The Ethnic Identity Questionnaire

Abstract

Three generational age groups of Japanese in Tachikawa, Japan, Honolulu, and Seattle were compared on their responses to the Ethnic Identity Questionnaire. At all locations, there was an attenuation of ethnic identification, here seen to be defined by the instrument as Meiji Era Japaneseness. The elderly were cross-culturally consensual in their attitudes. The Seattle and Honolulu second-and third-generation Japanese-Americans were more similar to each other than to their Tachikawa age counterparts. The lower Honolulu scores were attributed to their greater social, economic, and political power. In Tachikawa, there was a continuity of Japanese pride, but increasingly fragmented attitudes in family kinship and traditional behavior and attitudes.