She is a member of Generation 1.5 — a term popularized years ago in California's Asian community as a way of describing immigrants who arrive in America as children. Now the label has caught on among academics and researchers, too.

Generation "1.5ers" are not completely first-generation immigrants. They're not second-generation, either. At school, they're foreigners with accents. At home, they're a window into American culture — jeans, hair gel and all. Many are dragged from errand to errand, interpreting for their parents.

Generation 1.5 immigrants often emerge as bicultural bridges in adulthood. And their role is expanding in Georgia, which has had the nation's fourth-fastest-growing immigrant population this decade, according to the census.

"The strength of being 1.5 is having access to both cultures," said Jennifer Watts, co-founder of Culture Connect, an Atlanta non-profit that helps immigrants adjust to life here and recently started a Generation 1.5 support group. "The downside is feeling like you don't fully belong to either."

Before she was old enough to drive, Ching Hsia was in charge of paying the bills at home and at the family's Yen Jing Chinese Restaurant in Doraville. She'd interpret at the doctor's office, the bank and wherever else her parents came in contact with the English-speaking world.

"She's our manager," her father Shu Hsia said in Mandarin (with Ching interpreting) from the family restaurant off Buford Highway. "She does everything."

As she grew older, responsibilities multiplied for the youngest of the four Hsia children. When the satellite TV wasn't working, she would hear calls of "Ching." When there was confusion over paychecks at work, "Ching." When a vendor had a question, "Ching."

Now she's like the resident interpreter for the entire Koreatown Plaza, where her parents are among the many merchants who struggle with English. This summer Hsia has set up an attorney's visit with the owner of a clothing boutique, helped a cosmetician out of a credit jam and called Allstate insurance on behalf of a merchant with roof damage.

All this as Hsia earns a degree in Spanish from Georgia State — she's the liaison with the restaurant's Hispanic kitchen staff, too — and works part-time as a Mandarin interpreter. The slogan on her business card says it all: "Bridging the Gap."

Much is unfamiliar at the International Center, where foreign-born students enroll in DeKalb County Schools. Then they hear the voice of Xochitl Araica. She's speaking Spanish. She's Latina — like them.

But few know of Araica's struggle to earn her role of cultural ambassador, someone who moves with ease between the English- and Spanish-speaking worlds. Well into adulthood, she felt like an outcast in both.

Born in Nicaragua, Araica's family was torn apart by a bloody guerilla war. She landed outside New Orleans at age 8 and lived with her sister, who had married an American. "My sister and I were the only Hispanics in the parish," Araica said.

Then, at age 16, Araica was uprooted again. She moved in with her mother in Miami. Now she was surrounded by Latinos. But her favorite groups were Journey and REO Speedwagon. And she spoke little Spanish.

She was a U.S. citizen, but people at the Medicaid office would question her legal status. She didn't feel like part of metro Atlanta's Latino community, either. It was largely Mexican.

Then a professor at Kennesaw State urged Araica to reconnect with her roots. She started studying Spanish and worked on a project helping migrant workers.

Araica eventually landed a job going door to door for the 2000 Census. "I got to know my community," she said, "and my community got to know me."

It was a breakthrough. She loved interpreting — and the people she was interpreting for. Araica, a mother of two, found herself coming to the aid of Spanish-speaking parents at her children's schools and people hitting language barriers at places like Wal-Mart.

Monday, she helped an 8-year-old from Michoacan, Mexico. As Araica interpreted for the mother, the boy swiveled around in his chair and faced the center's mission statement: to reduce "culture shock."

A Vietnam-born crooner sang to a Motown beat. Models wore traditional Ao Dai dresses — tripped out with American flares. And the videos had just the right blend of hip-hop and Vietnamese folk.

But the biggest success at the first Vietnamese Video Music Awards wasn't on stage at all, said Tom Nguyen, a University of Georgia junior who helped organize the show. It was in the crowd.

The videos, coupled with a fashion show, gave the event enough glitz to draw Americanized students who sometimes shun Vietnamese groups on campus. And nobody was dismissed as a FOB (Fresh Off the Boat), a derogatory term Nguyen said is too often slung at recent immigrants from Asia.

The son of a soldier imprisoned by the Communist forces, Nguyen moved from Vietnam to Hapeville at age 6. He spent weekends at his tight-knit Vietnamese Catholic church and weekdays at his largely African-American school.

Nguyen learned to use the appropriate titles, like "chu" for men older than him but younger than his father. But he also had spiked hair and baggy jeans.

Now a public relations major, Nguyen is vice president of UGA's Vietnamese Student Association. He spent eight months planning the video awards with university students from Emory, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Clayton State and Georgia Perimeter College. The event raised more than $6,000 to help victims of the sex trade in Vietnam.

Among the most gratifying moments, Nguyen said, was seeing the camaraderie of the women plucked from Georgia campuses to model Vietnamese gowns.

"Some were traditional Vietnamese girls," he said. "Some were American-born. Some were [Generation] 1.5. They got together and hung out right away."

The young woman drops a handkerchief at the feet of a man who caught her eye in a bookstore. He picks it up. They flirt. He's obviously interested, but the woman plays it cool.

But these are actors rehearsing at the Global Mall in Norcross. And one detail exposes the setting as distinctly American, says Alpharetta playwright Aqsa Farooqui-Sachdeva.

Straddling two cultures isn't always easy — something Farooqui-Sachdeva sees daily as a psychotherapist in metro Atlanta's South Asian community. Young men under pressure to be doctors are surrounded by peers whose career choices seem boundless. Young women covet the respect of a traditional Indian housewife but love the American independence that allows them their own career. Older immigrants struggle with the weight of expectations, too.

Now Farooqui-Sachdeva has thrust that Asia-to-Alpharetta angst onto the stage in two plays to be performed for the first time Sept. 16 at Zyka restaurant in Decatur.

Farooqui-Sachdeva lived in metro Atlanta until age 7, moved to Pakistan for 10 years and returned for her senior year at Lakeside High in North DeKalb. She worked to stamp out her Pakistani accent, a decade after shaking an American accent in Pakistan.

After going to Agnes Scott College and working in Atlanta, Farooqui-Sachdeva says she's finding her cultural equilibrium. She celebrates Muslim holidays, fasts during Ramadan and, in keeping with Islam, doesn't drink alcohol. But she broke from family tradition and married a Hindu from India last year. And Farooqui-Sachdeva went into psychotherapy, a profession she says is taboo in Pakistan.

After graduating from high school, each followed a different half. Sam moved back to Seoul, joined the South Korean army and became a computer programmer.

Jae went to community college in Southern California. He assimilated into American culture, favoring burgers over bibimbap, a traditional Korean vegetable dish.

They began designing an Internet café called E-Village. Set to open later this month in Duluth, the café combines the American coffeehouse craze with the computer-gaming culture that's hot in Korea. "We thought, 'Let's try fitting this Korean thing into America,'" Jae said.

The Yoons got off to a rocky start in America. The popular kids made fun of their broken English. And the second-generation — American-born students of Korean descent — didn't want anything to do with them, either. It was as if their Korean accents were contagious.

"I was thinking 'Why aren't they on our side?'" Jae said. "Why are they against us? That's the way it was — 1.5 Generation didn't get along with second generation."

Now Sam, who moved back to the United States earlier this year, said he no longer considers himself Generation 1.5. "I'm more like first generation," he said.

Jae, meanwhile, speaks English better than Korean. Recently he took Sam to a Sonic Drive-In for the first time. Sam, who prefers sit-down meals of Korean cuisine, didn't get the appeal.

But those differences should work to their advantage now, they said last week over the cacophony of buzz saws and nail guns at the café under construction off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

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