Intercultural Interview Paper

The subject of this paper is Liz, a 52-year old, 1.5 generation female immigrant from Hong Kong. What this means is that she immigrated to the United States when she was a child, around 7-years old (Feliciano Lec. 1/4/2016). As a child of a family that consists of five siblings and two parents that did not speak any English prior to immigrating, the focus of this paper will be on the legal processes that the family went through to become legal immigrants and the various factors that aided in her path towards assimilation. Liz’s family is from a city named Kow Loon in Hong Kong. During the interview Liz recollected that she lived in a tall building and that the city often endured typhoons or hurricanes that would render her apartment building
She self-identifies as Chinese-American because she “feels Chinese inside” even though she considers herself to be very assimilated into the American culture. This coincides with one of the four types of ethnic self-labels for second generation immigrants that Portes and Rumbaut analyze: national origin, hyphenated, plain American and pan-ethnic. These identifies arise from reactions to specific external events, internalization of racialized categories or life experiences (Feliciano Lec. 1/25/2016). The reason she still identifies as Chinese is because she was raised to think that way; she grew up in a Chinese dominated community both at home and in school. She also believes that because she is not of a mixed ethnicity, it is easy for her to self-identify as Chinese-American. When asked what makes her American, she responded that it is because she lives in America and she follows many American social norms. She does not believe that citizenship has anything to do with being American, it is just a form that acknowledges that you can receive certain benefits that non-citizens do not have the privilege