Perceptions of Vietnamese Fathers' Acculturation Levels, Parenting Styles, And Mental Health Outcomes in Vietnamese American Adolescent Immigrants (Report‪)‬

The Asian/Pacific Islander or API group has" been one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States for the past several decades (Kim, Rendon, & Valadez, 1998; Lee & Zhan, 1998; Takaki, 1989). The Vietnamese population is a part of the API group and is considered one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Its growth rate was 125.3 percent between 1980 and 1990 and 80.7 percent between 1990 and 2000 (Asian-Nation, 2005). According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2002), among the 10.2 million APIs in the United States reported in 2002, 8.3 percent were Vietnamese, whereas the most recent statistics show a 10.9 percent representation of Vietnamese among all Asian ethnicities in the United States (Asian-Nation, 2005). Although Vietnamese Americans represent only .5 percent of the entire U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002), the rapid growth of the Vietnamese population has drawn social workers' attention in human services planning. After escaping their homeland, many Vietnamese parents and children face and endure the initial hardship of adapting to economic, political, and cultural changes in a different society. This adaptation process may be much harder and longer for parents than for children. The migratory stress and incongruence in perceived cultural differences and the differential rate of acculturation can cause dissonance in the family system and become the source of conflicts between parents and children. This study focuses on the unique relationships between the acculturation level and parenting style and addresses the effect of parenting style on mental health outcomes of Vietnamese adolescents.