Mental Conflicts of Eurasian Adolescents

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Identity Development/Psychology, Social Science on 2011-07-11 01:20Z by Steven

Mental Conflicts of Eurasian Adolescents

The Journal of Social Psychology
Volume 5, Issue 3 (August 1934)
pages 402-408
ISSN: 0022-4545 (Print), 1940-1183 (Online)
DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1934.9921608

Linden B. Jenkins

The article presents information on mental conflicts of Eurasian adolescents. In the early colonizing days when only young unmarried men were sent out there seemed to be no expressed attitude toward mixed marriages or concubinage. Eurasians were looked upon as a “natural result” of the conditions under which “empire builders” were forced to live. Mixed marriages then began to be looked upon as contrary to tradition and Eurasians became an “ever-present reminder that taboos have been violated and caste integrity threatened.” These Eurasians are generally so marked physically as to set them off from both parents, and, being excluded from either full-blood group, they constitute a third distinct class. One of the great tragedies to the Eurasion personality is the fact that the struggle to adjust himself to his environment results in the capitulation of his “ego.” The “inferior ego” is a most significant problem for the Eurasian adolescent. Hygienic mental adjustment begins at the point where the adolescent is learning the hard lesson that other individuals be- sides himself exist and have rights similar to his own.

In Malaysia there have been European contacts with the native peoples since the early exploration days of the Portuguese and, as a consequence, there is today a hybrid population of about fifteen thousand “Eurasians” in British Malaya alone. They are of a variety of mixtures—the more common type being Portuguese-Malay. Other mixtures are those of the Dutch, British, and Americans with the Malays, Indians, Javanese, and Chinese.

In the early colonizing days when only young unmarried men were sent out there seemed to be no expressed attitude toward mixed marriages or concubinage. Eurasians were looked upon as a “natural result” of the conditions under which “empire builders” were forced to live.  At a much…

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