Marginality,credibility and impression management: The Asian sociologist in America

A number of sociologists of Asian origin live and work in the United States. I use my personal experiences and impressions to illustrate the process of becoming, being, and being accepted as an academic sociologist. I find that perceptions of marginality, a quest for credibility, and efforts at impression management are important themes that run through this process. The positive and negative implications arising from these aspects of role performance for the Asian sociologist in America are identified. His current research focuses on cross-national studies of violence and the socio-legal processing of cases of child homicide.