Sense of Indebtedness Toward Parents

Abstract

This research examined the construct “sense of indebtedness toward parents” (SIP) as a concept that helps explain positive change in Korean American (KA) emerging adults’ views of their parents despite experiencing a high level of parent-adolescent challenges. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 KA emerging adults. Most described experiencing SIP, defined as “a person’s recognition of his or her immigrant parents’ child-centered immigration aspirations and their sacrifice for the sake of children.” Findings showed that the formation of SIP was facilitated by processes related to developmental and contextual changes pertaining to emerging adulthood. These processes helped participants reinterpret their experiences with parents as entailing sacrifices made on their behalf. The findings highlight diverse emerging adulthood experience due to immigrant or cultural context.

Keywords

Korean/Asian Americans emerging adulthood immigrant families intergenerational relationships sense of indebtedness toward parents meaning-making

Adolescents in immigrant Korean American (KA) families experience a high level of dissatisfaction and conflict with their parents (Cho & Bae, 2005; Choi & Dancy, 2011; Lee & Liu, 2001; Yeh & Inose, 2002). In emerging adulthood, however, KA youth report a more positive view of their parents (Kang, Okazaki, Abelmann, Kim-Prieto, & Lan, 2010; L. S. Park, 2005). Instead of disconnecting themselves from their parents, many appear to have normalized their past unsatisfying experiences with their parents. Further, in a few short years, many express a new sense of filial obligation (Kang et al., 2010; L. S. Park, 2005).

What happens that leads to KA’s increased acceptance of their parents in emerging adulthood? What might account for the awakening or strengthening of a sense of Korean and Confucian filial obligation? One possibility is that the developmental and life changes of the post-adolescent period elicit changes in how KA youth understand and interpret their parents’ immigration experiences. KA emerging adults may develop a better understanding of the immigration-related sacrifices their parents made for them, including a better grasp of the challenges that influenced parents’ behavior toward them in their adolescence (Kang et al., 2010). These new insights might lead to their sense of indebtedness. Young adults’ experiences of indebtedness toward parents have been mentioned in literature on KA and other Asian and Latino immigrant families (e.g., Fuligni, 2007; L. S. Park, 2005). However, no research to date has investigated the nature of this felt indebtedness to immigrant parents, how it changes developmentally, and its possible role in young adults’ adoption of a cultural meaning system, such as Confucian filial obligation.

In this theory-building study, we aimed first to evaluate and better conceptualize the concept of “sense of indebtedness toward parents” (SIP). KA emerging adults in this study reported the same change identified in prior research: a shift from negative feelings toward parents in adolescence to a strengthened sense of filial obligation in the post-adolescent years. We ask, what form does this new sense of indebtedness take? Is there a common narrative about why they feel indebted to their parents? Our second aim was to understand the processes through which this transformation occurs. How might the different changes of emerging adulthood, such as cognitive maturation or moving away from home, contribute to the development of SIP? Because we were interested in participants’ conscious processes of interpretation and meaning-making, this study examined their own accounts of their experiences.

The Korean American Immigrant Context

Most KAs are relatively recent immigrants, having arrived in the United States after it changed its immigration policy in 1965 (Kim, 1997). The majority have been well-educated, white-collar professionals who came to the United States to pursue better educational opportunities for their children than those available in South Korea (Yoon, 1997; Zhou & Kim, 2006). Upon arriving in the United States, KA immigrants have faced challenges and hardships in settling down in their new country. Most began employment in less desirable, labor-intensive jobs that required long work hours away from their families. In many KA households, parents are self-employed, working in a small family business, often run by husband and wife, with no employees (Hurh & Kim, 1984; Min, 1998). In L. S. Park’s (2005) ethnographic study of KA families, 87% (62 out of 71) of adolescent and young adult children reported that their fathers worked an average of 70 hours a week whereas 80% of respondents reported that their mothers worked an average of 70 hours a week.

These work demands meant that many KA youth have grown up experiencing parents who are frequently absent, and are tired when they get home (Kang et al., 2010). Other challenges faced by KA youth include a language barrier with their parents (Zhou, 2004), cultural conflicts with their parents (Ahn, Kim, & Park, 2008; Tsai, Tsang, Lee, Lee, & Ying, 2001), high levels of parental control (W. Park, 2009), and discrepancies in their desired and experienced parenting (Pyke, 2000).

It is not surprising, then, that dissatisfaction and conflict with parents are common among adolescent children of KA immigrants (Cho & Bae, 2005; Choi & Dancy, 2011; Yeh & Inose, 2002). The question is, what accounts for the change in emerging adulthood?

Emerging Adulthood in the United States and in KA Experience

In the United States, the post-adolescent period is a time of change in child-parent relationships for many youth, due to developmental and contextual life changes. Emerging adults obtain more advanced social cognitive skills, among them increased capacity to take the perspectives of others, including parents (Arnett, 2004; McLean & Thorne, 2003). In addition, many young adults in the United States gain an increased physical distance from their parents. For those who move away from home or attend college, their experience of greater autonomy from parents may facilitate reevaluation of past family experiences (Hood, Riahinejad, & White, 1986) and reduce negative feelings toward their parents (Aquilino, 2006; Arnett, 2003). Of course, the degree and nature of these general American patterns can be expected to differ as a function of cultural- and immigration-related factors (Cheah & Nelson, 2004; Fuligni, 2007; Nelson, Badger, & Wu, 2004).

It is important to ask how these and other changes of American emerging adulthood might influence KA young people’s feelings toward their parents. How might they serve as catalysts for distinct change processes? KA children are likely to have been exposed to Korean values, such as the value of filial piety. Moreover, they are witnesses to at least some of the hardship and challenges their parents endure as immigrants. How might the changes of emerging adulthood in the United States mediate how they interpret Korean values, their parents’ immigration experiences, and their obligations to their parents?

SIP and How It Is Distinct From Other Constructs

A prior issue, however, is clarifying the nature of the indebtedness that KA emerging adults come to experience toward their parents. Does the concept of SIP capture a common construct in the experiences of KA emerging adults? We anticipated that youth might describe SIP in ways that overlap with—but are distinct from—other constructs, such as filial piety and family obligation, that are discussed in relation to Korean and Asian child-parent relationships. These differences are related their families’ immigration-related experiences.

Filial piety, an important virtue in Confucianism, has served as a guiding principle of intergenerational conduct in Korean culture. This cultural norm prescribes how children should behave toward their parents: “that one should provide for the material and mental well-being of one’s aged parents . . . and in general conduct oneself so as to bring honor and avoid disgrace to the family name” (Ho, 1986, p.155). KA and Asian American families often emphasize children’s duty to obey the parents, as well as the importance of reciprocating to their parents (Chilman, 1993; Ho, 1986; Uba, 1994). We think the SIP that emerges in KA emerging adulthood is influenced by these cultural values, but that it is more contingent. For example, some of the behavioral domains of indebtedness, such as KA youth’s willingness to reciprocate to their parents, may overlap with the cultural value of filial piety; however, we posit that it is rooted in their experiences growing up in an immigrant family, including experiencing the effects of their parents’ hardship and sacrifice.

Family obligation, a similar cultural concept, has been identified as containing three dimensions of instrumental responsibilities to parents: (a) to support and assist the family, (b) to respect family members (e.g., doing well for the sake of the family, making sacrifices for the family), and (c) to be committed to supporting the family in the future (Fuligni, 1998). Although there may be similarities between SIP and these dimensions of family obligation, especially in expected behavior, we think SIP may differ in identifying a distinct set of motivations and meaning behind these behaviors, those related to the immigrant experience.

This Study

In sum, this study had two research objectives. First, it aimed to describe and better conceptualize KA youth’s SIP by examining their accounts of their experiences. Second, it sought to examine the processes through which KA youth form SIP.

To achieve both, we employed the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism. This perspective posits that individuals’ perceptions and motivations are shaped by their active meaning-making. They respond to changing experiences in their lives by interpreting and constructing the significance of those experiences, often drawing on symbols and signs that give experiences in cultural meaning (Blumer, 1969; White & Klein, 2002). Employing this perspective, we postulated that the past experiences of KA youth, such as parents’ immigration-related hardships, may serve as a symbol that is interpreted and reinterpreted through specific cultural meanings, as a function of their ongoing experiences.

Given our desire to understand these meaning-making processes and given the absence of prior empirical studies, a theory-building qualitative methodology was called for. This study used the systematic methods of grounded theory, which are designed to build theory from qualitative data through identification of concepts and processes in context (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Method

Participants and Procedures

Interviews were conducted with a sample of 25 KA youth (M = 10, F = 15) who resided in Midwestern region of the United States. This included 22 second-generation young adults and 3 whose parents had moved to the United States when the youth was a child. Participants’ average age was 21.4 years (range = 18-25). All participants were from two-parent households, except for two cases in which the parents were divorced. A total of 23 participants had both mother and father working full-time while growing up, whereas the remaining 2 participants’ mothers stayed home. Among the 48 working parents, 27 parents were small business owners or in a manufacturing occupation, 6 were in a semi-skilled service occupation (e.g., mail carrier, cab driver), and 15 were in professional occupation (e.g., lawyer, nurse, engineer). Twenty-three of the young adults were in or had been in college, which generally reflects the current high rates of college enrollment among Asian American high school graduates (82.2%, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). A total of 20 participants identified themselves as Christian, 1 as Buddhist, and 4 as agnostic or having no religious affiliation. The majority of the Christian participants had belonged to a KA church growing up. Thus, most of our participants had experiences in the Korean immigrant community beyond the family.

This sample was selected through a procedure aimed at obtaining a diverse and representative sample of KA 18- to 25-year-olds. First a pool of 124 potential participants (41 males, 83 females) was recruited from university classes, student organizations, churches, cultural events, and snowballing, and they completed a survey via paper and pencil or online. The survey included demographic questions and a preliminary sense of indebtedness to parents scale developed by the first author. Interview participants were then recruited from the initial pool using a stratification procedures aimed at obtaining diversity by age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and scores on the SIP scale (Kang, 2010). Particularly given the goal of the study to conceptualize a relatively new construct, it was important to achieve this diversity. Study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board, and respondents provided consent before data collection occurred.

Interviews

The semi-structured interview protocol was focused on obtaining participants’ narrative accounts of their perceptions and experiences related to their sense of indebtedness. Participants were asked to describe their parents’ experiences as immigrants and their interpretations of these experiences. Questions also explored how their personal feelings, motivations, and the concepts they used were related to our preliminary conceptualizations of SIP. For example, participants were asked whether they felt indebted to their parents and to describe what accounted for these perceptions. They were also asked about their responses (e.g., emotional and behavioral) to these perceptions. To explore the processes involved in the KA young adults’ forming SIP, questions focused on what affected changes in their feelings toward parents and their perceptions of their past behavior. They were also asked to describe their past and present relationships with parents, and what had happened, if anything, that had altered them. Consistent with grounded theory methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), questions in the interview protocol were broad with probes to obtain specificity and elaboration. All interviews were conducted by the first author; and they ranged in length from 1.0 to 2.5 hours (average 1.8 hours). Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The interviewer wrote memos following each interview that included general impressions, observations, and possible interpretations.

Data Analysis

Analyses were directed at our two objectives of better conceptualizing the SIP and understanding the processes through which it develops. Analysis followed grounded theory’s three coding stages, designed for the construction of empirically based theory from qualitative data (Charmaz, 2006; LaRossa, 2005). The process of coding was interactive and dynamic, involving moving back and forth between these coding stages as new information emerged.

Initially, open coding and the constant comparative method (Glaser, 1978; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) were used to name and categorize phenomena. The first author and three secondary coders separately coded the interviews by labeling discrete concepts and events related to participants’ sense of indebtedness toward their parents and the processes involved in formation of these perceptions. Some of the coding categories that emerged were influenced by sensitizing concepts (Patton, 2002; S. J. Taylor & Bogdan, 1998), drawn from the emerging adulthood and immigration literature. After the coders coded each of the interviews, we held weekly group meetings. We compared our coding and discussed interpretations of passages until consensus was reached. The codes were revised as needed after each meeting (e.g., to add emergent codes or clarify definitions of codes). Previously coded interviews were then recoded using the updated codes.

In this process, we paid attention to the ways that the young adults made sense of their perceptions of and experiences with their parents, particularly in the context of immigrant life. Concepts related to the conceptualization of SIP and the processes involved in their formation of SIP were labeled and categorized. For example, codes such as “parental challenges related to language barriers, cultural differences, financial hardships, physical hardships related to work, loss of social support from families and friends” were grouped into a category called “What youth perceived as parental costs related to migration.” This category was further broken down into subcategories of “parental costs related to migration” and “parental costs after migration.”

At the conclusion of this step of analyses, we evaluated whether there were differences across the participants that might be significant to our findings. Who had initially scored high (vs. low) on the initial scale of SIP reported more elaborate quotes. But they did not differ markedly in their use of the concepts related to sense of indebtedness, nor in the change processes they described.

The goal of the second stage of analyses, axial coding, was to further refine conceptual properties related to the construct of SIP and the processes involved in the young adults forming SIP. Specifically, we looked for answers to questions such as why, where, when, how, and with what consequences (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In doing so, we related categories to subcategories and specified the properties and dimensions of a category (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For example, we related the passages categorized as youth’s perception of “parental sacrifice” into subcategories of “what parental sacrifice entails” and “what causes youth’s perception of parental sacrifice (or not),” “when do youth perceive as parental sacrifice,” “how youth’s perception of parental sacrifice developed over time,” and “what does the perception of parental sacrifice lead to.” This allowed us to delineate relationships between different categories as well as dimensions and properties within each category. Next, outcomes of actions and interactions were identified from the data. Through this process, conceptual dimensions and properties related to the construct of SIP and processes involved in forming SIP were identified.

Finally, in selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), we identified the core narrative of participants’ perceptions of SIP and key themes in the processes involved in their forming SIP. Quotes were then selected from the data that best represented the central concepts emergent from the analyses.

Trustworthiness, or the degree to which study findings are supported by evidence and can be trusted as accurate reflections of participants’ experiences (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), was enhanced through three means. First, bias was reduced by investigator triangulation: by analyzing data separately, comparing findings, and discussing discrepancies until reaching consensus (Denzin, 1978). Second, we thoroughly documented the process of data analysis. Third, emerging interpretations of the data were discussed on a regular basis with the second author and other senior scholars with expertise in adolescent development and immigrant youth and families.

Results

A first important finding was that nearly all youth recognized that they were indebted to their parents and were able to discuss how this indebtedness was related to their parents’ immigration-related experiences. Most described this sense of indebtedness as either newly gained or as having become more salient and meaningful during emerging adulthood.

Objective 1: Conceptualizing SIP

The first objective was to describe and better conceptualize KA youth’s SIP by examining their pertinent perceptions and experiences. Two broad themes pertaining to participants’ perceptions of their parents emerged as important elements of their SIP across the sample: (a) parental sacrifice and (b) child-centered parental intentions. These two themes were closely intertwined and related to the immigrant experience.

Parental sacrifice

Perceptions of parental sacrifice were central to the participants’ narratives about their parents’ lives. Their ideas of parental sacrifice were described through highlighting parental cost related to migration and hardships after migration.

Parental cost related to migration

Many KA youth’s perceptions of parental cost pertained to their parents’ immigration. Many talked about their parents’ giving up their families and familiar culture back in Korea. Sam, a 20-year-old Asian American studies major, for example, said, “My parents were basically cut off from Korea and other Koreans.” Ellen, a 22-year-old biology major, also spoke with empathy:

[my mom] is the only one [among her family] who came to the States, and she hasn’t seen her family for over almost 18 years . . . and just thinking like, “Oh my god, she hasn’t seen her sisters or brothers or her mother and father for over 18 years. How hard would that be to be on your own and live in another country that you’re not familiar with?”

Their perceptions of parental cost appeared to be more strongly triggered if they believed that their parents’ life conditions could be much better if they had stayed in Korea. For example, Sam described how his mother gave up a comfortable life by emigrating to the United States:

My mom’s side, she has no brothers and sisters here in America. I went to Korea this past summer, and if you look at it, all her siblings are very affluent . . . and so my mom gave up a very comfortable lifestyle and that influenced how I look at my mom. She had to work a lot, something I’m pretty sure of it . . . So it’s just a lot of sacrifice in that sense.

As evident in Sam’s case, some participants’ new sense of parental cost was derived from their perceptions of their parents’ downward social mobility as they gave up their middle-class status and white-collar jobs in Korea and then took undesirable jobs in the United States, often due to their lack of English proficiency. Joanne, a 23-year-old computer engineer, described the cost that her parents paid by giving up their occupations as teachers and becoming a mail carrier and dry cleaner owners in the new country: “what my parents gave up in Korea . . . they gave up a nice middle-class life being teachers.”

Parental cost after migration

Critical in many accounts of parental sacrifice was the perception that their parents endured hardships after migration. These perceptions of parental hardships, which appeared to become more salient during emerging adulthood, were often related to challenges in adjusting to a new country, including challenging work, financial struggle, a language barrier, cultural differences, and a new environment without a support system, such as family and friends.

Common among our participants’ narratives was their use of vivid images of suffering parents for whom immigration had involved large sacrifices. Many were able to provide varying degrees of detailed descriptions of their parents’ initial experiences settling down in a new country, listing different jobs that their parents had had. They reported that at least one of their parents was “always working,” “always tired,” and “often not around” because of work. Particularly among youth whose parents had demanding work schedules (e.g., over 60 hours per week) and physically demanding work (e.g., dry cleaners, night shift nurse), physical fatigue and health-related struggles of their parents were often recalled. Jason, a 25-year-old sushi chef who had seen his mother work many hours as a primary breadwinner at a dry cleaner, said “tired all the time” was the first image that came to his mind when he thought of her.

In addition to the hardship of parental jobs, participants’ described parents’ status as immigrants as a major hardship and challenge that their parents endured. Ann, a 20 year-old bio-chemical engineering student, related,

It was harder for [my parents] because they didn’t speak English and had to start their own business. They couldn’t work for a company because their English was limited. My non-Korean friends, their parents work for someone or work for a company, whereas my parents I feel they had to start from scratch.

Some accounts of parents’ challenges included discrimination and physical danger they had encountered in a new country, particularly as many of their business were located in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Child-centered parental intentions

Participants’ understanding of parental cost was often accompanied by recognition that parents’ hardships as immigrants were for the sake of their children—for their own success and better life in the new country. They reported, “My parents sacrificed a lot of their stuff to come here and to make us have a good future,” “when I think about immigration, my parents gave up a lot for our education here,” and “they came here . . . to provide us better opportunities.” Most participants recounted that their parents’ strenuous labor and hardships were endured for their benefit.

For a majority of youth, this child-centeredness was evident in parents’ lack of self-enjoyment or self-investment. They described their parents as devoted and thrifty (or “stingy”) breadwinners whose primary focus in life was their children. Parents concentrated all their time and resources on their children’s education and success, at the cost of their own happiness.

Most participants reported that spending money on themselves, going out by themselves for their own enjoyment, or other simple self-indulgences engaged in by other U.S. adults were unthinkable to their parents. Ashley, a 19-year-old pre-med student, said,

Like [my parents] don’t go out with each other, they don’t treat themselves . . . And in terms of their own happiness, my mom, she’s not like other moms who go out for like manicures or anything. She doesn’t even comprehend that idea. It’s always for like her kids and stuff . . . I think [Caucasian parents] are more self-centered in terms of like happiness of everyone, that everyone should be happy.

Conclusion: The shared experience of SIP

Across the sample, youth appeared to describe a shared narrative that led to their sense of indebtedness to their parents. This shared narrative included their parents giving up a life in Korea, experiencing hardship and self-denial in the immigrant life in the United States, and investment in their children at the cost of their own happiness. Despite the earlier parent-child challenges and conflicts, our participants had come to recognize the large and accumulated sacrifice that their parents endured to provide a better future for their children. In recounting the change in their view of their parents, these youth appeared to be placing themselves in a Korean cultural narrative of filial piety. Yet the new obligation they felt to their parents was not usually described as an unconditional cultural mandate; it was described as a debt owed to their parents for their sacrifice.

Objective 2: Processes in the Development of SIP

The second objective of the study was to examine the processes through which KA youth formed SIP. What were the catalysts in emerging adulthood that activated awareness of their parents sacrifice and a sense of indebtedness to their parents? We identified four processes that the participants said contributed to their formation of SIP. These included maturation, ethnic peer network, physical distance from parents, and personal experiences.

Maturation

Many participants reported that age and maturation were a contributor to their formation of SIP. For example, Mary, a 22-year-old finance major, said, “I think if anything, I became more and more grateful as I got older.” Jason elaborated, “I think as I got more mature I was able to see that [how much my parents have done for me].” The majority of participants reported that it was not until later in life, particularly during emerging adulthood, that they became more aware of their parents’ sacrifice and hardship for them. Eunice, a 23-year-old teacher, clarified, “I don’t think back in high school I would have said, ‘Yeah, my parents are sacrificing anything.’” But now, as a young adult she had gained the maturity to realize this.

A subgroup of participants, all girls, reported that they were somewhat conscious of their parents’ sacrifice and hardship earlier and that they had always felt grateful toward their parents. These girls, however, also agreed that their understanding and meaning they attributed to their parents’ work and sacrifice became greater as they got older. Ellen, for example, explained, “I think that [awareness of parents’ sacrifice for her] has always been there.” She then added “but as a younger kid, I probably would not have paid as much attention. I’m like growing up and becoming more aware.”

Salient in the changes of KA youth in our study was their increased cognitive ability to take their parents’ perspective—a developmental achievement associated with later adolescence and emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2004). They recounted coming to see their past experiences in a new light, in which they were more understanding of their parents’ actions and intentions. Jason, for example, described how he now understands his parents’ intention behind the pressure they had placed on him to succeed academically:

When I was young, I felt like my parents didn’t care about me, but they just wanted me to do well at school. I really thought that was it. But now I know that is not it. They were just pushing me so I could be more successful. Now I know they wanted me to have a good future.

Participants also reported that they became better able to empathize with their parents. One said that now, “I realize [my mom] has her own feelings too. Like before I used to think it was just all about me.” Another said, “It used to be all about me but . . . I can see how hard it must’ve been for [my parents].” As evident in these accounts, youth’s increased ability to see their parents’ perspectives helped them relate to their parents at a deeper personal level. With the new ability to see things from their parents’ perspective, they appeared to be better able to see their role in their parents’ immigration story by finding personal meaning of parental hardship: They came to connect their parental experience to themselves.

Participation in an ethnic peer network

Participants also reported that interactions with peers served as a catalyst for their meaning-making processes. This process occurred most often when they entered college and interacted with co-ethnic peers. They reported that hearing about other Asian youth’s similar experiences helped them place their own experience in a broader collective context—namely, that of being raised by Korean/Asian immigrant parents. Paul said, “It was good to know that it wasn’t just me . . . Other Asian kids also had that issue [of controlling parents].” Esther added, “[Other KA peers] know exactly what I’m talking about when I say ‘Korean parents.’”

Participants described how this knowledge-sharing among ethnic peers included not only family challenges but also stories of parental hardship and sacrifice. For example, Erica, a 21-year-old psychology major, described how she had seen her parents as “ridiculously strict” and “weird.” But she learned it was because “I was always comparing to Caucasian families. I always thought that . . . like their mom’s cool.” Her Korean peers have helped her see things from her parents’ point of view, “My friends tell me about how their parents came to the US and have gone through a lot . . . It made me think about my own parents.” These conversations helped Erica see things from her parents’ perspective.

Gaining physical distance from parents

Another factor that contributed to participants’ development of SIP was gaining physical distance from parents. While some were currently living with their parents, all had a period during which they had moved away from home, usually during college. They said this distance—being away from the daily hassles and sources of conflict with parents—gave them space to process their past family experiences. Distance seemed to facilitate perspective-taking. Joshua, a 20-year-old economics major, explained this process:

When I went to college, my first taste of true freedom . . . when you’re away, you start to think about, I suppose, your understanding of relationships and the way that things move. You’re not in it, so you’re not in the situation where you’re emotionally invested and such. But now you’re apart from it and you can think more logically . . . When you’re in that situation you can’t think as logically. But now that I’m away from that, from college especially in the past couple of years, I started to understand my parents’ motives more and the way they think more and why they did things.

Moreover, their new independence—having to take on responsibilities for themselves—seemed to help them appreciate what their parents used to do for them. Eunice described how, since she left home for college, she had struggled with increased responsibilities to “study, doing dishes and laundry, paying bills, and all these stuff I have to do myself.” She explained how this changed her view of her parents:

I’m living away from my parents, you know, that’s like the first time I’ve moved away, I could kind of see what my parents did and how much effort and sacrifices they made. I could sense it more and be aware more than in high school years.

Personal experiences

Finally, many youth reported specific personal experiences as a source of transformation through which they came to adopt a new perspective regarding their parents. For some, completing college applications helped them realize the financial burden they impose on their parents. For others, it was a new job. Ellen said,

When I got my first job and that’s when I knew, like I experienced working, trying to make money for myself, and it was hard. And that’s when I knew, “Oh wow, so this is what my mom goes through every day, but 10 times worse because she works by herself.”

Several participants described religious or spiritual transformation as catalysts for changes in their perspective toward their parents. These transformations enabled them to perceive their parents through newly found sympathetic and forgiving eyes. For example, Susie, a 21-year-old education major, described how her faith brought changes in her perspective by helping her process her past experiences and embrace parental limitations that used to be a source of conflict:

I used to be very very selfish before. I think after I became Christian I’m learning more and more to become selfless, like trying to think less about myself and more about other people. I think after I became Christian, I’d spend a lot of time just thinking to myself, just reflecting on my life and I’d just try to process everything . . . I used to think my parents are supposed to be perfect people . . . I really started to understand that they are just human, too. Like even though they are older than me and are my parents, they are not going to be perfect. I think I just really started to understand that.

Other youth provided similar descriptions of how their active religious life helped them become more sympathetic toward their parents and be able to forgive parents or accept shortcomings.

Other personal experiences also led to a better understanding of parents among participants. These included events that made them aware of their own flaws—or of their parents’ mortality. Eric, a 19-year-old, had barely finished high school and had had no clear future plan. However, dealing with the consequences of his past drug addiction triggered self-reevaluation and put him in a position to better see things through his parents’ perspective. For Jason, his mother’s cancer caused him to reinterpret her past hardship through a meaningful lens of sacrifice. These events appeared to be a stimulus for meaning-making, for youth to gain new perspectives on their own and others’ experiences.

Discussion

Immigrants in the United States face major challenges adjusting to their new country; in turn, their children experience second-order challenges in relating to and understanding their parents (e.g., Ahn et al., 2008; Tsai et al., 2001). Emerging adulthood may be an important period in children’s process of addressing these challenges. In this study, we explored SIP as a key element in this process for KA youth. Our findings suggest that SIP provides an interpretive frame through which they reinterpret their past family challenges. The large sacrifices their parents have made through immigration and immigration-related hardship come into focus. By interpreting their experiences through the SIP frame, participants identified themselves with a shared cultural narrative among immigrant KA families, one that appears to incorporate the cultural notion of filial piety. The analyses also show that their processes of forming SIP are catalyzed by developmental and life changes associated with emerging adulthood.

Our findings lead to a definition of SIP as “a person’s recognition of his or her obligations to parents due to his or her parents’ child-centered immigration aspirations and their sacrifice for the sake of their children.” Two elements emerged as essential to this construct. First, KA youth reported their perceptions of parental sacrifice, emphasizing the costs their parents had incurred by leaving Korea and cutting themselves off from their families, and by enduring downward social mobility, grinding hard work, and the forgoing of personal pleasures that came with life as new immigrants in the United States. Second, youth often narrated their recognition of their parents’ child-centeredness that the parents’ sacrifice had been made on the youth’s own behalf. Most participants came to incorporate the concept of parental sacrifice and child-centered intentions into their own narratives of their family life. A third element was suggested by our finding that youth interpreted their parents’ sacrifice on their behalf through a cultural frame of filial piety. They appeared to assimilate their perceptions of their parents’ sacrifice into the cultural framework of children’s obligation to their parents—they provided a tangible and personal reference to this abstract cultural concept.

Participants in this study described forming this sense of indebtedness through processes related to cognitive, social, residential, and existential changes in their lives. These were mostly changes linked to the age period of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2003, 2004). They reported that as they became more cognitively mature, they became more capable of de-centering from the self and seeing their parents’ perspectives. With this change, youth were able to more fully recognize the personal costs their parents had paid and came to empathize with them. Emerging adulthood also brings increased cognitive abilities to understand the cumulative role of events and circumstance in shaping human actions (Habermas & Bluck, 2000). For example, they were more able to understand the reasons behind their parents’ absence from their lives in childhood and adolescence. Rather than seeing it as a fault, they now saw their parents’ long hours at work as a symbol of parental sacrifice, as a trade-off in which parents forfeited time with their children to “provide a better future” for them. With an increased capacity to take their parents’ perspective, they saw the positive intentions behind their parents’ actions.

KA youth’s newfound indebtedness to their parents was also facilitated by social processes—namely, increased interaction with peers from similar cultural and family backgrounds. Research shows that peers can be a frequent arena for youth from immigrant backgrounds to explore and work on issues of bi-cultural identity (Larson, Jensen, Kang, Griffith, & Rompala, 2012). For these KA youth, conversations with peers, for many in dense college KA peer networks, served as a catalyst for growing awareness of collective cultural experiences, including not just immigration but the experience of being raised by Korean parents. These conversations helped them recognize cultural scripts within their own families, which often fostered the process of taking their parents’ perspectives and interpreting parents’ behavior through a cultural frame. This meaning-making process also appeared to help participants normalize their parents’ shortcomings, and reinterpret their parents’ past actions as culturally motivated rather than as personal flaws.

Participants reported that increased physical distance and independence from their parents, due to their enrollment in a college or a job, also facilitated their reinterpretation of parents’ past behavior. Research shows that emerging adults who have more physical distance from their parents tend to get along better with them and value their opinions, compared with their counterparts (Dubas & Petersen, 1996). Our participants reported that living in a separate residence and experiencing less daily parent-child conflicts helped them see past conflicts from a detached “more logical” vantage point and develop more empathy toward their parents. Moreover, increased responsibility—having to do things for themselves—sometimes invoked new appreciation of what their parents had done for them, to better see the magnitude of their indebtedness to them.

Last, many participants reported existential experiences that granted them new perspectives on their parents. Diverse life experiences such as work are typical common and salient experience during emerging adulthood as part of their identity development process (Arnett, 2004; A. Taylor, 2005). For some of the KA youth in our study, work experiences helped them empathize with their parents’ long and hard labor when they were children. For others, religious transformations allowed them to see parents’ shortcoming through a spiritual frame of human frailty. This is not surprising given the significant role of religion and ethnic churches in the lives of many KA youth and families (Chong, 1998). Other personally significant events, including personal transgressions and dealing with a parent’s illness, helped youth take new perspectives and give new meaning to their parents’ past sacrifices.

Across these different catalytic processes, the data suggested that the Korean ethnic community as a whole played a role in shaping participants’ formation of SIP. The shared immigrant experiences of hardship and sacrifice for children, we believe, contributed to a collective narrative in the KA ethnic community, one that is communicated through ethnic churches, family members, and people in the community. Similar shared immigration narratives that give meaning and purpose to hardships have been described for other immigrant groups (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1995; Zhou, 1998).

These findings show a collective pattern of constructing narratives of parental sacrifice in emerging adulthood. This in turn suggests the importance of examining the family experiences of young adults from diverse immigrant and cultural groups during this life stage. It is a significant period because of the many transitions taking place, including developmental, educational, occupational, and other life changes. These changes may involve similar experience among different groups; for example, increased abilities for perspective-taking may be a catalyst for changes in relationships to parents across groups. Emerging adults in other immigrant groups may also benefit from enormous parental sacrifice on their behalf—and may come to appreciate it more as they experience increased responsibilities, move away from home, or have other experiences associated with emerging adulthood.

The present findings, however, must be interpreted with the study’s limitations in mind. First, our discussion in this article was driven by data obtained from a sample of 25 youth that may not have been fully representative of KA emerging adults. The majority of participants were well-educated and most were enrolled in or had graduated from a 4-year college. Although this generally reflects the current high rates of college enrollment among Asian American high school graduates (82.2%, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012), the experience of KA youth who never attended college may differ from those of the participants in this study. Second, the interview was conducted at one time point and relied on retrospective accounts. This is appropriate, given our focus on youth’s subjective meaning-making and interpretations rather than objective fact. Nonetheless, longitudinal research would be useful to obtain a more complete understanding of how these interpretations and the formation of SIP develop from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Comparative research would also be helpful to understand how processes differ across cultural groups that differ in immigration and family experiences. Finally, obtaining parents’ perspectives would be useful to further understand how SIP is formed and experienced among KA youth and families.

Despite these limitations, our findings suggest that KA youth’s SIP is a distinct phenomenon that focuses on immigrant sacrifice in combination with cultural notions of filial obligation. These emerging adults’ reinterpretation of family experiences through a lens of parental sacrifice and hardship seemed to trigger or intensify their cultural sense of filial piety. After experiencing challenging relationships with their parents in adolescence, the process of attributing personal meaning to their parents’ immigrant hardship and sacrifice appeared to help them become more in sync with the Korean cultural concept of children’s obligation to their parents. In other words, KA youth’s SIP may serve as a vehicle that brings out their investment in latent cultural meaning systems.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Hyeyoung Kang is an assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University, State University of New York. She received her PhD in human and community development at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include immigrant youth and families, parent-adolescent relationships, and positive youth development.

Reed W. Larson is a professor in the Departments of Human and Community Development, Psychology, and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the daily developmental experience of adolescents, particularly in the context of youth development programs and families. He is the author of Divergent Realities: The Emotional Lives of Mothers, Fathers, and Adolescents (with Maryse Richards) and Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years (with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). He has served as the president of the Society for Research on Adolescence and is editor-in-chief of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development (with Lene Jensen).

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