Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Chapter 4: Racial and Ethnic Familes

Chapter four focuses on how the United States households are becoming more diverse in their racial and ethnic compositions due to the growing number of immigrants. This chapter focuses primarily on Latino, African American, Asian American, Middle Eastern, and American Indian minority groups. Some important points made in the text about the families include the following: It is stated that Latino Families are extremely diverse and some even trace their roots to the Spanish and Mexican settlers. Latino family structure and dynamics vary greatly by social class. One of the major strengths is that they are extremely adaptive. African American Families vary in kinship structure, gender roles, parent-child relationships, and social class. However, they have strong kinship bonds, an ability to adapt family roles to outside pressure, and a strong work ethic. One of the major strengths of the American Indian Family is their relational bonding which is a core behavior that is built on widely shared values such as respect, generosity, and sharing across the tribe, band, clan, and kin group. Asian American Families are even more diverse. Asian American Families vary significantly in their country of origin, time of immigration, and ability to speak English. Some strengths of the Asian American Families include having stable households. Middle Eastern Families come from about 30 countries. Middle Eastern Families have a strong ethnic identity, close family ties, and religious beliefs that secure children to their communities. It is also a huge strength that many Middle Eastern families have extended kin networks and relatives on whom they count on during difficult times. This chapter also focuses on race and ethnicity. This chapter describes a racial group as a category of people who share physical characteristics, such as skin color. The chapter then describes an ethnic group as a set of people who identify with a particular national origin or culture heritage.

I found when reading about African American Families and Latino families the sentence that stated, “More than 33 percent of black-low income working families and 20 percent of their Latino counterparts live in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with only 3 percent of whites” (page 85) to be extremely interesting. I think this was a statistic that I was not aware of before reading this chapter and I think it unbelievable that more than 33 percent of African American families and 20 percent of Latino families live in such poverty. It was something that really caught my attention and really made me more grateful for what I have. It opened my eyes to what other people go through.

I was wondering if anyone in the class knew of anyone who is an immigrant of one of the families this chapter discussed? Was the text accurate in the way it portrayed family life..ect compared to the person you know from that specific family?


Maria Nicholas

1 comment:

  1. i may count as one. I am a permanent resident (aka green card holder, a person who is not yet a full US citizen but has all citizen privileges except voting). I am middle-eastern.
    I also know many other legal immigrant families and/or individuals from various backgrounds (Asian, Eastern European, Western European, Latin American, Middle-Eastern).
    The text is accurate for some but not all cases I must say.

    eser

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