On bicultural identities construction: daughter and mother’s counterstories in an Asian American immigrant family

Abstract

This piece answers the call to explore mother-and-daughter relationships in immigrant families. It uses narratives to humanize the Asian American experiences in and out of schools. Guided by AsianCrit theory, the paper centers on the counterstories of a first-generation immigrant mother and her 2nd generation U.S. -born adolescent in a Chinese American family. The mother and the daughter each narrate their lived experiences and reflect collaboratively on how their counterstories construct their bicultural identities collectively and respectively under the tenets of Asianization and transnational context. We hope our narratives will add to the current literature to dismantle the stereotypes of Asian Americans being viewed as model minorities and honorary whites. By discussing the hyper-in/visibility of Asian Americans, we urge classroom teachers and teacher educators to amplify the voices of these marginalized groups in their daily instructions to promote the positive identity development of Asian Americans.