Protective effects of ethnic identity on individuals’ daily psychological well-being were examined in a sample of 415 ninth grade adolescents from Mexican and Chinese backgrounds. Utilizing daily diary assessments and multilevel modeling, adolescents with a higher regard for their ethnic group were found to have greater levels of daily happiness and marginally less daily anxiety averaged over the two-week study period. Ethnic regard also moderated the daily association between normative stressful demands and happiness, as well as the association between stressful demands and happiness experienced one day after the original stressors occurred. Moderating effects were found even after controlling for self-esteem. Results point to the positive influence of ethnic identity in adolescents’ daily lives.

An important question for the acculturation of adolescents from immigrant families is whether they retain ethnic labels that refer to their national origin (e.g., Mexican, Chinese) or move toward the adoption of labels that are dominant in American society (e.g., Latino, Asian American, American). Approximately 380 adolescents from Asian and Latin American immigrant families selected ethnic labels each year during the four years of high school. Results indicated no normative developmental trend either toward or away from the inclusion of pan-ethnic or American terms in adolescents’ ethnic labels. Significant numbers of adolescents changed their ethnic labels from year to year, however, and these changes were linked with changes in adolescents’ closeness with their parents, strength of ethnic identification, and proficiency in their families’ heritage languages.

Changes in adolescents’ ethnic exploration, belonging, and committed identity statuses (e.g., foreclosure, achievement) were examined over the four years of high school. Results from 541 adolescents with Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds suggest that, as a group, adolescents do not report developmental changes in their ethnic exploration and belonging over time. Normative changes toward more committed identity statuses also were not found. Yet, within-person analyses of change reveal that individual adolescents exhibited substantial fluctuation in exploration, belonging, and identity status across the years, and this fluctuation was associated with concurrent changes in family cohesion, proportion of sameethnic peers, and ethnic centrality. Discussion focuses on the value of examining intraindividual change over several years in order to more fully understand processes of ethnic identity development during adolescence.