Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States

by Min Zhou, Carl Bankston

Growing Up American tells the story of Vietnamese children and sheds light on why their often troubled passage into American society has thus far been successful. Drawing on research and insights from the U.S. census, survey data, and their own participant observation and in-depth interviews, Min Zhou and Carl Bankston focus on the Versailles Village enclave in New Orleans, one of many newly established Vietnamese communities in the United States, to examine the complex skein of family, community, and school influences that shape these children's lives. With no ties to existing ethnic communities, Vietnamese refugees had little control over where they were settled and no economic or social networks to offer them assistance. Growing Up American describes the process of building communities that were distinctive outgrowths of the new environment in which the Vietnamese found themselves. Familial and cultural organizations reformed in new ways, blending economic necessity with cultural tradition. These reconstructed social structures create a particular form of social capital that helps disadvantaged families overcome the problems associated with poverty and ghettoization.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 1998

Reviews

[QuyAn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the story of a people, reflected by young generation's development. Told by a thorough research though on a small scale of only one small community, I was amazed how the results came in harmony with the general picture. Not only of Vietnamese people in the US, but elsewhere. Not only of an Asian people, but of all immigrants.

The question faced by those young immigrants is to Stay or to Leave. Stay with their far away and vague homeland and identity, or Leave and accept their new citizenship totally and wholeheartedly? Still be a Vietnamese and stay in the local village or be Americanized, assimilated? Both have its pros and cons.