Submitted to The Journal of Asian-American Studies 

ABSTRACT

Children growing up in small immigrant family businesses must negotiate a variety of roles, obligations, and expectations. Multiple responsibilities are required to function as both a worker (i.e. adult) and family member (i.e. child). Most of all, it is the mental process, or "boundary work," of separating home and work coupled with conflicting family role expectations that makes the family business especially complicated. In this paper, I argue that the social context of immigrant small businesses creates an environment that requires children who grow up within it to adhere to unique developmental expectations. The embedded nature of work and home in the context of immigrant small family businesses requires that these adolescents and young adults experience a premature adultification at the same time that they endure a prolonged childification.

INTRODUCTION

The immigrant family business is a complicated terrain. Children growing up in this environment must negotiate a variety of roles, obligations, and expectations. Multiple responsibilities are required to function as both a worker (i.e. adult) and family member (i.e. child). Most of all, it is the mental process, or "boundary work," of separating home and work coupled with conflicting family role expectations that make the family business especially complicated. In this paper, I argue that the social context of immigrant small businesses creates an environment that requires children who grow up within it to adhere to unique developmental expectations. For these adolescents and young adults, the embedded nature of work and home in the context of immigrant small family businesses does not allow for the customary rite of passage during their teenage years.

Kyeyoung Park argues that owning a small business is a way for immigrants to find anjong&endash;establishment, stability, or security. Park views anjong as the Korean immigrant model of individual success, or the Korean American dream. New understandings of class, ethnicity, and race develop as immigrants reorganize their domestic lives to accommodate the needs of small business activities.

For the children of immigrants, there is dramatic restructuring of their domestic lives as well. Rather than a dichotomous transaction, work and family within a small family business is a complex embedded relationship wherein the boundaries are difficult to discern. In this relationship, the children are expected to perform both child-like and adult-like duties, depending upon the social context. For instance, young immigrant children are expected to translate difficult legal documents for their parents in a manner that demonstrates filial piety and deference towards their elders. In this paper I argue that children in these situations experience a premature adultification at the same time that they endure a prolonged childification.

I define adultification as the placement of individuals who are socially considered a "child" (as indicated by their age and developmental level) in adult-like roles and with adult responsibilities. Conversely then, I define childification as the placement of individuals who are socially considered an "adult" in child-like roles and responsibilities. The importance of both phenomena lies in the fact that they are out of synch with the larger, socially determined concept of adulthood and childhood. From the point of view of the individual in these situations, they are treated inappropriately in that, as children, they are obligated but not rewarded for adult-like roles that they perform. And later as adults, they feel belittled as they perform the same roles they had during their childhood and therefore are treated like a child by their parents. In effect, the small family business functions as a warped time capsule in which children "grow-up" too fast and, as young adults, never age.

For this study, I formally interviewed 43 Korean and Chinese American adolescents and young adults, most of whom lived in the Midwest. Eleven of the 43 respondents were adolescents. I also informally interviewed 13 family members of respondents. Upon observing the different developmental stages within these immigrant children’s life course, it became evident that much of the difficulty in boundary work centered around the disjointed or inconsistent expectations placed upon children as they grew into adults. In other words, as children, they are expected by their parents to perform adult roles and, as adults, they are expected to retain the same roles they held as a child. There are no changes in the expectations that take into account the developmental process experienced by the young adult. Moreso than role reversal, role conflict, or status inconsistency, the concepts premature adultification and prolonged childification best describe the lived experiences of teenagers of immigrant entrepreneurial families as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood in an ambiguous environment.

To successfully negotiate this transition, children from entrepreneurial families must acquire the ability to move smoothly between these two roles at a moments notice. Or perhaps more importantly, these children must fulfill both child and adult obligations at the same time. In reference to this dual role expectation, Nippert-Eng writes:

One of the side effects of this is acquiring a certain degree of mental agility and versatility. We learn to alternate between viewpoints, become adept at adopting and shedding mentalities as we switch between them.

While many immigrant children may experience conflicting expectations, children of entrepreneurial households have the added complexity of having to know when to switch from adult to child status within an environment in which home and work is many times inseparable.

This paper seeks to outline the boundary work of immigrant entrepreneurial children as they confront the paradox of premature adultification and prolonged childification. I will first locate this research within the existing sociological literature on immigrant family life. Then, I will discuss the methods used in conducting this project. After these introductory sections, I will illustrate the impact of small family businesses on the daily lives of immigrant children. I emphasize the embedded nature of the work and family boundaries and examine the boundary work of the children as they negotiate the adult/child paradox of immigrant family labor. I argue that prolonged childification and premature adultification impact these children and raise new questions for the study of immigrant families.

From the Children's Point of View

The sociological literature on the importance of family in immigrant entrepreneurial life is well established. Sanders and Nee write, "[t]he family can be viewed as a network of obligations that embodies the social, economic, and cultural investments made prior to immigration, and that immigrants draw on and continue to invest in during the process of adaptation." Family cohesion, in an entrepreneurial household, is absolutely essential not only for family stability but also for their livelihood. For many families, impending downward mobility acts as a strong cohesive mechanism. This effect is exaggerated within immigrant families wherein the "family is often the main social organization supporting the establishment and operation of a small business." As family members, children play an important part of this equation and with this role, comes added responsibility. Little is known about how these expectations affect adolescents and adult children of entrepreneurial households.

Citing Merton, Alejandro Portes describes research on second generation immigrants as a "strategic research site" where general theoretical contributions can be derived with "unusual clarity." This paper focuses on one dimension of the "strategic research site"&endash;the immigrant family business. The purpose is to investigate the impact of small businesses on immigrant children's family life and challenge some of the underlying assumptions within contemporary theories of immigrant families, entrepreneurialism, and adaptation. Asian American children of immigrant entrepreneurs, as subjects who embody the myths of the model minority and the American Dream, are ideal for exploring the realities of work and family in a paradoxical world. Immigrant small family businesses often affirm the model minority myth by endorsing the American belief in equal opportunity. Immigrant businesses symbolize an open society without a rigid class structure in which poor, uneducated immigrants with nothing but their determination and "family values" can "make it" in the U.S. However, this study will reveal that, in their everyday lives, immigrant adolescents and young adults experience American society with all its boundaries and constraints.

In addition to their contribution as strategic research sites, research on immigrant children's point of view is long overdue. Nancy Landale points out,

Although the children of immigrants, especially second-generation children, are increasingly regarded as central to understanding the assimilation process, neither theory nor research has systematically addressed the complexities entailed in studying immigrant children's experiences.

Min Zhou adds,

Until the recent past, scholarly attention has focused on adult immigrants to the neglect of child immigrants and immigrant offspring, creating a profound gap between the strategic importance of these children and the knowledge about their conditions.

The economic and social contributions immigrant children make are central to the survival of immigrant families and their businesses.

METHODS

The focus of this research is on members of two Asian American groups in two different life stages. I conducted 43 in-depth interviews with Chinese and Korean American adolescents and young adults whose families owned a small family business while they were growing up. These enterprises rarely have more than two non-family employees and their main source of labor is family members. Twenty-eight informants were female and 15 were male. Their ages ranged from 15 to 24 years old. The initial interviews lasted one to three hours long. I then conducted follow-up interviews that ranged from 30 minutes to two hours. In addition to the in-depth interviews, I also facilitated focus groups and conducted participant observation.

All but one of my respondents is classified as 1.5 generation rather than second generation. The families in this study immigrated to the U.S. between the early 1970s and mid-1980s. They entered with family visas generally with the help of an extended relative, usually an aunt or uncle. These contacts not only helped them to settle culturally (find a home, job, etc.), but also allowed them to get started in a business similar to those owned by people in their network. Many times, the father arrived first to establish roots. After finding an apartment and a job, he sent for the rest of the immediate family. There is usually a two to four year separation from the father. All but one respondent comes from a two-parent household (the one respondent's father died recently).

All of the young adults in this sample are in college or college-bound. Almost all classified themselves as middle class, some lower middle. There is a considerable range in the parents’ level of education for both Chinese and Koreans. Some are professionals (lawyer, doctors) while others never went to high school. Parents of respondents in the Korean sample completed a higher level of education than those of the Chinese sample and generally report a higher income, even when they report similar occupations. Apart from two Chinese American families, the other families had no experience working or running a small business prior to immigration. Most families worked and resided in suburban areas. Only a handful of the college students are currently working for their parents. Most have moved away for college. However, all the adolescents are still involved (at different levels) with the family.

Through fieldwork, I became acquainted with a number of the children's parents, siblings, and extended relatives. I visited their homes, schools, and businesses. In addition, I conducted three sets of focus group interviews, after which I conducted individual interviews. I found these groups fruitful in sharpening the individual interview instrument and identifying the more pressing issues and prevalent themes.

This multiple method approach&endash;in-depth interviews, focus groups, and participant observation&endash;is useful for avoiding the pitfall of making unwarranted assumptions about groups based solely on the observation of a few individuals. My theoretical analysis is derived from careful inductive or "grounded" theory, which starts with observed data and, in stages, develops substantiated generalizations.

IMPACT OF SMALL FAMILY BUSINESSES ON FAMILY LIFE

The impact of small family businesses on immigrant children's lives is considerable. Children who grew up in immigrant entrepreneurial households describe a family life circumscribed to the contours of the business. Daily activities, future career decisions, their sense of identity and interrelationships among family members revolve around the needs of the family business. However, this is not to say that immigrant entrepreneurial families are simply work-centered. These children of immigrants tell a more complex, circular tale in which the needs of the business stem from the needs of the family.

Many of my respondents report moving from one side of the city to another, four or five times, as they switched from one form of business to another. Family vacation and "family time" become rare events. For many respondents, family dinners are held at 11 p.m. each evening in accordance with the closing of the store. Often, it is the only time for family members to see each other outside of the business.

The family business also pervades family life in a variety of ways. Robert, a Korean American college senior, grew up in his parent’s jewelry store. From a young age, Robert performed important "caring work" for his parents, and continues to do so. He describes how his labor in the family store affected his future career decision:

I think I've seen a lot of what other people do for a living, more so than maybe someone whose Dad didn't include them in the business all the time. And so, I learned that there are other things that I want to try because maybe I can do it.

Like many of his peers, Robert functioned in a variety of essential roles at his family’s store, including as his parent's translator at an early age:

I was writing a lot of legal addenda to leases and stuff like that when I was fourteen. I remember a lawyer whom I would fax this stuff to… who would actually call me up and say, "I can't believe you're only fourteen! If you ever want to go to law school, talk to me."

Small family businesses also influence one's sense of identity. Such was the case for Ben, a Korean American college freshman, whose father runs a dry cleaner and whose mother works at a nearby garment factory. Ben grew up in a large metropolitan city, in a working class, African American neighborhood. His family lives in an apartment above the cleaners. When asked if the business affected his childhood, Ben recounted a pivotal incident that helped shape his class and race identification:

Well, in elementary school I didn't really think about [the store] much. When I got into junior high school and high school&endash;it was one of those special schools where you had to take a test to get in&endash;there were people from all over the city and most of these people were better off than me. I came in contact with middle and upper class students basically for the first time. I became conscious of the lower status of dry cleaners and garment factory workers. I remember one experience in Spanish class, we were doing exercises&endash;talking&endash;and everyone had to talk about what their parents did&endash;so you get these impressive jobs like a journalist for the newspaper or somewhere. I felt good at the time that I didn't have to speak. They didn't call on me. It felt kind of weird to say that my parents were, you know, had typical immigrant jobs.

This incident occurred when Ben was in the seventh grade. It was not until his senior year in high school, that Ben began to feel more comfortable with his family's source of livelihood. Along with maturity and self-confidence, Ben credits this transformation to a greater knowledge of history:

I learned, later in high school, about earlier immigrant groups. I learned about what Italians and Jews experienced earlier in this century. It sounds very similar to what my father was doing. I didn't think anymore that it was some kind of lowly job.

Ben placed his parents in a larger social context that provided a meaningful history of immigrant labor. He transformed his family’s business from a nondescript storefront in the Bronx to a site of dignity and a tradition of hard work&endash;a place where he could derive a sense of pride.

Embeddedness of Work and Family Boundaries

Small family enterprises also shape interrelationships among immigrant family members. Generally speaking, there have been two distinct and contradictory positions concerning the impact of small businesses on family relationships. The debate centers on whether or not growing up in an entrepreneurial family is a positive or negative experience for immigrant children.

The first position views entrepreneurial immigrant families in a positive light. Compared to immigrant salaried work, family businesses are seen as family-centered. For example, in Longtime Californ', Nee and Nee present an idyllic interpretation of immigrant childhood that is reminiscent of the "Waltons." The authors describe a secure, family-centered childhood similar to idealistic contemporary revisionist views of pre-industrial and depression-era families wherein everyone, including young children, worked for the greater good of the household and community. There is little separation between the spheres of adulthood and childhood. Nee and Nee contend that family life was integrated into the business, making the business an extension of the home. In this scenario, homelife is replicated in the work environment and, provided that homelife is supportive for the child, worklife would also present a positive atmosphere for development.

Nee and Nee contrast the family business with salaried work. They describe working class Chinese immigrant families with salaried parents as work-centered. In this scenario, children's lives are not centered around the home. Peers become the primary socializing agent to the detriment of family solidarity. There is apparently no sense of responsibility among these working class children. Homelife is not replicated within the work environment. In fact, there is a strict separation between home and work and between the spheres of adulthood and childhood. The assumption here is that such an environment impedes the healthy development of children.

Light and Bonacich paint a different picture of entrepreneurial family life. In their analysis of immigrant Korean entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, they view immigrant small businesses as places of "incredible exploitation." They found that 75 percent of Korean businesses employ no wage labor and require a willingness on the part of family members to work long hours for low remuneration. According to the 1980 census, Koreans, more than any other ethnic group utilized unpaid family workers. Light and Bonacich present a harsh picture of immigrant entrepreneurial life in which serious social costs are involved. For instance, they report a lack of class consciousness among small business workers due to the use of family labor. Labor disagreements often manifest themselves as family disputes rather than conflicts between workers and managers. They argue that the American dream of social mobility through entrepreneurship as a myth and describe immigrant families as "victims of world capitalism." The authors highlight the stresses immigrant families confront and portray these businesses as "dirty work."

Unlike Nee and Nee, Light and Bonacich view the lack of boundaries between home/family and work as problematic. They see entrepreneurial families as work-centered in which the parent functions as an employer or boss rather than as a father or mother. This family-home structure precludes avenues for labor disputes. In this light, some of the difficulties that may arise from a dual role of employee and daughter/son are apparent. The difficulties and stress incurred within the business are transferred to the home and vice versa.

These competing models of immigrant life as either work-centered or family-centered do not adequately explain the intricate interrelationships within these families. I maintain that both of the above accounts of immigrant life are useful for understanding childhood in small family businesses. Through an in-depth qualitative approach, it is evident that immigrant entrepreneurial family life is complicated, with both benefits and costs.

The boundaries between work and family are deeply enmeshed and blurred. However, neither the entrepreneurial children in this study, nor their parents, lose sight of their familial roles as daughter/sons or mothers/fathers. Rather, it is the need to play the role of family member and worker simultaneously that causes such difficulty in boundary work. Both work and family expectations are ever present in these children’s lives and the boundaries between the two are at times impossible to distinguish&endash;particularly those children whose business are small and involve intense family labor.

Maria, a 20-year-old Chinese American whose family owns a small Chinese take-out, explained, "…[I]t's all connected. It's your livelihood. You can't separate it [work] from your homelife because your homelife depends on it." Maria played an integral role in her family’s business since she was seven-years-old when her parents depended upon her to pack carry-out orders. Maria never had a babysitter, and instead remembers a rather pleasant childhood at the restaurant. One of her earliest memories is of playing with paperdolls of Chinese soap opera characters with her older sister. She also recalls her father teaching her and her sister how to play tennis, badminton, and softball behind the store during slow periods of the day.

Kyung Ah, a second generation Korean American, also performs integral roles at her family business. She began selling jewelry and watches at the age of eleven at her parent’s store. However, unlike Maria, Kyung Ah’s childhood memories are filled with concern over her parent’s safety. After experiencing a number of what she described as "traumatic" robbery attempts at a young age, she continues to worry about her parents. Kyung Ah’s sense of protectiveness of her parents pervaded both home and work. She said, "It kind of got to where I was treating them like children. …I had to remind myself that they’re still my parents and they can take care of themselves. They’re very resourceful." And when asked if she behaved at the business as she would at home, she replied:

It feels exactly the same, pretty much. Just different surroundings. Instead of being at home, we're at the store. We had a T.V., we had a refrigerator, and we always had Korean food for lunch.

However, there are degrees of embeddedness. The small, "mom and pop" enterprises in the study sample displayed almost no boundaries, while the larger businesses with more than five non-family employees identified specific differences between home and work (see footnote 10 for list of businesses). Robert, a Korean American college senior, whose family owns two jewelry stores illustrates this phenomenon. His mother runs the smaller store with one occasional, part-time employee. His mother’s store has been losing money for quite some time and is a source of financial concern for the family. His father runs the larger, more profitable store with four employees. Robert discussed how he and his parents interacted at home and at the business:

I think it's very similar. There's no change whatsoever. I remember my friend, Peter, mentioned that he and his family act a little more professional [at work] but I think that might be a consequence of the kind of business that he's in (an export/import company) and the fact that his father is more of a businessman. He's an MBA, or whatever else. Ours is a very mom and pop kind of thing and so I don't think that anything changes at all.

Robert makes a distinction between his friend's father and his own. Peter's father has a dual role of father at home and businessman at work. However, Robert's father is a father at home and work. There is no differentiation. To stress his point, Robert describes what happens when he or his sisters have disagreements with their parents:

It's played out wherever because of the nature of my parents. They're very impulsive. They're very worried. They can't sit on something and say, "Hum. Well, Robert, we'll talk about it later." It has to come out wherever&endash;the grocery store, wherever. It's just the way they are. …. The store wasn't any sort of, you know, you don't have to act a certain way at the store. It was the second home, pretty much. And in a sense it felt that way. There was a bed in the back and a T.V. in the back.

Robert’s passage reveals an interesting phenomenon wherein one’s family role remains constant despite the circumstances. Robert’s father remains his father despite the fact that Robert performs a great deal of the "adult" responsibilities at the family’s jewelry store. And, as long as Robert’s father remains in the role of the father, Robert remains in the role of the son at home and work no matter how old he becomes. This was also the case with all the other respondents whose family owns a small "mom and pop" enterprise.

As a young boy, Robert experienced premature adultification and, as he grew into a young man, his connection to his parents via the family business created a sense of prolonged childification. He said:

I’ve only spoken with my male friends about this…. In some way, we’re de-masculinized [sic] by being so integrated with our mothers and fathers. For me, being in this business with my mom ever since I was young and not being able to say anything, and just doing as she says, and having these people watch me follow her instructions every time, every day after school at this small jewelry store…. It’s very, very strange. No matter what kind of adult-like things I do, I’m always a child. Our lives are too integrated.

Robert's work life remained unchanged despite his advanced age. His childhood extended into his adulthood, thereby denying his status as an independent, grown man. When young adults in the sample attempted to assert their adult status, they did so in a manner that did not challenge the familial hierarchy. For instance, the respondents only offered input in important decision-making processes when first asked to do so by their parents. Such is the case for Robert who said, "If I were to rank their priorities, it would be keeping their kids in line and then making money. They’re very dominating." Within the immigrant family/work dynamic, the parents work to retain their vulnerable status as adults by reminding their children of their "place."

The Boundary Work of Immigrant Entrepreneurial Children

In certain respects, small family businesses appear to be the most "flexible" of workplaces where children are incorporated into the daily routine. While this may be one definition of "family-centered," there are costs and benefits for children who spend their off-school hours in their parent's store. Nostalgic notions of families "sticking together" may, in reality, feel suffocating for some family members. Families can be both enabling and constraining. Such is the case for many adolescents striving for independence while shouldering large family responsibilities. For these children, their adolescent years are markedly different from the mainstream American teen experience (i.e. white suburban middle class). While adolescence is generally described as an intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood when individuals develop stronger ties with peers and greater autonomy from their parents, Asian immigrant children in entrepreneurial settings do not follow this path towards adulthood. There is no clear separation of childhood and adulthood for the respondents in this study. For these adolescents and young adults, the embedded nature of work and home in the context of immigrant small family businesses does not allow for the luxury of adolescence. In contrast to mainstream expectations, these individuals perform adult-like roles at an early age. Complicating matters further, they also describe feelings of being trapped in a child-like state of existence.

Almost all of my interviewees in "mom and pop" businesses described feelings of resentment or frustration while working at the family business during their high school years (just one respondent provided only "happy" stories). My interviews with adolescents (and some young adults) who are currently immersed within the work and family paradox, were frequently punctuated by emotionally charged responses that revealed anger, sadness, and frustration.

In some ways, these immigrant children experience a different meaning of adolescence similar to that of children in other ethnic communities. For example, Burton et al. cites a number of studies indicating that African-American teenagers living in low-income inner-city communities assume a number of adult responsibilities such as taking care of siblings and contributing to the household economy. In this way, they move from childhood to adulthood without distinctly experiencing the intermediate stage of adolescence. Immigrant entrepreneurial children also feel the loss of adolescence, however, they also endure a prolonged sense of childhood at the same time. While many immigrant children assume adult-like responsibilities, they are not given the opportunity to participate in adult-like rewards such as autonomy from their parents or monetary gain. The demands of the small family business requires that the child work in an adult setting but maintain their child status in relation to their parents (regardless of their age). In this way, the children simultaneously experience a premature adultification and a prolonged childification.

However, I found that this claustrophobic feeling among respondents generally dissipates with time and distance (sometimes physically, sometimes mentally or emotionally) from parents and the business. They feel the need to develop their own identity apart from the family and the business. Some respondents achieve this aim through personal accomplishments, including acceptance into a university, creating physical and social distance away from their parents. Following this process, what remains is a deep-seated protectiveness for their parents. Hence, work and family are intricately intertwined for immigrant entrepreneurial families.

Jack, a Chinese American college junior, recalls some of the good times he had growing up at his family's Chinese restaurant:

When we were little, we were known as the Fu Shou kids. The restaurant is called Fu Shou. We would create hell. (laugh) I remember that. We were basically let loose. My brothers and I were known for being really close.

As Jack grew older and matured, the restaurant also changed to accommodate different functions. For Jack and others, the business became a place to meet friends during their adolescent years. In Jack's case, the restaurant became a second kitchen and his friends visited him there rather than at his home. He told me, "…it was like our own little Cheers."

For the children of immigrants, the importance of anjong (establishment, stability, or security) in their parent's lives solidifies later in life as they grow to better understand the role of the business, their relationship with their parents, and themselves. The process toward achieving this understanding is at times, difficult and frustrating, but crucial for creating a bond between children and parents. The different stages within this process are evident in the stark differences in responses from adolescents and young adults. The adolescents did not project a sense of protectiveness of their parents to the extent that college-age young adults did. It is generally the young adults who are able to work through their sense of frustration and anger for having grown up in a small family business.

Many of the respondents I interviewed stated that, although they did not necessarily enjoy being at the business, it was the only time and place they could be with their parents. While they made a clear distinction between time spent with parents at the business from "quality family time," the business was generally valued as a "second home." However, there were two young adult interviewees who consciously rejected the business and consequently distanced themselves from their parents. Susan, a Chinese American college freshman explained, "Well, I missed my parents because they were always at the restaurant and I didn’t want to go there." As if to reinforce her feelings, Susan worked at another Chinese restaurant owned by a competitor. She stated:

I just couldn’t work for my mom. I just didn’t want to be with my mom. A few weeks ago, I had a talk with her and we went out to eat and everything and I said, "You know what? I don’t talk to you at all. We don’t talk." I go home like every two, three weeks on the weekend. I throw down my books. Go to sleep. Wake up. Go out. Come back. She’s at the restaurant the whole time. I do whatever I do. She’s just never around and that’s it.

Susan's case is relatively extreme. Within the spectrum of acceptance and rejection, most of the respondents edged toward acceptance of their parents. On the whole, the college-age respondents provided a positive interpretation of their relationship with their parents and their childhood experiences of growing up at the business. They were able to separate the difficulties they endured during their adolescence from their current perception of their parents. With hindsight, their parents are viewed as heroic figures who did the best they could under strenuous circumstances.

However, the adolescents in this study projected the lowest degree of acceptance. When asked how she felt about working at her family's restaurant, Jenny, a 15-year-old Chinese American, replied, "It sucks, major." When probed, she added:

I have to work all the time. I don't have time for friends, or to hang out, or just be bored. I have to go to the restaurant after school where I cut the vegetables, wash the dishes, and sweep the floor, then I have to take care of my younger brothers, clean up the house and try to find time for homework. It's crazy. I hate it. I'm so tired all the time.

Michelle, another adolescent Chinese American, expressed similar feelings:

You know that stupid show that comes on Fridays? You know, the one with the perfect white kids and the twins? I think it's called Full House. Well, I hate that show. All those stupid kids with their stupid problems&endash;oh no, my outfit doesn't match and my hair's messed up! And I hate the parents too. It's so unrealistic. I mean do the parents work or what? They're always at home with the kids trying to solve their stupid problems.

Michelle went on to say how different her life was from other "American" children. How much responsibility was placed on her and how little she received in return. The adolescents expressed a common wish for boring weekends at home. They saw little value in the business. The family business was repeatedly described as a hindrance to a "normal" childhood.

Theirs is a very different story than those of the older, college-age group. The story of Maria, a 20-year-old Chinese American college student, exemplifies the different stages of development that children within immigrant entrepreneurial families experience in their relationship with their parents. She describes her family business experience in this way:

Now that I think about it, it was a very positive experience. Because before the restaurant, I was very shy and I wouldn’t talk to anybody. It’s kind of weird ‘cause when I was at the register I would be forced to talk to the customers to say "how was your meal?" Just by talking to them, I was like, "wow, this is how you talk to people. These are people and I’m talking to them. Why can’t I talk to other people like I talk to these people?" So, in a way, I feel like I’ve been able to adapt to more variety of people. I think that definitely increased my communication skills. Also, I think I learned about the work ethic. I know what my parents had to go through to help me along in school and everything. I learned to appreciate them a lot.

Having moved away from home for college, Maria has the luxury of hindsight in recounting her work experience. Despite having to work four, sometimes five days a week, she sees the benefits of working. However, during a follow-up interview, she described her adolescent years as "hellish" because her parents had bought a new business, a small Chinese take-out, during her last year of high school. Always the optimist, she adds:

My parents have owned a restaurant since I was four. So, from seven years old on to the end of junior high, it was every Friday, Saturday night and sometimes Sundays. My parents sold it and bought another restaurant my senior year which was pretty hellish because it was a little business just getting started so I had to go Thursday night, sometimes Friday, Saturday, sometimes Sunday, and Monday. My mom was very lenient. She let me bring my homework there. She knew I had to get it done. I had to go all the time and plus I had all those things after school.

During her high school years, intense arguments erupted between Maria and her mother, whom she saw as "fake" and a "hypocrite" for having one personality (i.e. polite) at the business for the customers, and another (i.e. abrasive) at home towards her. Thinking back to those difficult times, Maria stated:

Well, [it's] just because of all the stress. This whole business is mentally stressful. So, it was a way to relieve all the stress. But it was all understandable. I mean we’re not in conflict now. We all agreed that we need to work hard.

The anger and resentment towards her mother subsided as Maria began to accept the business as her own. She was able to successfully negotiate the boundaries between work and home, and childhood and adulthood. Her successful boundary work was due in part to her ability to redefine her responsibilities in a developmentally appropriate light. In Maria’s case, she was able to place the same duties she had performed since she was in grade school in an adult context by viewing her role as a manager rather than a worker at the family restaurant. She said, "…after a while I started training people. I figured, ‘Hey, I’ve got some responsibility so I might as well get a word in’." She feels a greater sense of authority in the daily management of the business. This present reinterpretation helps to soften the sharp edges of her confrontations with her parents during her adolescent years. Maria's positive spin on the past is common among young adults who have had the benefit of 1) time and distance away from the family and business; 2) age; and 3) maturity.

Adolescents, on the other hand, are usually too intensely embedded within the family and the business to find&endash;much less search for&endash;a story with a happy ending. For them, it is easier to simply reject the family business and disconnect from their parents. I found this to be true for older respondents, as well, who had no opportunity to move away from home for college. The intense embedded nature of work and family expectations make boundary work extremely difficult. While these older respondents had age on their side, the other crucial elements they needed to come to terms with their alienating childhood were absent. In this scenario, the role conflicts between child and parent remain despite the child’s age.

Frank, a Korean American college junior, expressed anger towards his parents. Their family business, a small construction company, has been struggling for some time. Due to their limited finances, Frank was unable to attend the college of his choice and was forced to live with his parents. When asked if he learned anything from this work experience, he replied:I've learned annoyance and a great deal of it. And now I am basically extremely limited in terms of what I can do&endash;school; various other things. I just don't understand how for 12 years you can continue something that's making zero money. It's ridiculous.

Frank also refused to work for his parents and after graduation, he plans to move to Korea to look for a job. In this way, he has rejected the family business and is attempting to distance himself from his parents. In doing so, he rejected the core of the immigration trajectory and the "American Dream"&endash; in a way, he seeks to reverse the process by returning to the home country.

CONCLUSION

Successful boundary work is an important part of acculturation for the second generation&endash;it is part of making a connection with their parents' generation while finding one’s own place. Given the complexity of adultification and childification within the culture of small immigrant family businesses, boundary work can be a difficult process that runs counter to mainstream American culture. The developmental expectation of children and adolescents, as expressed by schools, peers, and popular culture/media in the U.S. differ from the lived experiences of these children of immigrants. For these children, their family business functions as a warped time capsule in which children "grow-up" too fast and, as young adults, never age.

While immigrant parents seek anjong&endash;establishment, stability, or security&endash;through the family business, immigrant children seek a "normal" childhood that combines the responsibilities and rewards of both "American" and Asian (i.e. family small business) cultures. However, similar to the pitfalls involved in the "American Dream" mythology, this "normality" is elusive. Children of immigrant entrepreneurial families are faced with the reality of the present social structures that surround small immigrant enterprises, which require their labor.

While many adolescents may feel "abnormal" in some way, immigrant children find themselves in a unique situation in that their "difference" is accentuated not only by their family’s minority and immigrant status, but by their involvement in small family businesses. The intense demands and embeddedness of the family business separate their childhood from that of their peers and perhaps more importantly from what these children of immigrants perceive as a "normal" American childhood. The boundary work of separating home and work, in addition to the conflicting family role expectation make the family business especially complicated.

How adultification and childification affects children raises certain issues in the study of immigrant families. The developmental concerns raised here highlight the importance of the process of growing up. Research on immigrants, particularly the children of immigrants, focuses heavily on outcome measures (particularly education). However, better understanding the process of development can make a significant contribution to understanding not only the occurrence of particular outcomes or acculturation patterns, but also the formation of one’s ethnic identity.

In addition, there are a number of questions that warrant further consideration. For example, how such experiences in which children see themselves as "different" impacts immigrant children in the long run is an important concern in the study of both family and migration. Related to this, are questions regarding immigrant children and adolescents’ coping strategies as they negotiate a number of conflicting roles and expectations between work and family, and childhood and adulthood.

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