Faculty Book: Kay Deaux
Kay Deaux
To Be an Immigrant
(Russell Sage, 2006)
In To Be an Immigrant, social psychologist Kay Deaux argues that in addition to looking at macro-level factors like public policies and social conditions and micro-level issues like individual choices, immigration scholars should also study influences that occur on an intermediate level, such as interpersonal encounters in order to understand how immigrants adapt to a new homeland and form distinct identities. As a case study for her framework, Deaux examines West Indians, exploring their perceptions of the stereotypes they face in the United States and their feelings of connection to their new home. Though race plays a limited role in the West Indies, it becomes more relevant to migrants once they arrive in the United States, where they are primarily identified by others as black, rather than Guyanese or Jamaican. Deaux’s research adds to a growing literature in social psychology on stereotype threat, which suggests that negative stereotypes about one’s group can hinder an individual’s performance. Kay Deaux is a distinguished professor of psychology at The Graduate Center.
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Submitted on: SEP 1, 2006