“To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: On the Implications of Reflected Appraisals for Ethnic Identity and Discrimination

Abstract

This study examined how immigrants’ feelings of ethnic identity align with their perceptions of how other people see them, and how these reflected appraisals from others contribute to immigrants’ experience of discrimination. First-generation ( N = 94) and second-generation ( N = 140) Chinese Canadians completed a questionnaire which assessed their ethnic identity and the reflected appraisals of members from Chinese and Anglo Canadian communities across four situational domains (family, friends, university, community). The results showed that both generations generally felt that they were regarded by both Chinese and Anglo Canadians as more Chinese than they felt themselves but indicated few discrepancies between self- and reflected appraisals of Canadian identity. Reflected appraisals were associated with the experience of personal discrimination only in the second-generation group. The discussion emphasizes the importance of a situational perspective on ethnic identity and underscores important differences between generational groups in their experience of identity and discrimination.