Survive and Thrive: Exploring How Immigrant-Origin Asian American Adolescents Experience, Cope, and Adapt to Life During Covid-19

Abstract

In 2020, the dual pandemics of Covid-19 and systematic racism led to crises of public health, economic fallout, racial reckoning, and K-12 school closures in the United States. Asian American youth not only have to navigate the stressors and change of routines as other adolescents, but they also must navigate the heightened anti-Asian racism and xenophobia during Covid-19. The purpose of the current study is to explore the ways immigrant-origin Asian/Asian American adolescents in the Pacific Northwest experience, cope, and adapt to life during the dual pandemics. The Integrative Risk and Resilience Framework (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2018) for immigrant children’s adjustment and an intersectionality approach were used to frame the study. Fourteen immigrant-origin Asian/Asian American adolescents from an Asian-majority city in a metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest participated in this critical qualitative study via a survey and an interview with a mapping activity. Three school staff and one parent identified as support by the adolescent participants provided input on Asian American students’ resilience via a survey. The constant comparative method (Glaser, 1965), an inductive data coding process was used to analyze the interview and mapping activity data. The youth participants in the current study experienced challenges of anti-Asian racism, intergenerational disconnection, and other unique stress shaped by their intersectional social positions. In response to these challenges, they adapted by increasing self-reflection, deepening social connections, and shifting their acculturation strategies away from assimilation, toward integration. The participants also identified maintaining heritage culture and language, parent being open-minded, and teacher practices of offering flexibility in assignment completion and holding space for discussions about racism as supportive. Implications for educators include enhancing student-teacher relationships, providing emotional support, and holding space to discuss racism at school.