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Family, School, and Neighborhood: Links to Chinese AmericanAdolescent Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Discrimination

Linda P. Juang and Alvin N. AlvarezSan Francisco State University

The purpose of the study was to examine how family, school, and neighborhood factorscontributed to Chinese American adolescent perceptions of discrimination. The sampleincluded 185 Chinese American adolescents (mean age 16.8 years, SD .81; 58%female; 70% U.S.-born) and their parents. As hypothesized, the results showed thatgreater parent perceptions of discrimination, more negative school environment, andless availability of cultural resources were related to greater adolescent perceptions of discrimination. Contrary to the hypothesis, parent/adolescent subjective perceptions of ethnic density were related to greater adolescent perceptions of discrimination. Thefindings suggest that adolescent perceptions of discrimination are related to both withinand outside family factors, supporting an ecological approach to understanding racial/ ethnic discrimination.

Keywords: racial/ethnic discrimination, Chinese American adolescent, family

Experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination is apart of life for many Asian Americans (Alvarez& Juang, 2010; Alvarez, Juang, & Liang, 2006;Goto, Gee, & Takeuchi, 2002; Grossman &Liang, 2008; Liang, Grossman, & Deguchi,

2007; Way, Santos, Niwa, & Kim-Gervey,2008; Ying, Lee, & Tsai, 2000). This is a causefor concern as racial/ethnic discrimination isconsistently linked to poorer adjustment forAsian American adolescents (in terms of lowerself-esteem, less school engagement, poorergrades, and greater depressive symptoms, alien-ation, somatization, and loneliness) (Benner &Kim, 2009a; Greene, Pahl, & Way, 2006; Juang& Alvarez, 2010; Juang & Cookston, 2009) andfor Asian American college students and adults(in terms of lower social competence, social

connectedness, self-esteem, and greater sub-stance abuse, depressive symptoms, psycholog-ical distress, risk for chronic illness—heartdisease, pain, and respiratory illnesses—and sui-cidal ideation and attempts) (Alvarez & Juang,2010; Cheng et al., 2010; Gee, Ro, Shariff-

Marco, & Chae, 2009; Gee, Spencer, Chen, &Takeuchi, 2007; Lee, 2005; Noh & Kasper,2003; Ying et al., 2000; Yip, Gee, & Takeuchi,2008). Although there is a growing literaturedocumenting the negative effects associated

with experiencing racial/ethnic discriminationamong Asian Americans, little is known aboutthe particular contexts of discrimination (Niwa,Way, Qin, & Okazaki, in press). To address thisgap in the literature, we focus on family, school,and neighborhood contexts that contribute toChinese American adolescent perceptions of discrimination.

We draw on ecological systems theory(Bronfenbrenner, 1979) to provide a framework for our study. This theoretical approach empha-

sizes the interplay between adolescents’ indi-vidual characteristics and contexts that rangefrom the microsystem to the macrosystem. Animportant principle is that children are activeproducers of their development—they not onlylive within multiple, embedded contexts, but,based on their personal characteristics, they alsoshape the contexts in which they live. Based onthis approach, we focus on several key contextsto understand adolescent perceptions of dis-crimination: family, school, and neighborhood.

We chose to focus on the family because,unequivocally, parents and families are impor-tant sources of socialization and support duringadolescence (Moore, Chalk, Scarpa, & Vandiv-

Linda P. Juang, Department of Psychology, San Fran-cisco State University; Alvin N. Alvarez, Department of Counseling, San Francisco State University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-dressed to Linda P. Juang, Department of Psychology, 1600Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132. E-mail:[email protected]

Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association2011, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1–12 1948-1985/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0023107

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ere, 2002). Thus, focusing on the family isdevelopmentally appropriate. Another reason isthat for Chinese-heritage individuals, there is astrong emphasis on the importance of the family

(e.g., family obligation and filial piety are cen-tral cultural values) (Bond & Hwang, 1986;Uba, 1994). As such, to understand the devel-opment of Chinese American adolescents, onemust take into account the key role of the fam-ily. We also focus on the school context be-cause, apart from the family, adolescents spenta considerable amount of time in school. Inschool, adolescents are exposed to peer victim-ization in various forms (Smith, 2004), includ-ing race- and ethnic-based discrimination (e.g.,Rosenbloom & Way, 2004). Finally, we fo-cused on the neighborhood context to tap intoanother ecological level that has been missingfrom studies of discrimination. Most studieshave included objective measures of neighbor-hood (such as number of coethnics) (e.g., Alva-rez et al., 2006) and not subjective perceptionsof neighborhood (with the exception of Goto etal., 2002) in relation to discrimination. In ourstudy, we include both objective and subjectiveperceptions of the neighborhood. Thus, we ex-amine Chinese American adolescents’ percep-

tions of discrimination as a function of theirpersonal characteristics (such as immigrationstatus) and key contexts (i.e., the family, school,and neighborhood).

Parent Perceptions of Discrimination

Scholars of various disciplines—psycholo-gists, sociologists, and anthropologists— havelong emphasized the important role of the fam-ily, and especially parents, to child and adoles-

cent development. For instance, challenges thatparents face (such as experiencing financial dif-ficulties) and resultant stress, can and do affecttheir children (Mistry, Benner, Tan, & Kim,2009). One important challenge for ethnic mi-nority parents is dealing with racial/ethnic dis-crimination (Hughes et al., 2006). Althoughthere is a robust literature on adult experiencesof discrimination and growing literature on ad-olescent experiences of discrimination, veryfew studies have examined how discriminationmay be linked within members of the same

family. The few studies linking parent experi-ences of discrimination to adolescent experi-ences of discrimination have focused on racial

socialization and parental stress. Studies of Black youth have found that parents’ experi-ences with discrimination shaped parents’ racialsocialization practices that then influenced chil-

dren’s perceptions of discrimination (Steven-son, Cameron, Hererro-Taylor, & Davis, 2002).Along the same lines, Asian American collegestudents whose parents prepared them for racialbias tended to demonstrate a greater awarenessof racism (Alvarez et al., 2006). In addition, astudy by Benner and Kim (2009b) showed thatChinese American parents’ experiences of dis-crimination were linked to adolescent experi-ences of discrimination via parental stress. Theauthors argued that parents’ experience withdiscrimination created a stressful family con-text, which was then transmitted into greateradolescent perceptions of discrimination. Ourstudy extends these previous studies by exam-ining simultaneously how both within familyfactors (i.e., parent perceptions of discrimina-tion) and outside family factors (i.e., the schooland neighborhood contexts), contribute to ado-lescent perceptions of discrimination.

School Environment

Studies with Asian American adolescentshave shown that a supportive school environ-ment is associated with positive adolescentwell-being. For example, a longitudinal study of Black, Latino, and Asian American adolescentsfound that more positive perceptions of theschool environment was related to increases inself-esteem and decreases in depressive symp-toms (Way & Robinson, 2003). Another studyof Chinese American, Chinese, and EuropeanAmericans found that adolescents who reported

more negative perceptions of the school alsoreported greater depression and social stress(having stressful social relationships and feelingisolated from social activities) (Zhou, Peverly,Xin, Huang, & Wang, 2003). Notably, ChineseAmerican adolescents had more negative per-ceptions of their school compared to Chinese(from Mainland China) and European Americanstudents. Based on this literature, we hypothe-sized that adolescents reporting a less support-ive school environment would experience andperceive greater racial/ethnic discrimination.

Within the school context, Asian American ad-olescents report higher levels of peer discrimi-nation compared to African and Latino adoles-

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cents (Fisher, Wallace, & Fenton, 2000; Greeneet al., 2006; Rosenbloom & Way, 2004).

Neighborhood Ethnic Density and

Availability of Cultural Resources

Ethnic density (i.e., the number of same-ethnic members in one’s neighborhood) canalso contribute to adolescent perceptions of dis-crimination. A study of Filipino adults foundthat Filipinos in Honolulu perceived less dis-crimination compared to Filipinos in San Fran-cisco. Filipinos made up a larger percent of thepopulation in Honolulu (12%) than in San Fran-cisco (5%) (Gee et al., 2006). And, in anotherstudy of Asian American college students,Filipinos reported greater perceptions of dis-crimination compared to Chinese in San Fran-cisco, a city with a much higher density of Chinese (20%) compared to Filipino (5%)(Alvarez et al., 2006; City and County of S.F.Human Rights Commission, 2006). Finally,in a study of Chinese Americans, adults per-ceived greater discrimination if they lived in aneighborhood with few Chinese (Goto et al.,2002). These studies suggest that livingamong fewer coethnics may expose individu-

als to greater experiences of racial/ethnic dis-crimination. However, another study of AsianAmerican college students reported thatAsian American college students living on theWest Coast (with a greater density of Asians)reported higher levels of discrimination thanthose living on the East Coast (Liang, Alva-rez, & Juang, 2007). These conflicting find-ings emphasize the need for more attention tothe role of ethnic density to perceptions of discrimination. We know of no studies that

have examined how neighborhood ethnic den-sity relates to adolescent perceptions of discrimination.

Another important community variable is theavailability of cultural resources (Nguyen,2000). Cultural resources such as access to eth-nic media, ethnic-based community centers, andethnic-based churches, provide opportunitiesfor connection and a sense of belonging to theethnic community (Phinney, 2003). Having ac-cess to greater cultural resources may offer sup-ports that reduce the likelihood of experiencing

racial/ethnic discrimination. Thus, we hypothe-sized that adolescents living in a neighborhoodwith more coethnics and greater availability of

cultural resources, will perceive less racial/ ethnic discrimination.

Immigration Status and Discrimination

Chinese American adolescents are a diversegroup. One meaningful point of variation isimmigration status (Berry, Phinney, Sam, &Vedder, 2006). For instance, a study of ChineseAmerican college students reported that for-eign-born students perceived higher levels of discrimination than U.S. born students (Ying etal., 2000). Another study of Asian Americanadults found that immigration status moderatedthe link between discrimination and mental

health—the negative effects of discriminationwere less pronounced for foreign-born com-pared to U.S. born Asian Americans (Yip et al.,2008). Nonetheless, a recent review of the em-pirical literature on Asian Americans’ experi-ences of racial discrimination found only fourstudies that investigated the role of immigrationstatus as a moderator (Gee et al., 2009). Theresults across these four studies were inconsis-tent. In our study, we explored whether immi-gration status moderated the effects of family,school, and neighborhood contexts on adoles-

cent perceptions of discrimination. Because of the limited number of studies, we had no spe-cific predictions about how immigration statuswould moderate the predictor variables. There-fore, these analyses are considered exploratory.

Summary of Hypotheses

We hypothesized that (1) greater parent re-ports of discrimination; (2) more negative per-ceptions of the school environment; (3) lower

numbers of coethnics (less ethnic density) andfewer available cultural resources, would pre-dict greater adolescent perceptions of discrimi-nation; and (4) immigration status wouldmoderate the effects of parent, school, andneighborhood variables on adolescent percep-tions of discrimination.

Method

Setting

The data for this study was taken from a2-year, three-wave longitudinal study of Chi-nese American adolescents and their parents

3ADOLESCENT PERCEPTIONS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION

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from San Francisco, an ethnically diverse citywith 43.6% European Americans, 30.9% Asianand Pacific Islanders, 7.8% African Ameri-cans, 14.1% Latino Americans, 1.2% Native

Americans, and 10.8% other/mixed race (Cityand County S.F. Human Rights Commission,2006). We recruited adolescents from two highschools where over half of the student bodies ineach school were from Chinese immigrantbackgrounds. Overall, the school contexts re-flected a diversity of ethnic groups, as did thebroader community, but the schools included anoverrepresentation of Asians, and in particular,students of Chinese backgrounds. To achieve anadequate sample size with sufficient power formultivariate analyses, we targeted these twoschools precisely because they had a higherproportion of Chinese students. Thus, these twoschools do not represent the ethnic distributionof the broader San Francisco community. Theseunique school and community contexts must bekept in mind when interpreting the results of thestudy and considering its generalizability.

Procedure

The first author made announcements to

school assembles and afterschool clubs gearedtoward students of Chinese background and byposting fliers in the two high schools. The firstauthor told students that we were interested intheir experiences as Chinese and Chinese Amer-ican adolescents. Adolescents who obtained asigned guardian/parent consent form and signedan assent form were invited to participate. Thesurvey was completed during classroom hoursor immediately after school. Parents were notpresent at the time. Adolescents were told their

responses were confidential and that responseswould not be shared with either the parent orother adolescents. When adolescents completedthe survey they were given a parent survey withan addressed, stamped envelope to take homeand have parents mail back. Parents and adoles-cents were each compensated $15 for partici-pating in each of the first two waves (Times 1and 2) and $20 for the third wave (Time 3) of data collection.

Surveys were offered in English and Chinese.The English version was translated into Chinese

by three bilingual adults who were fluent in bothEnglish and Chinese. All of the adults wereborn outside of the U.S. (two in Taiwan and one

in Hong Kong) and had subsequently immi-grated to the U.S. in adolescence and youngadulthood. Translators of different age rangeswere chosen (one translator was over 60 years

old, the other two between 25 and 30 years old)and who were familiar with both Mandarin andCantonese to account for variations in the Chi-nese language because of cohort and geograph-ical differences. All study procedures and mea-sures were approved by the authors’ universityinstitutional review board.

Participants

For this study, only Time 3 data were used(with the exception of one variable—adolescentperception of discrimination at Time 1) becauseof the additional adolescent school and commu-nity measures that were included at Time 3. Thesample was further restricted to those adoles-cents whose parents completed the survey. Thefinal sample consisted of 185 (59% of the largeradolescent sample of 316 at Time 1) ChineseAmerican adolescents and their parents. Theadolescents’ mean age was 16.8 years (SD .81), ranged from 15 to 19 years, and 58% werefemale. A majority (70%) of the adolescents

were U.S. born while 30% percent were for-eign-born. Most of the adolescents grew up withboth parents (90%).

Mostly mothers (69%) filled out the parentsurvey. Almost all (93%) parents were bornoutside the U.S. and the mean age was 48.3years (SD 4.48). Concerning maternal edu-cation, 7% completed elementary school or less,11% attended middle school, 15% attendedsome high school, 30% graduated from highschool, 16% attended some college or univer-

sity, and 20% graduated from college/universityor more. Concerning paternal education, 8%completed elementary school or less, 17% at-tended middle school, 13% attended some highschool, 28% graduated from high school, 15%attended some college or university, and 20%graduated from college/university or more. Ma-ternal and paternal education were correlated atr .69 ( p .001). A new variable was created(parent education) representing the highest levelof education attained by either parent. This vari-able was used in all analyses.

To test whether the adolescents with parentdata differed from adolescents without parentdata, adolescents were compared on age, gender

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distribution, immigration status (U.S. born vs.foreign-born), parent education, and adolescentperceived discrimination. The results showedthat adolescents with parent data did not differ

from adolescents without parent data concern-ing age, t (257) .06, p .95, gender distri-bution, 2(1) .26, p .61, immigration sta-tus, 2(1) 1.56, p .21, mother education,t (245) .40, p .69, father education,t (239) .30, p .78, or adolescent perceiveddiscrimination, t (255) .68, p .50.

Measures

The measures for discrimination, availabilityof cultural resources, and perceptions of neigh-borhood ethnic density were completed sepa-rately by the adolescent and parent. The mea-sure for school environment was completed bythe adolescent only. Adolescent discriminationmeasured at Time 1 was used as a control vari-able. All other variables included in analyseswere measured at Time 3.

Perceived discrimination. Adolescents’and parents’ perceptions of discrimination (Gil& Vega, 1996) were measured by three items:“How often have you been treated unfairly be-

cause you are Asian?” “How often do peopledislike you because you are Asian?” and “Howoften have you seen friends or family be treatedunfairly because they are Asian?” Respondentsanswered on a scale ranging from (1) never to(5) always. Mean scores were calculated so thata higher score indicated greater discrimination.At Time 1, Cronbach’s alpha for adolescentdiscrimination was .83. At Time 3, Cronbach’salpha for adolescents was .82, and for parents,.89.

School environment. Negative percep-tions of the school environment were measuredby three items based on two dimensions impor-tant in assessing the school environment—perceptions of safety and positive/negative ex-periences in school (Brand, Felner, Shim,Seitsinger, & Dumas, 1993). The items were“Some students think their school is safe butothers think their school is unsafe. Do you think your school is . . .”. Some students think theirschool is friendly but others think their school isunfriendly. Do you think your school is . . .”.

“Some students are nervous when they are inschool but others are relaxed. When you are inschool are you . . . “The response scales ranged

from (1) very safe to (3) not at all safe, (1) very friendly to (3) not at all friendly, and (1) veryrelaxed to (3) not at all relaxed , respectively.Mean scores were calculated so that a higher

score indicated more negative perceptions of theschool environment. Cronbach’s alpha was .81.

Availability of cultural resources. Ado-lescent and parent perceptions of cultural re-sources available in their community weremeasured by seven items (Juang, 2004). Therespondents were presented with a list of cul-tural resources (i.e., Chinese-based businessessuch as stores and restaurants, community cen-ters, community events such as street fairs andparades, language schools, organization/clubs,places of worship such as churches and temples,and media such as TV and newspapers), andwere asked to indicate whether these resourceswere available in the community. The responsescale ranged from (1) not available to (5) easilyavailable. Mean scores were calculated so that ahigher score indicated greater availability of cultural resources. Cronbach’s alpha for adoles-cents was .88, and for parents, .88. Parent andadolescent scores correlated at r .29 ( p .001).

Ethnic density of neighborhood. The eth-

nic density of the youth’s neighborhood wasmeasured in two ways. First, parents and ado-lescents were asked about their subjective per-ception of their neighborhood: “How do youdescribe the ethnic composition of your neigh-borhood?” (Phinney, Fergusen, & Tate, 1997).The response scale ranged from (1) Nearly all from different groups, (2) Mostly from different groups, (3) About equal, own and other groups,(4) Mostly from own group, and (5) Nearly all from own group. This item has been linked to

peer interactions, acculturation, and languageuse (Berry et al., 2006; Phinney et al., 1997).We combined and averaged parent and adoles-cent scores so that higher scores indicated moresame-ethnic members in the neighborhood. Par-ent and adolescent scores correlated at r .39( p .001). The second measure of ethnic den-sity was calculated from using zip code data,based on the addresses of the families. Based oncity statistics, the percentage of Asian Ameri-cans residing in each zip code district was as-signed to each adolescent, ranging from 12% or

less, to 63% or greater. Thus, for ethnic densitywe had a subjective measure (adolescent andparent perceptions of their neighborhood), and


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an objective measure (zip code data). These twoscores were correlated at r .42 ( p .001).

Results

Preliminary Analyses and Descriptives

There were few data missing (no greater than5%) for each variable. Little’s MCAR test inSPSS (SPSS 17.0) showed that the data weremissing completely at random (2 21.93,df 39, p .998). Thus, in all further analyseswe used listwise deletion. However, to ensurethat missingness was not a problem, we alsoused SPSS Multiple Imputation and reran anal-yses (hierarchical regression) with missing data

imputed. The pooled results replicated the orig-inal data results with listwise deletion. We re-port the results using listwise deletion here.

See Table 1 for descriptives and zero-ordercorrelations of the main study variables. Ado-lescent discrimination was positively correlatedwith parent discrimination and negative schoolenvironment. To test how demographic vari-ables (adolescent age, school, gender, yearslived in the U.S., immigration status, and parenteducation) related to adolescent perceptions of

discrimination, bivariate correlational analyses(two-tailed) were used if the demographic vari-ables were ordinal and independent t -tests if they were nominal. Adolescents’ gender, yearslived in the U.S., and parent education did notrelate to adolescent perceptions of discrimina-tion. Adolescents’ age was positively correlatedwith adolescent perceptions of discrimination(r .17, p .02). School was also related suchthat adolescents from one school ( M 2.23,SD .84) reported higher perceptions of dis-

crimination than adolescents from the other( M 1.86, SD .74), t (174) 3.06, p .003. Finally, immigration status was also re-lated, such that foreign-born adolescents

( M 2.20, SD .90) reported higher discrim-ination compared to U.S. born adolescents( M 1.94, SD .75), t (180) 2.08, p .039.In light of these significant findings, we con-trolled for age, school, and immigration statusin subsequent analyses. Finally, parents( M 2.51, SD .81) reported higher levels of discrimination than adolescents ( M 2.02,SD .80).

Testing the Hypotheses

We used hierarchical multiple regression totest the hypotheses. All variables included ininteractions were first centered to reduce multi-collinearity. In Step 1, the demographic andcontrol variables were entered as a block—adolescent age, school, immigration status, andadolescent discrimination at Time 1. In Step 2,the parent discrimination variable was entered.In Step 3, the school environment variable wasentered. In Step 4, the community variableswere entered as a block—adolescent percep-

tions of availability of cultural resources, parentperceptions of availability of cultural resources,parent/adolescent subjective perceptions of eth-nic density, and ethnic density based on zipcode data. Finally, in Step 5, six interactionswere entered as a block testing whether adoles-cent immigration status interacted with family,school and neighborhood variables. We usedstepwise hierarchical regression to examinehow each contextual level (family, school,neighborhood) accounted for variance in the

Table 1 Bivariate Correlations and Descriptives of Main Study Variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mean (SD) Range

1. Perceived discrimination (A) — 2.02 (.80) 1–5

2. Perceived discrimination (P) .17 — 2.51 (.82) 1–5

3. School environment (A) .25 .14 — 1.75 (.41) 1–3

4. Available cultural resources (A) .13 .17 .17 — 3.65 (.87) 1–5

5. Available cultural resources (P) .04 .01 .07 .30 — 3.22 (.87) 1–5

6. Neighborhood ethnic density (P/A) .06 .01 .05 .24 .25 — 3.14 (.96) 1–5

7. Neighborhood ethnic densitya .10 .13 .12 .16 .13 .42 46.34 (8.01) 15–63

Note. A adolescent report, p parent report.a Percentage of Asians by zip code district. p .05. p .01. p .001.

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dependent variable (adolescent perceptions of discrimination at Time 3).

The results showed that the model was sig-nificant for Step 1 ( R2 .24, F (4, 167)

change 13.3, p .001); age and immigrationstatus did not predict adolescent discriminationat Time 3 but school and adolescent discrimi-nation at Time 1 did. One school reportedgreater perceptions of discrimination than theother and adolescent perceptions of discrimina-tion at Time 1 were linked to greater adolescentperceptions of discrimination at Time 3. Themodel was significant for Step 2 ( R2 .03,F (1, 166) change 5.95, p .016); greaterparent discrimination predicted greater adoles-cent discrimination. The model was significantfor Step 3 ( R2 .04, F (1, 165) change 8.66, p .004); a more negative school environmentpredicted greater adolescent discrimination. Themodel was significant for Step 4 ( R2 .06,F (4, 161) change 3.89, p .005); adolescentperceptions of lower availability of cultural re-sources and parent/adolescent subjective per-ceptions of greater ethnic density predictedmore adolescent discrimination. The model wassignificant for Step 5 ( R2 .07, Total R2 .44, F (6, 155) change 2.99, p .009). The

only interaction that emerged was immigrationstatus by parent discrimination. To clarify thisinteraction, we ran separate regressions by im-migration status. Post hoc analyses showed thatparent discrimination was related to adolescentdiscrimination for foreign-born adolescents(b .52, p .001), but not for U.S. bornadolescents b .02, p .85) (see Figure 1).

An examination of the regression coefficientsand change in R2 showed that adolescents’ per-ception of discrimination at Time 1 was thestrongest predictor of adolescent discrimina-

tion 2 years later at Time 3. When Time 1discrimination was accounted for, parent/ adolescent subjective perceptions of neighbor-hood ethnic density and the immigration statusby parent discrimination interaction showed thenext largest effect sizes.

In summary, as hypothesized, greater parentperceptions of discrimination (at least for for-eign-born adolescents), more negative schoolenvironment, and less availability of culturalresources were related to greater adolescent per-ceptions of discrimination. Contrary to the hy-pothesis, however, greater ethnic density wasrelated to greater adolescent perceptions of dis-crimination. See Table 2 for a summary of regression results.

Discussion

Although a growing number of studies havedocumented the negative consequences of ex-periencing racial/ethnic discrimination amongAsian American populations, far fewer studies

have explored the contexts in which discrimi-nation is perceived (Niwa et al., in press). Thepurpose of the study was to examine how fam-ily, school, and neighborhood factors related toChinese American adolescent perceptions of discrimination. The results showed that parentdiscrimination, negative school environment,availability of cultural resources, and subjectiveperceptions of ethnic density were linked toadolescent perceptions of discrimination.

We found that parents reported higher levels

of discrimination than adolescents, similar toBenner and Kim (2009b). This could be becauseof the greater percentage of foreign-born in theparent sample compared to the adolescent sam-ple. Other studies of Asian Americans havedocumented that foreign-born individuals reporthigher instances of discrimination compared toU.S. born (Ying et al., 2000). Perhaps foreign-born individuals are more visible targets of dis-crimination because of characteristics (e.g.,having an accent) that may mark them as“other” (Ancheta, 2001). It may also be the case

that foreign-born individuals are primed to ex-perience discrimination as they know they arethe ones who must adjust to a new country.

Figure 1. Regression lines for relations between parentdiscrimination and adolescent discrimination as moderatedby adolescent immigration status (a two-way interaction).b unstandardized regression coefficient.


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As hypothesized, parent discrimination posi-tively related to adolescent discrimination, over

and above adolescent discrimination reported atTime 1. Our findings support other studies re-porting a positive relation between parent andadolescent discrimination (Brenner & Kim,2009b). Previous studies have suggested thatthis link may be explained by parent racialsocialization (Hughes et al., 2006; Stevenson etal., 2003) and parental stress (Benner & Kim,2009b). However, in our study, parent discrim-ination related to adolescent discrimination onlyfor adolescents who were foreign-born, and not

U.S. born. Parents (almost all were foreign-born) and their foreign-born adolescents mayshare greater similarities with one another—having to learn the English language, becomingfamiliar with U.S. customs and values, and en-gaging in greater efforts in adapting and adjust-ing to a new country—compared to parents andtheir U.S. born adolescents. These similaritiesmay underlie comparable (or linked) percep-tions of discrimination for parents and theirforeign-born adolescents. For instance, bothmay be more likely to be experience discrimi-

nation because of language skills or accent thana U.S. born adolescent. U.S. born adolescentswho speak English fluently and are intimately

knowledgeable about the U.S. culture may dif-fer considerably from their parents in experi-

ences of discrimination. Thus, commonalities inexperiences of discrimination between parentsand their foreign-born children may reflect com-monalities in experiences as immigrants. Ourfindings highlight the need to consider immi-gration status in studies of discrimination andalso the importance of examining experiencesof discrimination as a family.

We also found that adolescents who reportedmore negative school environment also reportedgreater discrimination. We did not have data

concerning the source of discrimination butother research has suggested that experiencingdiscrimination by peers in school is a commonexperience, particularly for Chinese Americanadolescents (Grossman & Liang, 2008; Niwa etal., in press; Rosenbloom & Way, 2004). It isnot surprising then that greater perceptions of discrimination are related to a more negativeperception of the school. Because we only hadcross-sectional data with the school environ-ment variable, however, we could not test thedirection of effects. Future research could ex-

plore whether it is a poor school environmentthat leads to greater perceptions of racial/ethnicdiscrimination, or the other way around. Either

Table 2 Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Family, School, and Neighborhood Variables Predicting Adolescent Perceived Discrimination at Time 3, Final Model

Variable and step B (SE ) R2

Step 1: Adolescent age .01 (.07) .01 .24

Schoola .32 (.11) .20

Immigration statusb .25 (.13) .14

Discrimination at time 1 (A) .51 (.08) .43

Step 2: Parent discrimination (P) .17 (.07) .16 .03

Step 3: School environment (A) .29 (.13) .15 .04

Step 4: Availability of cultural resources (P) .05 (.06) .05 .06

Availability of cultural resources (A) .18 (.06) .20

Neighborhood ethnic density (P/A) .19 (.06) .23

Neighborhood ethnic density (zip code data) .01 (.01) .01

Step 5: Immigration status discrimination (P) .52 (.15) .23 .07

Immigration status school environment (A) .19 (.28) .05

Immigration status cultural availability (P) .25 (.14) .14

Immigration status cultural availability (A) .01 (.01) .03Immigration status ethnic density (P/A) .20 (.14) .10

Immigration status ethnic density (zip code data) .15 (.14) .08

Note. A Adolescent report, P parent report.a School was dummy-coded as 1 School 1, 2 School 2. b Immigration status was dummy-coded as 1 foreign-bornand 2 U.S. born. p .05. p .01. p .001.

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way, knowing that Chinese American adoles-cents who perceive their school as an unfriendlyand unsafe place, may also indicate that they areat risk for experiencing racial/ethnic discrimi-

nation.Aspects of the neighborhood also related to

adolescent perceptions of discrimination. Ado-lescents who perceived greater availability of cultural resources perceived less discrimination.Having access to cultural resources may facili-tate connection to one’s ethnic group and sup-port for one’s cultural background (Phinney,2003), which may offset or protect adolescentsfrom discrimination. In a different context withfewer cultural resources available—where be-

ing Chinese may be more difficult and lessvalued—adolescents may be at risk for experi-encing greater discrimination.

Our objective measure of ethnic density(based on zip code data) did not relate to per-ceptions of discrimination. However, the sub-

jective perceptions of ethnic density by parentsand adolescents did. After controlling for ado-lescent discrimination at Time 1, this ethnicdensity variable and the immigration status byparent discrimination interaction variable were

the strongest predictors of adolescent discrimi-nation at Time 3. Contrary to the hypothesis,perceptions of greater ethnic density were re-lated to more rather than less discrimination.Living among greater numbers of Asians maysensitize community members and heighten anawareness of racial/ethnic discrimination. Astudy of Chinese American college studentsshowed that ethnic density was positively re-lated to ethnic identity (Juang & Nguyen,2010). And a stronger ethnic identity has been

linked to a greater awareness of racial/ethnicdiscrimination (Sellers & Shelton, 2003). Thus,the link between ethnic density and perceptionsof discrimination may be indirect, through astrengthening of ethnic identity and awarenessof ethnic issues. Our results also point to thelimitations of simply focusing on number of coethnics. Numbers do not reveal the level of connection, support, or involvement with othercoethnics. Future research should go beyondethnic density and examine community bonds

by focusing on connections between adoles-cents, their families, and people in the surround-ing community (e.g., Zhou & Kim, 2006).

Limitations and Future Research

There were several limitations to the currentstudy that future research could address. One

limitation is the use of primarily cross-sectionaldata. We at least included adolescent discrimi-nation at Time 1 as a control variable. Impor-tantly, this Time 1 variable accounted for thegreatest amount of variance explained for ado-lescent discrimination at Time 3, and yet weidentified further family, school, and neighbor-hood factors that contributed above and beyondadolescents’ prior perceptions of discrimina-tion. Nonetheless, our primarily cross-sectionaldata does not allow us to test for causal relationsand pathways.

Another limitation is that we did not haveenough complete parent data across the threetime points to examine dynamic parent-adolescent interactions, in other words, howchanges in parent discrimination may relate tochanges in adolescent discrimination. Future re-search should follow both the parent and ado-lescent to examine how they experience andperceive discrimination over time.

Another limitation is that although we foundthat parent, school, and neighborhood factors

were associated with adolescent discrimination,we did not directly test for explanations forthese associations. One important next stepwould be, for instance, to examine how parents’experiences of discrimination relate to their ra-cial/ethnic socialization goals, beliefs, and prac-tices and how these, in turn, explain the link toadolescent discrimination. Apart from AfricanAmerican parents, we know very little of howparents of other ethnic groups socialize theirchildren in regards to discrimination (Hughes et

al., 2006). We do know, however, that Asianheritage parents may be especially reticent con-cerning discussions of discrimination. In onestudy, Japanese parents engaged in racial social-ization less than African American and Latinoparents (Phinney & Chavira, 1995). Anotherstudy found that Chinese American adolescentsreported their parents engaged in less culturalsocialization than Black and Puerto Rican ado-lescents (Rivas-Drake, Hughes, & Way, 2008).We do not know what consequences, if any, thismay have on their children. It will be important

to explore how Asian heritage parents deal withdiscrimination and, in turn, how these experi-ences inform the way parents socialize their


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children in terms of awareness of and responseto discrimination (Hughes & Chen, 1999;Hughes et al., 2006). Doing so would add to ourunderstanding of how parents can help their

adolescents cope with and make meaning of experiences with discrimination. As evidencesteadily accumulates concerning the negativeeffects of racial/ethnic discrimination on thephysical and psychological health of AsianAmericans, we need to continue to broaden ourknowledge of discrimination within differentsocial contexts, search for mechanisms to ex-plain how and why these contexts matter, and,importantly, identify potential buffers that canmitigate the negative effects of racial/ethnic dis-crimination.

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Received September 1, 2010Revision received January 31, 2011

Accepted February 2, 2011

Asian American Journal of Psychology

Call for Papers

The Asian American Journal of Psychology (AAJP) is the official publication of the Asian

American Psychological Association and is dedicated to research, practice, advocacy, education,

and policy within Asian American psychology.

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ering topics relevant to Asian American individuals and communities, including prevention,

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Submission Requirements

Authors should prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the AmericanPsychological Association (6th Edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language.

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