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Joohwan Kim
Professor Keren Carlisi
ESL 33B
23 Apr 2015
Miscommunication between Generations in Asian-American Families
There are many immigrant families from diverse countries in the United States, and
they have been living here through two or more generations. Each generation has its own
life style because of different amount of acculturation. Asian families especially have been
suffering from conflicts between generations because the culture that the first generation
immigrants have kept are so different from the mainstream culture of the United States, and
their children have had more opportunities to adapt American culture. According to Yu-Wen
Ying and Peter A. Lees research, Asian American adolescents have difficulties to declare
their ethnic identity, and only 41.8% of them feel that they integrated with both of American
culture and their original culture by themselves while rest of them feel that they are not
integrated or marginal (204). The most common reason why difficulty happens is that their
parents enforce to follow the norms of Asian culture. On other side, their parents who are
less acculturated to American culture want to maintain their life style from the home
country. Richard M. Lee said that Asian-American parents expect their children to have
more responsibilities for their family rather than to live their lives liberally and not to follow
virtues of Asian culture (211). It is very hard for second-generation immigrants to accept
their parents needs because they adopt Western culture and socialize into American society.
Those conflicts from the cultural gaps between generations can be solved if they understand
different amount of acculturation of each generation, but their different communication

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styles that they acquired from where they have lived disturb understanding each other.
Because their first language and communication style is very different from each other,
Asian-American parents have to learn English and to be more acculturated in American
culture, and Asian-American children who were born in United States have to learn their
heritage language and culture to understand their parents if they want to manage
miscommunication between them.
The most common disconnection between generations comes from the using
different first languages. Most second generations in Asian immigrant family generally
prefer using English because they spend much time at the school and hang out with their
friends who speak English as their first language. As a result, they can learn English faster
than their parents, so they speak more fluent English than elders in their family. Whereas
their English proficiency is developed very fast, many immigrant children dont have chance
to learn their heritage language in formal education. Moreover not learning mother tongue at
the school, some children never try to study a language other than English, and lose fluency
in it while their parents feel more comfortable using the language from their original culture.
On the other hand, Asian immigrant parents dont have much exposure to English and
American culture. If parents cant speak English fluently or are less acculturated, their
children perceive them not able to have conversations, so Asian immigrant parents who
cant speak English fluently have frequent conflicts with their children. When they want to
express their thinking, their inability to speak English can be a great barrier to
communication (Lee 219).
Another big problem that causes miscommunication is misinterpreting verbal
communication style. Asian immigrant children absorb not only fluency of English but also

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direct communication style from American society. They express themselves more directly
than their less acculturated parent. However, many Asian immigrants who came to United
States after they are grown up in home country cant change their attitude that put more
emphasis on communication that rely on indirect style. Asian American parents can have
misunderstandings about their childrens direct expression. They think their children are too
affectionate, and perceive their direct expression as lacking emotional control. However,
Asian-American children think that their parents verbal communication style is too
ambiguous and vague. According to Gudykunst, Members of individualistic cultures like
the United States are more concerned with clarity in conversations, and view clarity as
necessary for effective communication more than do members of collectivistic cultures like
Korea and Japan (35). Asian-American children who are more acculturated into American
culture than their parents prefer direct way to express themselves.
In addition to having problems that came from different verbal communication style,
they have different type of nonverbal communication style. It is true, as Hwang states, that
People from different cultures tend to have different norms and comfort zones for use of
interpersonal space, as well as different levels of body and facial expression (400). Also, it
is obvious that there are huge differences between American culture and Asian culture, and
brings about different style of nonverbal communication. It is very common that the first
generation and second-generation Asian immigrants have different level of body language
and facial expression because there are huge differences of paralanguage between American
and Asian culture. Their different communication style and misinterpreted perception of it
can put some distance between them.

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There are lots of conflicts from miscommunication between generations. AsianAmerican children whose first language is English cannot share enough emotions and
affection with their parents, and experience a break when they have a conversation on the
highly complex subject (Hwang 400). Asian-American parents, meanwhile, who have
limited English proficiency want their children to learn their native language and culture
because they want to use their mother tongue and communicate with their children, so they
try to convince their children of high-context communication style, which is delivering their
thinking indirectly and having more control of their emotions, but some of children refuse to
learn that. Both of conflicts from verbal and nonverbal miscommunication can cause many
problems in Asian-American families.
The conflicts between generations can affect Asian-American families in a seriously
negative way.

American immigrant children can have confusion about their ethnicity

because the way of expressing thinking and emotions that they learned from American
society is so different from their parents style. As a result, Asian-American children and
adolescents have difficulties to establish their ethnic identity and keeping social cohesion
with majority groups (Ying and Lee 196). Confusion of identity can cause mental problems
and depression in Asian-American families, and cause breakdown of family. That is the
reason why great portion of young Asian-American have depressed mindset, and enormous
amount of Asian-American youth have more mental problems than Caucasian youth (Hwang
405). However, it can be changed if they try to make efforts to solve conflicts.
What that Asian immigrant parents need to do to prevent problems caused by
miscommunication is acculturating themselves into American mainstream culture. They
have to recognize that they need to study English more, and adopt aspects of Western

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oriented communication style. In addition to notice that, American young youth and
adolescents whose parents are more educated and acculturated in American culture feel their
family has more flexibility and cohesion (Lee 220). Also, it is reported that more conflicts
are found in families that parents got low level of education and acculturation (220). Also,
Asian-American children have to put a great deal of effort to learn their parents culture and
language even though they are familiar to American culture.
There are many differences in communication style between Asian American parents
and children. They have different not only the first languages, but also verbal and nonverbal
communication style. However, they can overcome conflicts between them if they make
some changes. Asian immigrant parents need to improve their proficiency in English and be
more generous to their childrens liberal attitude and direct communication style that they
learned from the culture of the United States. On the other hand, Asian-American children
who were born in the United States or came to the United States when they were young need
to concern more about their heritage language and original culture, and make more efforts to
understand difference in verbal and nonverbal communication style between American
culture and Asian culture to overcome conflicts caused by miscommunication. If they pay
proper regards to each other, they can manage their conflicts from miscommunication, and
problems come from miscommunication like depression and family breakdown can be
solved naturally.

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Works Cited
Gudykunst, William B.. Cultural Characteristic of Asian Cultures. Asian American
Ethnicity and Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication Inc, 2001. Print
Hwang, Wei-Chin. "Acculturative Family Distancing: Theory, Research, And Clinical
Practice." Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 43.4 (2006): 397409. PsycARTICLES. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.
Lee, Richard M., et al. "Construction Of The Asian American Family Conflicts Scale."
Journal Of Counseling Psychology 47.2 (2000): 211-222. PsycARTICLES. Web. 9
Apr. 2015.
Ying, Yu-Wen, and Peter A. Lee. "The Development Of Ethnic Identity In Asian-American
Adolescents: Status And Outcome." American Journal Of Orthopsychiatry 69.2
(1999): 194-208. PsycARTICLES. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.