Identity, Cultural Adaptation, and Accommodation of a Japanese Family Living in the United States

Abstract

When our first son was born five years ago, we felt a great, concern about how he could retain a Japanese identity and still integrate within the main culture in the United States. Since then, we have added two daughters to our family. It has been a constant struggle, thinking and wondering whether we have made the right decision to maintain cultural ways and beliefs intact, inculcating them in our children. We have had to make a number of critical decisions about child raising and specific ways that our family should be designed to feel secure in America.

From the first time we discussed child raising, we decided to make our home much like the way we knew it when we grew up in Japan. We felt that any type of unnatural pretension or artificial home atmosphere would affect our children negatively. We also decided to make our home a sanctuary, away from the strains of racism and socioeconomic inequality that permeate U.S. society. And the motto of our revered home was simple: be comfortable and act naturally.

Keywords: Culture, immigrant families in America