ABSTRACT
Immigrants often experience a sense of alienation, loss, and a feeling of “not belonging” because of their displacement (Alexander, 1996). They have to confront new forms of cultural modes of social participation that increase their self-awareness and sense of identity. Although such experiences are stressful, they also provide opportunities for creating a “new” identity. However, negotiating the social positioning of these “new” identities within existing social hierarchies presents unique challenges. Kim (1999) argues that Asian Americans are marginalized within the “field of racial positions,” where Asian Americans are simultaneously valorized as a model minority and denigrated as “outsiders” and “perpetual foreigners.” Thus, Asian Americans are “racially triangulated” vis-à-vis Whites and Blacks in this field of racial positions (Kim, 1999, p. 106).
