
When immigrants move to the United States, they leave behind all their belongings and their community to begin a new life. Rati, a second-generation Indian immigrant, recalls the story of her father: "I had one suitcase, one briefcase, and $1,000" (Ramdya 5). Many families migrate in this way, bringing with them only a suitcase of clothes and a small number of personal possessions, while leaving behind their families, friends, and way of life in hopes for a bright future for their children. Adjusting to American culture, however, is not simple. Many Asian Indians struggle to hold onto their cultural identities and lose pieces of it as they try to fit into American life. This poses greater issues to the children of these immigrants, born with brown skin into a sea of mostly white, sometimes causing a confusion of double identity. Immigration to the United States can cause several challenges for second-generation Asian Indians in discovering their cultural identity.

As parents lose touch with their Indian identity, it becomes harder and harder to translate their values and ideas to their children. Arpana Inman, a first-generation Indian doctoral-level counseling psychologist and professor at Lehigh University, has researched immigrant experiences and cultural identities for South Asian Americans for several years, publishing journal articles, books, and chapters along the way. In 2006, along with two doctoral students in counseling psychology, Inman published a study aiming to discover the "influence of immigration on first-generation Asian Indian [parents'] ethnic identity retention" (Inman 93). In this study, eight sets of Indian parents, specifically from the Indian state of Karnataka, were interviewed in order to find their overlapping struggles with cultural identity. Inman seperated the topics discussed into domains and categories, as seen in Table 1. "Variant" refers to 2-4 of the population, "Typical" refers to 5-7, and "General" refers to all 8 in the population. Although a Variant number of fathers and a Typical number of mothers believed that their inner core was Indian, the same number of mothers and fathers believed that they were bicultural, demonstrating how their American qualities were a significant part of their personal identity.  Nearly all first-generation also faced challenges in retaining their ethnic identity: loss of familial support and cultural continuity and barries within American society (Inman). The struggles  that the  Indian American parents face cause difficulty when they are trying to translate their religious beliefs and cultural attitudes to their children.

Table 1

As first-generation immigrants struggle to maintain their cultural identity, they face even greater challenges trying to relay their ethnic values to their children, who grow up with a whole different set of norms around them. Although Indian culture is becoming more and more accessible in America (Indian grocery stores can be found in every major city, and Bollywood movies now play in traditional American theaters), teaching Indian cultural norms is difficult when children go to school and join activities with their American peers. In her study, Inman also aims to discover the barriers for parents in trying to relay their culture to their Indian American children, as seen in Table 1. In the interviews, immigrants reported feeling that they "perceived parenting as different in [the] United States" (Inman 96). In India, "modeling was often a key strategy in transmitting values" and children learned about Indian culture mainly by example through constant interaction with extended family members, Indian movies, and similar peers. As one father states, rather than learning by example over time, "everything has to be taught in an organized way ... in this country" (Inman 98). 

Table 2

The challenges presented to parents in relaying Indian values cause children to be drawn to American culture. Another barrier was the difference of opinion on social topics, such as attitudes toward women, dating, career satisfaction, and intermarriage, between parent and child. In another study, Shamita Das Dasgupta, a professor at Rutgers University, had forty-six Indian American families complete the Attitude Toward Women Scale (AWS) and a dating scale in order to draw conclusions about the differences in opinion between parents and their subsequent children. The AWS scale tested whether participants had conservative views on gender roles in society, which tends to be more common in India, or more modern, liberal views, which are more common in America. The resulting average scores are shown in Table 2. Daughters had the most liberal views on women's roles in society, followed by mothers, sons, and lastly fathers. Upon further analysis of the participants age and place of birth, Dasgupta found that American-born sons and daughters held more liberal views about women than their foreign-born counterparts. Dasgupta suggests that the "early years spent in India had ingrained ... a slightly more dichotomous gender role ideology" (Dasgupta 963). On the dating scale, parents and children showed a significant difference in opinion. Sons seemed to be the most accepting of dating and mothers the least. Additionally, parents preferred if children stayed away from intermarriage in fear that it would challenge the continuation of cultural values (Inman 98). These differences in opinion may cause second-generation immigrants to stray from their Indian heritage and instead assimilate into the American culture that they have learned to agree with, which can cause anxiety and confusion with personal and cultural identity (Farver 345). 

Immigration to the United States offers several benefits, including better job outlooks and financial security for immigrants and often times for their families in their native country. However, it can cause struggles with cultural identity when immigrants are forced to integrate into starkly different cultural values and norms. When Asian Indians immigrate to the United States, they begin to accept American values and cultural norms and subsequently are less likely to hold onto their ethnic values. These first-generation immigrants later experience difficulty when trying to teach their ethnic values to their American born and brought-up children due to a lack of cultural resources and familial support in the US. Second-generation immigrants therefore tend to stray from their ethnic culture and assimilate into the American values surrounding them. Second-generation immigrants experience confusion and challenges when trying to discover their personal and cultural identities.

