Variations in bicultural identification among African American and Mexican American adolescents

To identify the ways in which minority adolescents deal with being part of two cultures, we studied 46 middle- and working-class Mexican American and 52 middle-class African American students from ethnically diverse high schools in Southern California. Participants were interviewed about their sense of being ethnic, American, and bicultural, and they also completed questionnaire measures of ethnic identity, American identity, other-group attitudes, self-concept, and anxiety. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed three types of identification patterns: blended biculturals, alternating biculturals, and separated adolescents. Scores on American identity and other-group attitudes differed significantly among the identification patterns. Ethnic and American identity were generally uncorrelated, supporting the multidimensional (vs. linear) view of being bicultural. The results illustrate the varied types of identification manifested by ethnic minority adolescents in relation to their two reference groups, ethnic and American.