Taiwanese Immigrant Mothers' Childcare Preferences ... - APA PsycNET

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 2011, Vol. 17, No. 4, 437– 443

© 2011 American Psychological Association 1099-9809/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0025435

Taiwanese Immigrant Mothers’ Childcare Preferences: Socialization for Bicultural Competency Lynet Uttal and Ching yun Han

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

University of Wisconsin–Madison This paper explores how middle-class Taiwanese immigrant mothers in the United States defined the benefits of placing their children in predominantly White American childcare centers instead of using more culturally familiar forms of care. From in-depth interviews with seven Taiwanese immigrant mothers, it was learned that they viewed these settings positively, even though their children were not in cultural environments that mirrored their homes and ethnic communities. Mothers explained that they purposefully chose this type of setting because 1) they desired to develop their children’s social competency in U.S. society; 2) they perceived U.S. childcare settings as multicultural and accepting of diverse cultures even if they were in the minority; and 3) they were confident that their children’s participation in their own Taiwanese ethnic community would ensure the maintenance of their children’s ethnic identity and knowledge of their parents’ culture. For these reasons, they did not seek out race matching or cultural congruity between childcare centers and their homes. Instead, mothers viewed the childcare center as part of their overall socialization strategy for developing their children’s bicultural competency in both their heritage culture as well as U.S. society. Keywords: multiculturalism, bicultural competency, immigrant parenting

parents feel more comfortable with childcare settings and providers who resemble themselves in order to ensure racial safety, as well as maintenance of their cultural values and traditions (Hertz & Ferguson, 1996; Joffe, 1977; Uttal, 1996). In popular language, “White childcare centers” are those in which the majority of children and their families and the staff are of White racial and European ethnic heritage. This is an observable characteristic that parents can assess when looking for a childcare setting for their children. There is some evidence that in choosing childcare arrangements, racial/ethnic parents assess the racial/ethnic composition of the setting and staff and what they assume this means (Joffe, 1977; Uttal, 1996, 1997). Hertz and Ferguson (1996) found that Black parents expected staff to be aware of the different ways race shapes social interactions. In another study, parents purposefully looked for staff with experience in talking about racial matters and equipped to provide heightened racial awareness (Joffe, 1977). Parents expressed that they thought it was essential for children’s identity formation that staff can talk about race and children can be proud of who they are. Uttal (1996) found that racial/ethnic parents from low-income to middle-class status perceived racial and ethnic matching as a protective strategy against racism and ethnic discrimination. Another factor that racial/ethnic parents take into account is the match between the cultural values and practices of home and the childcare setting. Researchers have generally assumed that a relationship exists between ethnic images and cultural practices in the childcare context and the formulation of self-images and cultural transmission (Hale, 1991). In a national study of White, Black, and Latino parental selection of childcare arrangements, Fuller, Holloway, and Liang (1996) found that the primary factor that prevented Latinos from using center-based care was a cultural conflict

Research on childcare preferences of racial minority families in the United States has found that there is a strong preference for matching the race, ethnicity, and culture of children with the staff and children in the childcare settings (Alcalay, 1996-97; Hertz & Ferguson, 1996; Joffe, 1977). Cultural congruity between home and care settings has been theorized as important for positive child development (Wise & Sanson, 2000). Furthermore, many childcare programs are actively developing multicultural curriculums and hiring staff that reflects the race and ethnicity of the children (Gonzalez–Mena, 2000). Due to the increasing diversity of families in the United States, along with the rise in the use of out-of-home childcare arrangements, racial, ethnic, and cultural practices of individual families have become important considerations in childcare settings. In this paper, we refer to families whose race, cultural, and ethnic heritages make them distinctive, as well as “because they reside in a society where racial stratification shapes family resources and structures in important ways” (Baca Zinn, 1994, p. 306) as “racial/ ethnic families”. Johnson, Jaeger, Randolph, and Cauce (2003) warn researchers to pay attention to the meaning of race, ethnicity, and culture in defining quality in childcare settings. Previous research has shown that the meaning that parents attribute to race, ethnicity, and culture in childcare settings also influences the type of care parents may seek out. Nonimmigrant Black and Latino

Lynet Uttal and Ching yun Han, Human Development & Family Studies and the Asian American Studies Program, University of WisconsinMadison. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lynet Uttal, Human Development & Family Studies, 1305 Linden Drive, #338, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53704. E-mail: [email protected] 437

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between the Latino parents and the childcare staff. Matching the child’s and provider’s culture is also a strategy used by mothers to promote cultural maintenance (Uttal, 1996). In a more recent study of low-income Chinese immigrant families, parental preferences for language and culture retention motivated parents to send their American-born children to reside in the parents’ native country (Kwong, Chung, Sun, Chou & Taylor-Shih, 2009). In contrast, other Chinese immigrant parents seem to understand their child’s place as a racial or ethnic minority in a childcare setting differently than U.S.-born and -raised racial/ethnic parents. Siu (1994) described one working-class Chinese immigrant family that purposefully sought cultural differences by placing their child in White childcare settings. At first glance, their acceptance of White childcare settings seems counterintuitive to the popular wisdom that parents are more comfortable with having people like themselves take care of their young children, as well as the academic research in educational studies that has increasingly pressed for more cultural continuity and racial representativeness between home and educational settings in staff hiring and multicultural programming. In this study, we examine the reasons that well-educated, middle class Taiwanese immigrant mothers gave for purposefully exposing their children to racially and culturally different sociocultural environments that differed from their home environments and ethnic communities. This study reveals alternative understandings of the meanings that parents may attribute to race composition, multiculturalism, and cultural differences in childcare settings.

Immigrant Families and Child Care Immigrant families face a variety of stressors, including language barriers, lack of extended family networks, and cultural differences when relocating to a new country (Alcalay, 1996 – 1997; Becerra & Chi, 1992; Inglis, 1985). Schnur et al. (1995) have suggested that childcare settings play a critical role in helping immigrant families build a connection between themselves and the host society because they are frequently one of the first cultural institutions immigrant families have contact with after immigration services and local social-service programs. Childcare providers can provide a culturally supportive environment that lessens stress and strangeness, while at the same time fostering immigrant children’s adaptation to a new culture in ways that their parents cannot. The differences between two cultural systems— one from the parents’ country of origin and the other from U.S. society—are being reconciled on a daily basis by immigrant families. In addition to general concerns when selecting care, such as ability to pay and availability of extended family to provide care, language also shapes an immigrant parent’s choice of childcare setting (Alcalay, 1996 –1997; Becerra & Chi, 1992; Inglis, 1985; Schnur et al., 1995). Often times, non-English-speaking immigrant parents opt for spousal or relative care, not because that was the kind of care they preferred, but because they could communicate with their child’s caregiver (Inglis, 1985). Yet, what stands out as a puzzle is that some immigrant parents purposefully placed their children in White childcare centers (Becerra & Chi, 1992; Siu, 1994). This choice to use a White childcare center was made even though in other studies, Chinese immigrant parents also expressed strong concerns about conflict-

ing mannerisms being taught at home and in the child care setting, such as how adults are to be addressed by children (Auerbach, 1975). One possible explanation that has been suggested is that Chinese immigrant parents view U.S. childcare centers as a site that provides the language and social education necessary for social mobility in U.S. society (Becerra & Chi, 1992; Siu, 1994). In this study, we explored this puzzling practice in greater detail in order to develop a deeper understanding of the meaning that Taiwanese immigrant parents attribute to predominantly White childcare centers and why some immigrant parents are unlike U.S.-born Black and Latino parents in holding a positive view of placing their children in predominantly White childcare settings.

Method In depth interviews were used because of the exploratory nature of the puzzle about why immigrant mothers were using White childcare centers. This qualitative method allowed for the participants’ meaning of their lived experiences and the broadest range of responses to be expressed (Gubrium & Holstein, 1993). Although there are many ways to analyze this kind of meaning data, the analytic framework for this study is an interpretive phenomenological one. The purpose of an interpretive phenomenological approach is to start with “meaning” data that is grounded in the lived experiences of research participants (this is typical of most qualitative approaches), but where it diverges from grounded theory method or consensual qualitative research method is that the goal of the research is to interpret the meaning of this lived experience for insights to develop concepts that better explain a puzzling phenomenon. According to Diekelmann (2001), in interpretive phenomenology, the researcher seeks to reveal hidden interpretations and bring them to light (not to only describe or clarify what are already known patterns). For example, in this paper, the observation requiring a deeper interpretation is why did the Taiwanese immigrant mothers prefer different race childcare when previous academic research has shown that non-White mothers prefer racial matching? This analytic approach permits the researcher to bring in his or her own interpretation of the data in conjunction with other knowledge from previous academic research. Interpretive phenomenology explains the apparent contradiction or complexity that arises when the collected data are compared to previously existing theories or knowledge or alternative information provided by respondents themselves. The credibility of the analysis is dependent on the strength of the argument that the researcher-as-interpreter makes. Mason (2003) states that this kind of explanation produces social explanations and addresses social puzzles. She points out that . . . making an argument is the construction of a perspective, an interpretation, or a line of reasoning or analysis and, significantly, it requires this to be a relational process, in which the researcher is continually thinking about and engaging with those to whom the argument is being made as well as, of course, the grounds on which they think the argument stands (p. 173).

The final argument should be convincing to the reader. The data were originally collected for Ching yun Han’s master’s thesis in 2001. With her permission, these ideas have since been revisited and rewritten by her advisor, Lynet Uttal. Informed


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consent was obtained from the participants and the study was conducted in compliance with the Institutional Review Board at our university. Sampling criteria. Purposive sampling (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was used to identify immigrant mothers who had at least one preschool-aged child (3–5 years old) enrolled in a childcare center that was used by White families and staffed by White childcare providers, residing in Madison, Wisconsin. In order to be included in this study, the immigrant mothers had to have lived in the United States at least 2 years and considered themselves to have relocated permanently to the United States at the time of their interviews. They were initially chosen to explore how immigrant parents were selecting their childcare arrangements and experiencing them. Madison, Wisconsin, is a university town with a large population of international scholars and students, and a very small number of Taiwanese immigrants who are not associated with the university. The focus on race- and culture-matching as a puzzle emerged during the interviews. Parents who were students at the local university were excluded, because members of that group are more likely to plan to return to their home countries after completing their education. By excluding temporary residents and very recent immigrants, this study removed the confounding explanations that differing race and cultural values may be acceptable in temporary, short-term care. Participants. The final sample for this article included seven middle-class Taiwanese immigrant mothers. The mothers had been living in the United States for a range of 2.5–15 years. Their ages ranged from late 20s to late 30s. All but one were highly educated (masters degree or more). All but one were employed at the time of the interview. They held a variety of occupations (such as bilingual resource specialist, computer programming and sales, accounting, nursing, and research associate, check processing). They had one to three children, and the average age of their youngest child was 4 years old. Half of the children went to preschool full time and the other half went part time. The mothers were using their current preschools for an average of 1.5 years. The average age of their children when they started preschool was 2.5 to 3 years old. All used preschools (two at the university lab preschool, five at private for-profit preschools.) All names used are pseudonyms. Data collection. All interviews were conducted by Ching yun Han in Mandarin Chinese and each lasted approximately two hours. Mothers were interviewed in their homes. The purpose of this study was to understand a narrow range of topics in depth, so the major domains of perceptions of childcare that were asked in

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the interview schedule included questions about current childcare arrangements, what they expected from early childhood education programs, and any concerns about their arrangements. Questions allowed the mothers to define their experiences in their own terms. They were also directly asked about their perceptions of the racial and ethnic composition of their child’s preschool and about the racial and cultural differences between home and the preschool, and how their child was treated by the preschool staff, as well as about their interest in maintaining Taiwanese culture and their expectations for Taiwanese culture to be represented in the childcare setting. Probe questions were asked by the interviewer as they were relevant to the topic being discussed. Ching yun Han transcribed interviews verbatim in Mandarin Chinese and translated quotes only after they were selected for use. Data analysis. Transcripts were first open-coded by Ching yun Han for ideas in each interview. These ideas were shared in English with Lynet Uttal. We discussed the assumptions that we used to categorize and group them into themes across interviews. Ching yun Han used her own familiarity with Taiwanese culture combined with the participants’ responses to interpret their views regarding child care. Through careful listening to their words, sentences, and stories of their experiences, the meanings of race, ethnicity, and culture in childcare settings were explored. Because Lynet Uttal does not speak Mandarin Chinese, discussions and decisions about the interviews’ content were made based on English translations by Ching yun Han. Lynet Uttal asked interrogating questions to ensure that Ching yun Han’s interpretations were grounded in the data and not imported assumptions from her own world view. Because we were puzzled about the mothers’ lack of mention of concerns about racism or discrimination which contrasted with earlier childcare research findings, we wrote this paper to explore the meaning of racial and ethnic difference to this group.

Acculturation to American Society Although care was available in a Taiwanese childcare center, the mothers all had chosen to place their children in a predominantly White childcare setting with mostly White children and staff. None of the mothers were concerned that their child was the only one or one of few Asian children in a predominantly White childcare center, nor did they report any adverse treatment of their children on the basis of race, ethnic, or cultural discrimination, even though these questions were explicitly asked by the interviewer. Because this was not the expected answer, it led to the analysis on what then do the racial and cultural differences mean to immigrant parents.

Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of Chinese Immigrant Mothers Name

Immigration status

Education

Ages of children (in years)

Employment

Length of time in United States

Lu Yuen Kai Nin Shu Jean Wen Lee Yin Ting Yuh Ling Hsiu-An

Permanent resident U.S. citizen Permanent resident Permanent resident U.S. citizen Permanent resident U.S. citizen

Masters degree Masters degree Postdoctorate Missing data Masters degree Masters degree Masters degree

4, 7 3, 5, 9 4, 7 3 5, 7 4, 7 5, 10

Bilingual resource specialist Self-employed in computer sales Postdoctoral scholar at university Check processor Financial analyst at an insurance company Housewife Nurse at university hospital

More than 2 years More than 2 years More than 2 years 2.5 10 10 15


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The primary reason Taiwanese immigrant mothers gave for using their predominantly White childcare centers was their desire for their children to become acculturated to living in the United States. First and foremost, the mothers wanted their children to learn English. A second commonly heard reason was that the mothers wanted their children to understand the social skills of the United States. For example, Shu Jean, the mother of a 4-year-old daughter said, “I feel that they have to go to preschool, but I feel that it is not for academic knowledge, but for the social aspect.” The mothers specifically wanted their children to learn what they referred to as “American” practices and mannerisms. Yuh Ling wanted her 4-year-old son to understand American cultural ways because:

environments prior to coming to the United States. They viewed the United States as a country composed of various races, which was novel to them. They did not view their childcare settings as just “White,” which is often how Black and Latino parents describe predominantly White childcare settings. Instead, several Taiwanese immigrant mothers expressed that they viewed them as multiracial environments because they saw children of other races and the settings had multicultural curriculums, even when the number of White children was the majority. They did not view their minority numbers in the racial composition of the childcare setting as threatening nor did they report experiencing racism. For example, Hsiu An expressed her perception of how Americans handle race in this multiracial society:

I want my child to fit in and feel integrated because he was born here and this is where he is going to live and work. Like everybody else, he needs to have contact with all kinds of different people. I don’t want him to have only contact with us because when you go outside, the world is not like this.

The United States has many good things, like people are from many other places. There are all kinds of people. I like the open-mindness of Americans.

Taiwanese immigrant parents also recognized that there were different styles of interactions that one needed to learn in order to function effectively in U.S. society. For example, Yuh Ling understood the importance of learning how relationships work between Americans: I feel that the main reason that I sent him out [to his childcare center] is to allow him to communicate and interact with others because it is important to learn the life skills . . . so I hope he can interact with others because in United States to have interaction with others is a very important part of life, especially for us Taiwanese. In appearance we are already different than others, and my son is very shy. So we need to strengthen our social skills. The majority of our friends are Taiwanese, and Taiwanese to Taiwanese interaction may be different than Asian and American interaction, so he needs to understand that. He needs to learn how to negotiate with others and share toys and so on. That is very important. At home, it is very different, everybody will give in, but when you go out [into U.S. society] you need to learn to negotiate.

In this quote, she briefly acknowledges racial differences (“in appearance we are already different than others”), but more importantly, she reasoned that her son would be exposed to American children and this would help him acquire the self-confidence and social skills necessary to function in interactions with Americans. Furthermore, immigrant mothers acknowledged that they could not teach their children “how to be American,” so the childcare setting was a strategy to garner these skills for their children. In summary, the immigrant Taiwanese mothers wanted the skills that the childcare centers would provide because they wanted to promote their children’s integration into U.S. society. Their children needed to learn the social expectations and norms of U.S. society and how to function in U.S. society. These findings confirm what other studies have found about what immigrant parents’ want for their children (Becerra & Chi, 1992; Lu, 2000).

Multiracial Environments, Multiculturalism, and the Risk of Racism A surprising finding to us was that Taiwanese immigrant mothers did not have previous experiences with living in multiracial

Instead of defining racial and cultural differences as problematic or potentially discriminatory, the mothers embraced differences as a positive quality of U.S. society. There are several other possible explanations for why Taiwanese immigrant mothers were less concerned about racial and cultural differences than have been heard from other American racial/ ethnic parents. Cultural misunderstandings and associated conflicts were often perceived as their own fault for not knowing the norms of U.S. society. And when their children experienced cultural conflicts, the mothers blamed their children’s lack of cultural knowledge to explain the negativity their children experienced from others. Mothers also perceived racial or cultural differences as unavoidable in this country. They understood that some rudeness would come with some people. One mother interpreted these differences as failures to be open-minded, something that is a universal characteristic, not specific to racism: Well, I won’t use the word discrimination. I tell my daughter that among the Taiwanese people there are some who are not very friendly and among the Americans there are friendly ones and not friendly ones as well. So why see yourself in an inferior position and see yourself being discriminated against. There are all kinds of people. Some people are more open-minded and friendly and others are not. You can’t ask them to be the way you want them to be. It is the same in Taiwanese society. Why portray Americans any differently?

They conveyed to their children the message that conflict arising from cultural differences and misunderstandings is not prejudice or social rejection based on their racial features. Part of the social learning the mothers valued was learning how to live in a multicultural, multiracial society. Multiculturalism is the acceptance of cultural pluralism (Berry, 2003). Immigrant mothers perceived that U.S society emphasizes multiculturalism and communication skills much more than their home countries. These reasons may explain why this specific group of Taiwanese immigrant mothers responded differently to race and cultural differences than how the research literature has found how Black and Latino parents respond. The social history of a racial/ethnic group will shape their contemporary views of race and racism. There is heightened social awareness in the United States of the history of discrimination against Blacks, and recently, increasing awareness about this for Latinos. Their historical backgrounds are


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filled with negative memories of oppression and assimilation efforts and this collective memory will darken how they view race differences (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). They have also collectively and individually experienced racism and discrimination themselves. Thus, Black and Latino American parents are more aware of the potentialities of racism and cultural devaluation when choosing and using childcare settings. They may also endorse the teaching of recent social movements such as the Black Power movement and Chicano movement and their social histories. Thus, Black and Latino parents ask U.S. society, even in childcare settings, for their cultural history heritage and ethnic identities to be acknowledged and valued (Hertz & Ferguson, 1996; Joffe, 1977; Uttal, 1996). In the next section, we discuss how the Taiwanese immigrants mothers complemented the centers’ teaching about U.S. culture with their own cultural values through teachings at home and in their own communities. By combining these complementary sites of socialization, Taiwanese immigrant parents expect their children to learn how to be biculturally competent.

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I think Americans have a lot of virtues so I will take the good parts from Americans into my child rearing; for example, their ability to express themselves, and their open-mindness, I don’t like that some Taiwanese want to talk but don’t. I will let my daughter try everything and not be over protective like Taiwanese parents. I will keep the good Taiwanese stuff and also learn good stuff from Americans. I won’t be so closed minded that I won’t learn other people’s stuff. Well, I will do as much as I can. I can’t say that I do it perfectly because if you are living in another people’s country you have to do it this way in order to live happily. You can’t live in a foreign country and still live only within the Taiwanese community.

Although mothers believed that knowing their culture was still important, they did not feel it required a special Taiwanese childcare setting to maintain it. The mothers also believed that it was unreasonable to expect American childcare providers to provide Taiwanese cultural practices because American culture and Taiwanese culture are so different. However, their observations of differences were not without some criticism of U.S. society. Another mother, Shu Jean, felt that, in general, Taiwanese people are more attentive in their child rearing than Americans. She said: I feel that the way Taiwanese parents physically care for their children is more thorough. For example, we worry that children will get cold so we put a lot of clothes on our children and we feed our children. But American children are very independent. From the very beginning they know how to do a lot of things. We won’t train our children that early on. Many Taiwanese parents will help their children get dressed in the morning and take them to the bathroom to wash and feed them food.

When immigrant mothers choose to place their children in White childcare settings, they risk losing their children to the mainstream culture (Lu, 2001). A strategy developed by the mothers in this study to reduce this risk was to make sure their children became bicultural, rather than only assimilate to U.S. society. In contrast to an assimilation approach that assumes a unidirectional, linear process toward the host society and loss of the culture of origin, biculturalism allows for maintenance of the heritage culture and adaptation to the new host culture to occur simultaneously (Szapocznik & Kurtines, 1993). Individuals who live with two sets of cultures learn to navigate between them and can develop the ability to alternate between cultural norms in different settings (LaFramboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993). Bicultural competency is the process of knowing which set of cultural norms and values to invoke in different settings. New immigrant parents may cope with cultural differences by developing bicultural parenting practices that facilitate their children’s adjustment to living in a new culture (Perreira, Chapman, & Stein, 2006). Lu (2001) found that immigrant parents used weekend cultural schools to maintain their children’s cultural identity in the face of Americanization processes and to encourage bicultural identity development. Similarly, the Taiwanese immigrant mothers in this study expected their children to maintain their ability to speak their mother tongue and to have knowledge about their cultural heritage and Taiwanese social and cultural skills, at the same time as they put heavy emphasis on acquiring American social and cultural skills by choosing White childcare settings. One mother, Yin Ting, realized that there was a balance to be achieved:

Instead of feeling concerned, she also pointed out the benefits of these differences. She observed that the American style is better preparing children for transition to going to preschool and said, “Because everything is done for [our children], when they go to preschool they will have a hard time adjusting. I feel that American kids don’t have this kind of adjustment problem.” Rather than expecting the childcare provider to accommodate her, this Taiwanese mother adapted to her new environment, just as she expected her child to do. Although their children are adapting to U.S. society, all of the Taiwanese immigrant mothers still expected their children to know how to speak, listen, and understand their home language and they expected their children to continue to be familiar with their traditional cultural foods and to learn traditional cultural values and practices. To maintain these cultural norms, the Taiwanese immigrants mothers relied on non-childcare settings for their children to stay in touch their own cultural practices. Home was clearly the most important site for cultural learning. Yuh Ling elaborated on the emphasis on language retention in their home:

Our idea is to let our children have contact with everybody, but we also like them to know Taiwanese cultural values. It is like trade off. If they spend too much time learning Taiwanese culture instead of other areas they won’t be able to do well [in U.S. workplaces]. Our idea is to do as much as possible and to maintain, at least, basic Taiwanese culture.

I ask them to speak Chinese at home. That is my request. My standard is that they have to know how to speak and listen, recognize words and then writing will come later. If they are at home I ask them to speak as little English as possible. Even if they went to Chinese school once a week, two to three hours, that wouldn’t do too much. The major part is done at home and that is where it influences him greatly.

Learning U.S. social norms is associated with economic success. Wen Lee also wanted to integrate the best of American values and Taiwanese values in her 3-year-old daughter:

They also thought their children should be aware and have a basic knowledge of their ancestry, as well how to behave like a Taiwanese child. For example, Shu Jean said:

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In our home, we try to maintain Taiwanese cultural values. For example, we teach respect for the elderly, and we want them to establish this kind of behavior. This is something that matters to me. In American families, children and adults are equals. American children can call their uncles and aunts by their first names and they sometimes treat their parents as though the kids were on the same as them. We don’t want it to be like that in our home. We let our children know that mom and dad are in charge.


Yin Ting also used church as a mechanism to help her child stay familiar with his cultural heritage: So to remedy this problem of losing Taiwanese culture we bring him to the Taiwanese church. Basically we don’t tell him that he has to be with other Taiwanese and Asian children. But we also want to give him Taiwanese culture and emphasize it, so I will bring him with me to Taiwanese gatherings. So that he won’t forget his roots.

Many of the parents also said they planned to take their children back to Taiwan for visits and they wanted them to make sure that their children knew how to behave properly in that context. In sum, although Taiwanese immigrant parents sought out English, predominantly White, mainstream childcare settings, they did not view this as assimilating or losing their cultural heritage and values. The mothers did not worry that having their children in White childcare settings would interfere with maintaining their knowledge of their cultural heritage and traditions. They also did not expect the childcare center to support the heritage cultural socialization. They saw the time their child spent in childcare centers as only a small part of their total social world. The Taiwanese immigrant mothers expected that their children would develop a bicultural competency that would allow them to be socially competent in different social worlds. At home they would be competent Taiwanese children knowing how to speak their language and behave correctly with other Taiwanese people. And the childcare centers would prepare them to be competent members of U.S society, so that they would be successful in school and eventually, the workplace. Instead of sameness, they expected their children to learn how to know two cultural worlds, even if they were sometimes incongruent.

Conclusion Previously, researchers have suggested that cultural congruity between home and childcare settings is an important determinant of what mothers look for when they select childcare arrangements. However, in this study of middle-class Taiwanese immigrant mothers, a desire for cultural and racial similarity was not a primary criterion used to select or assess their current childcare arrangements. We found that they purposefully chose predominantly White childcare centers, which differs from the findings of research on U.S. Black and Latino parents (of various classes) who have expressed preference for childcare centers staffed with people who look like themselves. What U.S.-born Black and Latino parents perceive as predominantly White childcare centers, Taiwanese immigrant mothers perceived as multicultural sites that provided an avenue to learning the social skills necessary to be successful in U.S. workplaces. The cultural differences were not perceived as threatening because they saw the centers as multicultural and not as “just White” and the parents used them as part of a larger strategy to develop bicultural competency in their children.

They reported that they used these sites to enhance their children’s language acquisition, educational opportunities, and to achieve social integration in U.S. society, as well as contributing to their future success in the U.S. educational system. They also did not interpret conflicts as racism, but as cultural differences because they were the outsiders. Our study found that Taiwanese immigrant parents did not expect the childcare centers to provide any traditional Taiwanese cultural learning because this cultural learning could be gained elsewhere. In fact, they appreciated the cultural dissimilarity because they felt it meant their children were learning about U.S. society, which would eventually contribute to their success in U.S. workplaces. Becoming bicultural is an integration strategy. Some studies have looked at processes of alternation between two different cultural sites, but they have not conceptualized this as part of a larger whole of becoming bicultural in which an immigrant individual simultaneously acculturates and maintains their own culture. This study of Taiwanese immigrant parents’ childcare preferences reveals this larger perspective. Rather than having to choose between becoming either American or maintaining one self as Taiwanese, this both-and perspective reveals how biculturalism allows for both, and how one’s cultural community, such as home, church, and language schools, combined with institutional sites, such as childcare settings, provide the mechanism for biculturalism to be developed. How these choices actually impact cultural maintenance of traditional Taiwanese values and whether these practices threaten the children’s knowledge of their own cultures was not measured in this study. It may be that Taiwanese immigrant mothers are being shortsighted that they can equally balance the childcare setting’s values and practices with what goes on at home and in the community. Their views may not fully take into account how when two cultures compete, and where one culture that is more supported by the larger society, that it may have a stronger influence on identity development. Yet, at this preschool level, they viewed using White childcare centers as an enrichment opportunity for their children to learn about U.S. society. This study reveals that one of those socialization goals of immigrant parents is acculturation to U.S. society without the loss of one’s own cultural values. Childcare researchers and professionals would benefit from having this refined understanding of how cultural values and race differences define racial/ethnic and immigrant parents’ expectations of childcare settings. These findings have strong implications for adjusting the daily curriculum and staff-parent– child interactions in childcare centers. This understanding by childcare staff would potentially support immigrant parents’ socialization goals to foster bicultural competency in their children.

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