Abstract
Purposes: Three study purposes were: (1) To identify and describe ways in which intrinsic and extrinsic challenges faced by second-generation Chinese American leaders contributed to their leadership development in three critical life stages: adolescence (ages 13-17), young adulthood (ages 18-29), and adulthood (age 30 to present); (2) To identify and describe commonalities and differences of strategies utilized by second-generation Chinese American leaders to address the intrinsic and extrinsic challenges; and (3) To identify and describe the acculturation strategies adopted by the contemporary immigrant parents of second-generation Chinese American leaders and determined whether the immigrant parents' acculturation strategies played any role in their leadership development. Methodology: The ethnographic qualitative study was the design for this study. The study subjects were 13 second-generation Chinese American leaders from different professions in Los Angeles County. The researcher collected data through in-person ethnographic interviews. A pilot study was conducted prior to the ethnographic interviews to test the instrument (i.e., interview document with interview questions included). Findings: There were a total of 17 findings for the study. Findings were first organized in sequence to address the research questions designed for each critical life stage plus the parents' acculturation strategies and their influence on study subjects' leadership development. Other findings were also included to follow the research question findings to summarize the understandings uniquely developed from data analysis which referenced certain Chinese cultural values pertaining to contemporary Chinese immigrant families, such as Chinese immigrant parents' unshakable belief in education. Conclusions: Six themes were developed to summarize the research and the study findings. They were: (1) Leadership development emerged living with two cultures; (2) Learning from the best of two cultures; (3) Learning to stay the course and turning frustration in self-reliance; (4) Each life stage owns its uniqueness in leadership development; (5) Coming back to Chinese roots; and (6) Uniformity in coping strategies across critical life stages. Recommendations: (1) A study on leaders from other counties in southern California; (2) A study on leaders from northern California; (3) A study on leaders of other generations to compare findings with this study; (4) A study on Asian Americans with Confucian-based cultural beliefs (e.g., Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans, etc.); (5) A study on Asian Americans who do not honor Confucian-based cultural beliefs (e.g., Cambodian Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Laotian Americans, Thailand Americans, etc.); and (6) A study on American ethnicities other than Asian Americans.