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“I Can Feel That People Living Here Don’t Like Chinese Students”: Perceived Discrimination and Chinese International Student Adaptation

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Handbook of Children and Prejudice

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Abstract

Chinese students have become the largest group of international students on US campuses since 2010, and currently one out of every three international students in the USA holds a Chinese passport (Institute of International Education, 2017). Their arrival has greatly contributed to campus cultural diversity and local area economy (Breuning, 2007; Smith & Khawaja, 2011). Despite the significant increase in Chinese student enrollment, their adaptation issues, especially their experiences of discrimination, have received limited attention from researchers and mental health professionals. Drawing on survey data collected with 330 Chinese freshmen and in-depth interviews with 48 Chinese students who enrolled at a large Midwestern university, this chapter investigates Chinese undergraduates’ perceived stereotypes and discrimination and how their experiences influenced their psychosocial adaptation in the USA. Findings suggest that although many Chinese students perceived the host institute as accepting and inclusive, it is noteworthy that a significant portion of our students reported discrimination from domestic students, university faculty and staff, and local residents. Student victims of discrimination expressed feelings of anger, frustration, and helplessness. Surprisingly, some Chinese students blamed their experiences of being discriminated on “inappropriate behaviors” (such as flaunting luxuries) of the Chinese student population; some of them even felt “shameful” when talking about how domestic students perceived Chinese students’ behaviors. We will examine the effects of perceived discrimination on Chinese student adaptation and how their interpretations of discrimination are affected by attributions such as self-blame and sense of shame. Implications for institutional support and campus counseling services will also be discussed.

University of Southern California graduate student Xinran Ji was mugged on the Los Angeles campus in July after he left a study group. … Andrew Garcia, 19, told cops that he and four other friends saw the 24-year-old walking home alone on July 24. The group decided to mug him… “Because he was Chinese, he must have money,” Garcia told police. (Wagner, 2015)

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Acknowledgment

This research was supported in part by grants from the Creating Inclusive Excellence at Michigan State University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Mingjun Xie, Shizhu Liu, Yemo Duan & Desiree Baolian Qin

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  1. Mingjun Xie
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  4. Desiree Baolian Qin
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Correspondence to Desiree Baolian Qin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Hiram E. Fitzgerald

  2. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Deborah J. Johnson , Desiree Baolian Qin  & Francisco A. Villarruel ,  & 

  3. Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    John Norder

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Xie, M., Liu, S., Duan, Y., Qin, D.B. (2019). “I Can Feel That People Living Here Don’t Like Chinese Students”: Perceived Discrimination and Chinese International Student Adaptation. In: Fitzgerald, H.E., Johnson, D.J., Qin, D.B., Villarruel, F.A., Norder, J. (eds) Handbook of Children and Prejudice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12228-7_34

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