2025 Theses Doctoral

Living on the Bridge: Chinese Immigrants' Cultural Identity Integration Through Transformative Learning

Guo, Yilu

This interpretative phenomenological study examined how five first-generation Millennial Chinese immigrant women in the United States experienced cultural identity integration through transformative learning. Guided by psycho-critical, psycho-developmental, and social-critical perspectives of transformative learning theory, this research investigated the holistic perspective transformation processes through which acculturation challenges disrupted immigrants’ sense of self, prompting critical reflection on cultural assumptions, beliefs, and dominant ideologies from both heritage and host cultures, and ultimately leading to identity reintegration. The study also explored how these processes of cultural identity integration were shaped by immigrants’ developmental capacities and access to various forms of capital.

The study generated five major findings. First, immigrants’ cultural identity integration was an ongoing, nonlinear transformative learning process that was conditioned by both developmental capacity and their access to various forms of capital, including social, cultural, economic, and recognition-based resources that shaped their identity transformation. Second, while acculturation created disorienting dilemmas, it did not necessarily lead to critical reflection on cultural frames of reference; rather, experiences of misrecognition within social relationships frequently functioned as catalysts for such reflection. Third, misrecognition was manifested through participants’ experiences of multiple forms of oppression—including microaggressions, racial discrimination, and internalized racism in American society, as well as patriarchal and authoritarian pressures from their heritage culture—ultimately leading to the development of critical consciousness. Fourth, higher developmental capacity facilitated the construction of self- recognition value systems that transcend cultural affiliation and fostered more active agency informed by critical consciousness. Fifth, perspective transformation of cultural identity produced “in-between” positioning rather than wholesale replacement of previous cultural frames of reference, with participants ultimately creating bridges between cultures while selectively engaging with or resisting different aspects of dominant ideologies from both heritage and American cultures.

These findings illustrated that transformative learning in migration contexts constitutes both an individual developmental trajectory and a socially embedded process, shaped by struggles for recognition and broader power dynamics. This study advances transformative learning theory by integrating multiple theoretical perspectives to provide a holistic examinationof identity transformation within the under-researched Asian immigrant population. In addition, it offers practical implications for educators, community organizations, and policymakers seeking to support processes of immigrant identity integration more effectively.