Shah - 05/16

There are many push and pull factors that surround these young Laotian women in forming their ethnic identity. The strict parental control and the emotional effect it has on them pushes them away from their Laotian culture and pulls them into assimilating into American culture. Love for family, on the other hand, pulls them away from American culture and pushes them back into their Laotian culture. With this in mind, how are these young Laotian women able to form their own ethnic identities? I’d like to argue that these Laotian women have constructed their own transnationalistic identity that encompases both Laotian and American culture that they call “Laotianish”. This “Laotianish” identity allows these young women to survive in American culture through ‘code-switching’ while maintaining ties with their Laotian culture through activist work that benefits their Laotian community. This identity is shaped by the culture these women are in and represents the dynamicity of culture, as mentioned by Stuart Hall, and how culture is based off of lived-experiences, as mentioned by Tiongson. More importantly, the creation of this identity defeats the binary representation of immigrants as either the “unassimilable foreigner” or the “assimilated citizen” and challenges what it means to be “American”. As a person that is part of the “1.5 generation”, I also had a difficult time negotiating my identity. I could not relate with current “Filipino” culture due to how much it has changed and I could not identify as “Filipino-American” because of the fact that I did not grow up in America and would not have the same experiences as American born Filipinos. This transnational space has allowed me to form an identity that is neither “Filipino” nor “Filipino American”. This identity gave me the opportunity to maintain some aspects of Filipino culture and has grounded my existence in America.