Aging Process of Different Ethnic Backgrounds and Prevailing Process of the Concept of Independence in the United States

本研究利用1900、1910、1920、30年代的人口普查原始资料，以及短期的田野调查，透过访谈与搜集额外的历史资料，来探讨移民的老化过程与独立观念在不同种族背景的老年移民中普及的过程之间的关系。选择了两个研究地点对欧洲和亚洲移民进行比较分析：威斯康星州中部的河滨和夏威夷岛的希洛。人口普查分析包括（1）人口普查资料的数据库;（2）追踪不同人口普查年度的个人和家庭;（3）重建追踪的家庭组成和变化;（4）分析老年人在家庭组成中的战略选择。以身为户主、除配偶外无他人为独立生活态度的操作性指标。根据人口普查分析、收集到的关于对老年人和老年人的态度的书面材料以及访谈数据，本研究得出结论，在先前关于河滨欧洲移民的研究项目中形成的一个假设，即波兰移民，并没有被否定，19世纪80年代来到河滨的第一代移民在一代人的时间里增加了老年户主的数量。就希洛的日本人而言，他们可能决定终身居住，然后在世纪初确定退休年龄。在1900年至1930年期间，似乎有一种过滤作用，决定谁将留在美国，谁将离开，然后许多留下来的移民变老了，没有为自己的晚年树立榜样。新兴的美国生活方式建议老年移民采取自助的方式，保持年轻的心态。

This research is to delineate the relationship between aging process of immigrants and the process in which the concept of independence became pervasive among the elderly immigrant people of different ethnic backgrounds by using census original schedules of 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930's, and short-term fieldwork during which I conducted interviewing and collecting additional historical material. Two research sites were chosen for a comparative analysis of European and Asian immigrants : Riverfront in Central Wisconsin and Hilo in Hawaii Island. Census analysis included (1) databasing of the census information, (2) tracing individuals and families over different census years, (3) reconstructing traced families' composition and changes, (4) analysis of the elderly people's strategic choices as reflected in family composition. Being a head of household and being without others except for spouse were taken as operative indicators to have an independent attitude toward leading lives. Based on the census analysis, the collected written material concerning attitudes toward the elderly people and the old age, and the interview data, this research concludes that a hypothesis shaped in the previous research project on European immigrants in Riverfront, namely Polish immigrants, was not negated, that is, the first generation of immigrants who came to Riverfront in the 1880s increased the number of elderly family heads within one generational years. In the case of the Japanese in Hilo, a decision was probably made to stay for lifetime and then to design their retirement age in the beginning of the twentieth century. During the period of 1900 - 1930, a filtering seemed to work on who would decide to stay in America or who would leave, and then many immigrants who stayed were becoming old without models for their own old age. Emerging American life style would suggest older immigrants to take the self-help and to keep youth attitude.