Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community

6. Friendship and Voluntary Association Membership in Ethnic and Nonethnic Communities

SIX Friendship and Voluntary Association Membership in Ethnic and Nonethnic Communities A s noted in Chapter I, the linear assimilatiorust and structural approaches to ethnicity suggest that there is essentially a substitutive or zero-sum relationship between ethnic group membership retention and structural assimilation. We have proposed thatJapanese Americans do not fit this pattern. They show evidence ofhigh levels ofstructural assimilation and yet retain high levels of ethnic group membership on several dimensions. In contrast to the mainly symbolic ethnicity found in many third generation European ethnic groups, members of this group still interact with one another in a variety of social organizational contexts. One reason casual observers may assume that structural assimilation has led to the destruction ofJapanese American community life is that many of the more visible features of the community have disappeared since the end ofWorld War II. No longer, for example, is there a large and vital Nihonmachi, or Little Tokyo, in most West Coast cities. Despite this geographical dispersion, however, Japanese Americans have managed to retain high levels of participation in the institutional life of their ethnic community. In addition to the persistence of strong interfamily patterns of mutual aid and support, there is continued participation in a wide variety of voluntary associations such as Buddhist and Christian 95 96 Friendship and Voluntary Association Membership ethnic churches, Japanese American athletic leagues, and the Japanese American Citizens League. In this chapter we will examine empirical data on voluntary association memberships and friendship patterns which illustrate how the ethnic community has adapted to the pressures brought on by structural assimilation . Before we look at this data, however, it will be helpful to gain some comparative perspective on the significance of different types of ethnic community involvement. THE "ETHNIC MOBILITY TRAP" Personal relationships vary widely, ranging from transient marketplace contacts to lifelong friendships and marriage. In the next chapter, we will concentrate on economic relationships and in Chapter 8 we will deal with intermarriage. This chapter focuses on relationships that fall somewhere in between the two extremes of impersonality and intimacy, These relationships may be conceptualized as being on the continuum characterized by Granovetter (1973, 1982) as "weak" and "strong" ties. Strong ties, such as those between best friends, are relatively intimate in character, Individuals invest more of themselves in such relationships and often expect as much (or more) from them in return. Weak ties, on the other hand, call for much lower levels of intimacy and investment and include relationships with casual acquaintances. most co-workers. and many persons with whom an individual interacts in voluntary associations such as PTAS or clubs. The literature in psychology and sociology has long recognized the importance ofstrong ties in providing social support in individuals' lives. Those who do not have such ties are often portrayed as isolated, alienated , and less capable of withstanding the stresses associated with negative life events (e.g" Gottlieb, 1983; Jung, 1984). At the same time, however, Granovetter (1973) points out that persons whose social contacts are restricted to strong ties may experience limitations in securing certain types of resources, because persons with whom one has strong ties are likely to be similar to oneself. Thus a network ofstrong ties tends to be a clique made up of similar individuals. A person with such a network is unlikely to be able to draw upon individuals or other social networks with different resources. On the other hand, weak ties with fellow club members, neighbors. and acquaintances can act as bridges to networks of individuals who are Friendship and Voluntary Association Membership 97 different and thus have access to different resources. Further, weak ties allow one to have access to a greater number of individuals. Granovetter found, for example, that those who were most successful in finding jobs had a greater number of weak ties. Also, he notes that weak ties can be more valuable than strong ties when the goal is to form a political coalition. Exclusive reliance on strong ties makes it difficult for persons to build bridges to other groups, and this makes them less effective politically. In Gans's (1982) study of the Italian American community in Boston's West End, which served as the basis for one of Granovetter's examples, the subculture fostered a suspiciousness of "strangers" and an almost exclusive reliance on a small set ofstrong-tie relationships. This resulted in strong family cliques in the West End but...