and two ways in which they can perceive non-shared agency with parents when pursuing educational goals in college. Differences and similarities were examined among participants from four ethnic backgrounds (N = 515; 67% female): East Asian American, Southeast Asian American, Filipino/Pacific Islander American, and European American. Results indicated that Asian American youth reported higher levels of non-shared agency with parents (i.e., parental directing and noninvolvement), lower levels of shared agency (i.e., parental accommodation, support, or collaboration), and poorer college adjustment compared to European Americans. However, ethnic similarities were found whereby perceived shared agency in education with parents was associated with college adjustment. Multiple mediation analyses also indicated that our model of shared and non-shared agency with parents explained differences in college adjustment between Asian and European Americans, though more strongly for comparisons between European and East Asian Americans. Our results suggest that parents continue to be important in the education of older youth but that continued directing of youth’s education in college can be maladaptive.

Abrams, Jessica R. 2010. “Asian American Television Activity: Is it Related to Outgroup Vitality?” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 34:541-550.

• Abstract: Applying a uses and gratifications and social identity gratifications approach, the present study explores Asian American television viewing. Specifically, Asian Americans report on the quantity of television they watch, what shows they watch, why they watch, and whether their uses are related to their perceptions of Caucasian vitality. The data reveal that using television for entertainment and to escape/relieve boredom were the most important television uses for this group of Asian Americans. At the same time, these two uses were significant predictors of how vital Asian Americans perceived Caucasians. Although selecting and avoiding television for ethnic identity gratifications were not important relative to other gratifications, television selection for identity gratifications was important to Asian Americans who highly identify with their ethnic group.

Haines, David A. and Karen E. Rosenblum. 2010. “Perfectly American: Constructing the Refugee Experience.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36:391-406.

• Abstract: Over the last 60 years, the United States has accepted some two million refugees for resettlement. Standard opinion polls suggest that the American response to these refugees has been mixed. Yet, despite much ambivalence about particular refugees and where they may belong in the grid of American social and cultural categories, the notion of refuge and the imperative toward support and welcome to refugees endure. As an extended example, this paper considers press treatment of refugees in Richmond, Virginia during the last quarter of the twentieth century—before security concerns and surging numbers of illegal immigrants irrevocably changed the nature of American immigration. Unlike the ambivalent response that emerges in national opinion polls and some other venues, in this case the construction of refugees is neither negative nor ambivalent, but is instead solidly positive. This positive construction extends across a broad range of racial and national-origin groups and is conditioned by a peculiarly American notion of how refugees relate to broader American categories, particularly that of ‘immigrant’. In this local story from the United States lies a broader tale of how refugees are woven into the existing social and cultural categories of the countries in which they resettle.

Hwang, Sean-Shong, Juan Xi, and Yue Cao. 2010. “The Conditional Relationship Between English Language Proficiency and Earnings Among U.S. Immigrants.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33:1620-1647.

• Abstract: Using the 2000 US census data for immigrants of twenty language groups resided in metropolitan areas, we test the hypothesis that the rate of returns (in earnings) to English proficiency is not constant but varies with the language environment (as defined by group size, segregation, linguistic heterogeneity and inequality) in which immigrants are embedded. Results from our hierarchical model indicate that while an increase in the size and segregation of the language group diminishes returns to English proficiency, a rise in linguistic heterogeneity and inequality in the metropolitan area has the opposite effects. This study expands the scope of the previous studies by identifying conditions under which returns to English proficiency among immigrants are modified by a set of contextual factors often overlooked.

Kim, Wooksoo and Robert H. Keefe. 2010. “Barriers to Healthcare Among Asian Americans.” Social Work in Public Health 25:286-295.

• Abstract: The myth of the well-adjusted Asian American resulted from sample-biased research studies that concluded that Asian Americans are physically healthier and financially better off than Caucasians. The myth has been perpetuated by researchers who have often categorized Asian Americans as a single, undifferentiated group rather than as distinct ethnic groups. Consequently, data analysis techniques do not reveal distinctions that may exist had the researchers controlled for ethnic group variation. The authors discussed four major barriers–language and culture, health literacy, health insurance, and immigrant status–to healthcare that may influence within-group disparities among Asian Americans that may go unreported. The authors argue that healthcare policy makers and researchers should consider Asian Americans as members of discrete ethnic groups with unique healthcare needs. Recommendations for health policies and future research are provided.