Asian American Journal of Psychology, Vol 14(3), Sep 2023, 250-261; doi:10.1037/aap0000296
Indian Americans are an under researched population within the racial-ethnic socialization (RES) literature, and very little is known about how Indian American immigrant families navigate these conversations. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study explored parent and youth perspectives of RES processes in Indian American families. A total of six focus groups were conducted with 13 adolescents (mean age = 13.6; 60% girls) and 15 parents (mean age = 42.0; 62% mothers). Inductive thematic analysis of focus group transcripts revealed that cultural socialization and the lack of preparation for bias were the most salient RES messages Indian American parents provided their adolescents. Parents’ messages related to cultural socialization heavily centered on cultural and ethnic pride. These pride messages were often consistent with the model minority stereotype. Despite many parents and adolescents reporting experiencing discrimination, parents typically refrained from providing preparation for bias messages. Parents’ perspectives also revealed a shared difficulty in discerning when an event was racially discriminatory. When parents did provide coping with discrimination messages, these messages most often encouraged adolescents to simply “avoid it” or “ignore it.” Consequently, adolescents reported feeling ill-prepared to face racial-ethnic discrimination, indicating an unmet need for timely and helpful preparation for bias messages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)