Monday, September 19, 2011

Chapter 4 Blog

1. Summary

They started off by bringing up the point that probably sometime in the near distant future that the household will be more diverse in the racial and ethnic composition of its members. Americans do not realize the high rate of immigration into the country. There are two points of view to this issue either Americans are appreciative for the work that immigrants provide at low wages and professional levels while others worry about our national security and taking away our identity. The chapter defined a minority group as a group that lacks economic and political power relative to the dominant group because of racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Even though such heavily populated groups are Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Middle Eastern, and American Indian families are ­­considered minorities.

The chapter then goes on to explain how these minority families are set up. A fact that the book gave was that black families are heterogeneous. They vary in kinship structure, values, and social class. American Indian families vary depending on what families you look at. They speak many languages, practice different religions and customs, and maintain a variety of economic and political styles. American Indians are losing their language and customs due to their assimilation into mainstream United States culture. Latino families differ in various ways that are not common or not what you would think. They differ in when they settled in the U.S, where they came from, and how they adapted to economic and political situations.

Latinos vary in the structure and dynamic of the family depending on social class and degree of acculturation. The most diverse minority is the Asian American families. Their structures depend on the family origin, when the immigrants arrived, and the socioeconomic status of the parents. Finally, you cannot pinpoint Middle Eastern families come from about thirty different countries. So it is obvious that they speak a variety of languages and practice different religions. The only thing they place heavy value on is the nuclear and extended families, teaching traditional gender roles, and reinforce their children’s ethnic identity. The population of children under eighteen contains a number of multiracial Americans. The percentage of interracial and interethnic marriage has been growing since 1967. The reasons for the increase are proximity in school and workplaces, greater public acceptance of racial-ethnic intermarriage, acculturation, and a shrinking pool of eligible marriage partners in the same group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1R2RCrRvcc

This is an interesting video I found on youtube that relates to this chapter about the diversity in families not only with minority families, but it includes families with single parents and other situations.

2. My Opinions

I found most of the information that I read about the different cultures and infrastructures of the different families to be very interesting. Also it gave me a good perspective of what plays a part of what different families have to deal with. I decided though that I do not like the term minority because it truly does not make sense. If they said they were the non-dominant or recessive group that would make sense. Minority implies to me that there is a small population of people who if tried to grab onto power would not succeed due to lack of support. Minority is just a group that lacks economic and political power due to racism, prejudice, and discrimination. I just don’t know what it really means to be a minority.

3. Questions

I just want to know what the implications are by saying that the ethnic composition of families is going to change in 2050. It almost seems like they are trying to instill fear into the population. Because that is how our society seems to react to statistics and incidences similar to that. I am currently reading the book Culture of Fear by Glassner and this just seems something similar to what he talks about. Why do we need to know this fact? Is it truly a huge ordeal if the population becomes completely mixed together? Where is the harm in have a mixed race instead of a “purebred”?

1 comment:

  1. I agree that it shouldn't matter! I think their reason for stating that fact is because people are concerned that we will lose traditions associated with the original cultures if we intermix them. I don't think this should matter because important traditions will continue on nevertheless, and we will also adopt new, better traditions! What do you think?
    Bonnie Noel

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