ABSTRACT
Omnipresent racism creates contexts in which individuals like our respondents are regularly ridiculed, humiliated, and excluded. One major strategy involves conforming aggressively to white norms and folkways, not only with the hope of achieving the American dream but also to reduce white hostility and discrimination. The word "assimilate," however, does not capture the everyday reality of the pressure cooker–type demands on individuals to conform to that white environment and white folkways. Pressures to assimilate into the dominant US culture and society, and specifically to conform to white framing and folkways, are intense for immigrants and their descendants. Conformity to white expectations as a protective adaptation strategy has been reported in at least one other study of younger Vietnamese Americans. Separating from other people of color, and perhaps from themselves, is a way some Asian Americans try to conform to white framing and folkways.
