Two sides of the same coin: Biculturalism, cultural ideologies, and perceptions of cultural change

Ethnic minorities are adopting a bicultural identity to simultaneously identify with their heritage culture and mainstream American culture. While much research has investigated the extent to which ethnic majority and minority groups differentially respond to cultural ideologies, bicultural reactions to cultural ideologies remain uninvestigated. Bicultural individuals\u27 differential endorsement of cultural ideologies has critical implications for implementation of assimilation and multiculturalism in multicultural societies. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to test the extent to which the salience of cultural identity predicts bicultural individuals\u27 endorsement of assimilation and multicultural ideologies. Identity saliency was manipulated for bicultural Latino Americans and endorsement of assimilation and multiculturalism was measured. It was predicted that Latino Americans would show greater support for multicultural ideologies after their Latino identity was made salient and greater support for assimilation ideologies after their mainstream American identity was made salient. Bicultural identity integration was included as an exploratory variable to determine the extent to which cultural conflict and cultural distance predict endorsement of cultural ideologies. The prediction that multicultural ideologies would be endorsed when a Latino identity was made salient was supported. The prediction that assimilation ideologies would be endorsed when a mainstream American identity was made salient, however, was not supported. The implications of cultural identity saliency for endorsement of cultural ideologies are discussed