The theory underlying juvenile delinquency is that emotional or social maladjustments are manifested in overt activities termed "anti-social" by society. The latter include: (a), harm to person, self, or others directly or indirectly involved in the social situation; (b) damage or misappropriation of property; (c) refusal to obey either parental, academic, or legal authority; or (d) acts leading to possible danger to self or others. Activities may be premeditated or spontaneous and are often performed without full knowledge of the social consequences. However, most latent inner tensions are directly traceable to distorted parent-child, teacher-pupil, or peer group relationships. In this paper, a consideration of the behavior of Chinese juveniles is paramount and a controlling hypothesis may be stated; viz, that the overt anti-social activities result from (a) cultural conflicts between parents of foreign-born or mixed nativity and native-born children, (b) broken homes and (c) longings for `self expression. Thus, acculturation on the part of children seeking identification and status in, the society wherein they are born may cause tensions which may be absent where two sets of cultural norms do not simultaneously operate. The length of time a given culture has persisted is not as important as the pressure exerted by parents, or their generation, upon the youth who desire submergence with the immediate and prevailing culture. Parents of foreign-born or mixed parentage often unmeaningly alienate their children from the cultural traits which they imported into the American society. Over-anxiety results in constant and insistent ordering and forbidding. In time, both parents and children express and experience emotional confusion. Foreign-born parents feel "ashamed" of their inadequacy and consider any public knowledge of this as evidence of their unsuccessful rearing and control of offsprings. When new-world traits challenge village mores and customs, parents become genuinely bewildered. Moreover, the nearest kin, as an additional authoritarian figure, may. likewise have failed to reinforce them. Thus, a shattering of ideals and values motivates them to exercise greater constraints which but serves to widen the chasm between them and the children. A major problem confronting native-born juveniles is where to seek guidance, counsel, or sympathetic understanding when they believe their parents fail them. The desire to shield their elders deepens the conflict. Often the absence of the proper explanatory terms in another language. hampers effective interaction and the troublesome situation remains when experiences cannot be mutually and sympathetically shared; An added fact is that the children's social world is vastly different from that of the parents and each may participate in totally dissimilar orbits, with neither meeting. Fortunately, maturity is a steadying influence and the "marginal man" may attain stability through the services of preventive and correctional agencies established by the society. Should the Chinese juvenile delinquency rates increase for the future, it is caused by the greater proportion of native-borns who must perforce undergo the Americanization process, disturbing as this may be for some. The ascendancy of dependent and neglected children will be forthcoming as native-born parents reach another phase of Americanization. They have learned that the larger society will provide care for dependent children when (a) they prove inadequate as parents, (5) they are unable to provide for the financial support of offsprings, or (c) the home situation is untenable. Either or both parents may be at fault but so long as the child's welfare is at stake and our society provides substitute parents or renders financial assistance, more will turn to social agencies for aid. The future generations of Chinese juveniles may experience more overt rejection and exhibit emotional disturbances such as are found in other groups in the population. Divorce is increasing among native-born parents, a phenomenon which has produced more emotional problems for children. Moreover, rising incidents of remarriage brings similar social effects. Whether the parents are foreign-born, of mixed parentage, or native-born, a conclusion embraces all of the group under study. Whatever the nature of the anti-social manifestations by juvenile delinquents may be, they are striving toward more acceptable forms of acculturation through devious routes. Parents may hinder rather than help in the process. Where children are abandoned by parents (mainly native-born), the latter have attained acculturation and have accepted prevailing cultural norms. In both instances, children are the victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]