Chinese in the United States: An extension of moderation in drinking

Our initial study compared drinking patterns among high-school students fro m three cultural groups (Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong, adolescents of C hinese origin living in Chicago, American adolescents in the United States) . While the present study focuses on one group, Chinese-Americans, it devot es some effort to comparing this group's drinking patterns to those of Chin ese adolescents in Hong Kong, and those of adolescents generally in the Uni ted States. We hypothesize that the acculturation status of Chinese-America n students (indicated by an index developed in the study and by other accul turation factors defined later) is related to their drinking status. We als o hypothesize that, in addition to its role in whether or not these adolesc ents drink, acculturation helps determine how much they drink. Specifically , the study sought to evaluate whether data support one of three acculturat ion hypotheses (simple acculturation, damaging culture, and acculturation s tress hypotheses). An acculturation index was constructed based on the vari ables residence, place of birth, language used at home, language used with friends, friends' nationality, and movie preferences. Other relevant accult uration factors included the number of years that respondents lived in the United States, the number of years that their friends lived in the United S tates, and the number of movies rented in a month in Chinatown. The results did not support any one of the three acculturation hypotheses. Adolescents of Chinese origin living in the United States were less likely to be drink ers than adolescents from the other two cultures (Chinese adolescents in Ho ng Kong and American adolescents in the United States), and they tended to conform to drinking practices found in Hong Kong. Mixed results were found between acculturation factors and drinking levels. Modification of existing acculturation ideas were needed to explain drinking patterns among Chinese -American adolescents.