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Abstract

Currently, ethnic communities are largely defined in terms of ethnic social capital: resources contained within ethnic communities that are available to the community and mostly closed off to outsiders. However, this creates hard boundaries between insiders and outsiders, excluding the reality of heterogeneity within ethnic communities, including differences in engagement. Recent trends in immigration point to increasing internal diversity among ethnic groups, more residential distribution beyond traditional ethnic enclaves, differences among second generation children, and declining ethnic organization participation. Black and white definitions of belonging do not capture these contemporary realities. While there are theories explaining how identification persists in the absence of community participation, I examine the experiences of those who do not participate in ethnic specific organizations but nonetheless feel a sense of ethnic identification. My research asks why non-joiners opt out of formal social activity, such as organizations, despite having well-articulated ethnic identities. To address this question, I turn to interactionist dimensions of identification, thus far less prominent in ethnic identity literature. In this thesis, I interviewed 20 second-generation Filipino Canadian non-joiners in their twenties or early thirties, seeking to understand why they opt out of Filipino organizations. Drawing on classic Goffmanian dramaturgical analysis and contemporary identity control theory, I find that the co-ethnic encounter is fraught with implicit interaction codes, cultural references, and embodied cultural capabilities. Individuals are highly self conscious of these expectations and react negatively eventually surrendering to their inability to fulfil them after repeated attempts. These situational experiences drive non-joiners away from social activities that are common in Filipino organizations. I identify four processes of non-joining: disjunction, internalization, exhaustion, and negotiation. These findings call attention to the overlooked interpersonal dimension of ethnic identification that goes beyond self-identification and personal labels. I argue that these two dimensions of identification, self-concept and interpersonal interaction, are independent of each other. Having a wealth of cultural knowledge is not enough to facilitate co-ethnic recognition in interaction. Rather, interpersonal dimensions of identification demand embodied signals of cultural membership that are more difficult to acquire. This interactional dimension is what motivates or de-motivates future community engagement.