Finding Voice Across Platforms: Asian American and Asian Transnational Youths' Identity Negotiation in Social Media Spaces

Abstract

Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States (U.S.), Asian heritage youth are often essentialized by dominant literacy ideologies as quiet, obedient, or culturally foreign, leaving their identity negotiation underexamined and insufficiently supported. This qualitative study examines how first‐ and second‐year Asian American and Asian transnational college students use social media literacy practices to sustain heritage connections and navigate bicultural identities across platforms. Drawing on a qualitative research design that includes surveys, in‐depth interviews, and youth‐generated social media diaries, the analysis identifies two clusters of practices. First, participants amplified heritage identities by using youth‐centered popular culture as entry points to heritage learning and by strategically curating self‐presentation to make Asian cultural affiliation socially legible online. Second, participants negotiated bicultural identities through distinct digital strategies: transnational youth more often differentiated platforms according to cultural and social purposes, while second‐generation Asian American youth more fluidly engaged with blended streams of heritage and U.S.‐based content. Our findings position social media as a Third Space (Bhabha 1994; Gutiérrez 2008) constructed through Asian heritage youths' agentive digital literacy practices, where they draw on cultural and linguistic resources and make hybrid identities visible.