Immigrant Adaptation in Multi-Ethnic Societies by Fong Eric;Chiang Lan-Hung Nora;Denton Nancy;

Author:Fong, Eric;Chiang, Lan-Hung Nora;Denton, Nancy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

In order to rigorously test the hypothesis that Canadian identity, compared with heritage identity, is a better predictor of the interracial dating views of Chinese Canadians, one-tailed comparisons of correlation coefficients representing these associations were conducted following the method proposed by Meng, Rosenthal, and Rubin (1992). Both of these comparisons proved to be significant or near significant. For Chinese Canadians, Canadian identity was a stronger predictor of the general attitude toward inter-racial dating (z = 1.35, p < .09) and personal openness to interracial dating (z = 2.50, p = .006), compared with Chinese identity.

The superordinate identity hypothesis predicted that Canadian identity, rather than heritage identity, would drive the views of Chinese Canadians with regard to interracial dating. Among Chinese Canadians, Canadian identity, but not heritage identity, was associated with more favorable attitudes toward and greater personal openness to interracial dating. This finding replicates previous research findings that have found that mainstream and heritage culture identities play different roles in the acculturation process (Lalonde et al. 2004; Remennick 2005; Ryder et al. 2000). This finding is also in line with Mok’s (1999) finding that among Asian American students, higher acculturation to an American/Western way of living was associated with greater likelihood of dating white Americans. Our contention is that mainstream (i.e., Canadian) identity, rather than heritage identity, plays a contributing role in interracial dating attitudes because, from a Chinese Canadian perspective, such views are more out-group-focused than in-group-focused. Canadian identity, moreover, has been specifically associated with greater acceptance and encouragement of ethnic diversity (e.g., Cameron and Berry 2008).

The Role of Interracial Dating Experience

The two interracial dating attitude measures were also related to participants’ interracial dating experience, but only for Chinese Canadians. Group (Chinese Canadian, European Canadian) by Dating history (no, yes) ANOVAs revealed significant interaction effects for general attitude and personal openness. Simple effects analyses indicated that interracial dating history made no difference for European Canadians. Chinese Canadians with interracial dating experience, in contrast, reported significantly more positive general attitudes (M = 6.56) and higher levels of personal openness to interracial dating (M = 6.46) in comparison with those with no history (M = 5.72, M = 4.75, respectively). It is worth noting that Chinese Canadians with interracial dating experience also reported significantly higher Canadian identity scores (M = 5.46) than those with no such experience (M = 4.96).

This differential effect of interracial dating history on the two cultural groups suggests that having dated someone of a different racial background may help second-generation immigrants become more familiar with the norms of the mainstream culture, in this case a Canadian culture that encourages ethnic diversity. These are correlational data, however, and it may well be that Chinese Canadians who have more internalized Canadian norms are more willing to experiment with interracial dating.

Study 2—A Comparison of South Asian Canadians and European Canadian Participants

The sample consisted of 118 South Asian Canadians (60 women and 58 men) and 120 European Canadians (60 women and 60 men). Approximately half of the sample in each cultural

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