COMM5 Instructor Manual Chapter 9
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/conflict-resolution-skills.htm
Diverse Voices
Managing Competing Group Norms
by Mina Tsay, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communication
Boston University
Although I emigrated from Taiwan to the United States when I was only two years old, my
memories are still surprisingly vivid. What I remember most is clinging to my mother as we
faced our first blustery winter in Boston, Massachusetts. As a naturalized Chinese American
growing up in Boston, I faced numerous challenges in managing competing group norms
regarding “acceptable” or even “desirable” behavior. I can probably best illustrate these
challenges by focusing on my experiences (a) speaking Chinese at home and English at
school, (b) attending both American and Chinese schools while growing up, (c) traveling to
Taiwan to visit my extended family, and (d) engaging in rich interactions with Chinese
international students at college.
The first conflicting norm I remember struggling with was whether to speak English
or Mandarin, which is my native language and the most common Chinese dialect. I always
spoke Mandarin at home but was expected to speak English at school. My parents made it
very clear that they did not want me to forget how to speak Mandarin. This norm was so
important to them that they enrolled my sister and me in a Chinese school in a suburb
outside of Boston when I was in third grade.
I must admit I did not fully appreciate the workload at Chinese school during my
early years. But, I developed several close friendships and gradually came to enjoy learning
calligraphy, diabolo, literature, and dance. Being involved in these activities exposed me to
Chinese art, culture, traditions, and rituals. Learning these customs was exceptionally
rewarding, but being enrolled in both schools made it difficult for me to shift from the norms
of one school setting to those of another, primarily in terms of linguistic expectations,
standards of discipline, and social values. I often felt conflicted. In Chinese school, I became
grounded in and celebrated my cultural roots. Then, when I went to American school, I
found myself compromising some of my Chinese cultural norms in order to be accepted by
my peers.
At home and at Chinese school, I adhered to behavioral norms focused on discipline,
a strong work ethic, and respect for elders. At American school, I had to adjust my norms in
ways that seemed to conflict with those of my cultural heritage in order to fully engage in
conversations and activities with my American friends there. I had to seek ways to
assimilate and adhere to norms of their autonomous value system in order to “fit in.”
Adjusting to competing norms at Chinese and American schools here in the United
States was demanding, but I also faced this challenge when I traveled to Taiwan to visit
relatives. In Taiwan, I would often sense a strong pull to adhere to norms in the other
direction. Being around my extended family, it was comforting to know that they held
similar politeness, spiritual, and collectivist norms. On the other hand, sometimes, my
relatives would say that I was acting more American than Chinese. At times like these, I
again felt the struggle of trying to adhere to competing norms.
Back in the United States as a college student at the University of Michigan and then
at the Pennsylvania State University, I also recall feeling torn between competing norms
when Chinese international students would make remarks that I had become “Westernized.”
Those comments made me feel apprehensive about whether I was losing aspects of my
cultural identity. Such realizations encouraged me to seek ways to consciously integrate the
norms of two worlds in order to maintain my unique sense of self. For example, I have
negotiated standards and customs that help to both preserve my own Chinese norms and