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Ethnic And Language Identity Among A Select Group Of Vietnamese-Americans In Portland Oregon, Jay Owen Peterson

Dissertations and Theses

Vietnamese immigrants within the United States have demonstrated a strong desire to retain their ethnocultural identity. They have also experienced tremendous pressure to use English. What are the implications of these two trends for identity and language choice within the Vietnamese-American community? The presented research used multidimensional scaling (MDS) methods to describe the subjects' ethnic and language identities. The population for the study consisted of adult Vietnamese-Americans who were born in Vietnam and were currently living in the US. The study had two stages. First, identity labels were generated using a modified Twenty Statements Test. A "Myself' label was added …