Abstract
According to the 1980 census, the Chinese, with a population of 806,027, are the largest Asian minority in the United States. The rapid growth in the Chinese population is primarily a result of more recent waves of immigration from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and Southeast Asia. These new arrivals have increased the heterogeneity of the Chinese population. In addition to the demographic, social, psychological, and geographic differences among those residing in the United States, we thus have Chinese immigrants from many different parts of Asia. The heterogeneity makes any simple generalization about the Chinese tenuous, yet there is a general notion that in terms of alcohol consumption, they are a non-drinking group. For example, Cahalan (1978) reports that there are
several cultural groups within the United States with a consistent record of moderation in the use of alcohol—particularly the Jews and Chinese. ... We should study these groups to determine exactly how they manage to maintain their record of moderation even when immersed in a heavy-drinking society. (p. 24)
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Sue, S., Kitano, H.H.L., Hatanaka, H., Yeung, WT. (1985). Alcohol Consumption among Chinese in the United States. In: Bennett, L.A., Ames, G.M. (eds) The American Experience with Alcohol. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0530-7_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0530-7_19
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