The Voices Of Amerasians

Abstract: Amerasians are persons of American and Asian ethnic heritage who have appeared as a group mainly in the past forty years. Beginning with the massive involvement of the United States in the Occupation of Japan, thousands of Amerasians have been born from Japan to Vietnam. In the U.S. they are the children of approximately eighty thousand American/Asian couples who have come here since that time.
This study sought to examine the lives of Amerasians in the United States. The primary research questions centered around finding the nature of Amerasian issues and concerns which are encountered in growing up in the U.S. How Amerasians attempted to resolve these issues and concerns was a major focus of the thesis.
Data was analyzed for themes using grounded theory. Themes of early experience were family issues, race and culture, assimilation, and difference and isolation. These themes articulate concerns of childhood and adolescence around being from an international, interracial, and intercultural family. Racial experiences and cultural differences were identified as formative and respondents describe their attempts at dealing with often confusing and painful feelings and experiences.
The themes express both joys and sorrows of their lives as Amerasians. Resolutions are not final solutions, but part of the process of their struggles for empowerment and healing for self and society. The data is analyzed for its contribution to understanding issues of ethnicity and identity in the face of the emerging presence of interracial and intercultural families in Asian American communities. The lives of Amerasians are explored for their messages concerning the development of unique forms of racial and cultural expression.