Extended Family Ties: Annotated Bibliography

No matter what background you come from or how you were raised, family is extremely important. According to Malinowski, “Family is a necessary institution for fulfilling the task of child rearing in society”(Conley, 2013). Society has come a long way when it comes to family and it is much different than it was in the 1950’s. Not all families are nuclear families. A nuclear family is having a mother, father, and children that are all biological (Conley, 2013). This kind of family is what some would call more “traditional.” Today in the twenty first century it is getting harder and harder to find families that have actually stayed together. There are so many different kinds of families in today’s society, and more and more families are becoming blended families. A blended family is when two families come together (Conley, 2013). Many families today have single mons, single, dads, and even same sex parents. Family is not always the people that live in the same house as you, family also consists of extended family. An extended family is a network that goes beyond the main “nuclear” family (Conley,

According to the National Education Association (NEA), the Hispanic culture is one of the fastest growing culture groups in America (2016). “There are 41.8 million Hispanics in America, representing 14.2 percent of the U.S. population, with estimates for growth to nearly 20 percent by the year 2050” (NEA, 2016.papa.1). The Hispanic culture believes that their family is a very

Even in the emotional support and compassionate partnership of a family, money can dominate the well-being and status of both the parent and child. In most cases, you either get financial support from your family and relatives or their emotional and courageous support, but it is rarely likely that a family member that gets the best of both worlds. In Grestel and Sarkisian’s ‘the Color of Family Ties” Blacks and Latino(as) are more likely to get along with extended relatives rather than their White counterparts, but on the other hand, Whites are more likely to give and receive financial aid from their relatives than their non-Whites (49). However, not all Whites are rich and not all non-Whites are poor, so by placing them in the same income, level of education, and along the scenarios of family matters, and the results show a different story. To impoverished Whites, like their non-White counterparts, would more likely ask for help on their basic needs and visit their families more often (51). While middle-class non-Whites would talk more about “personal concerns or share money with relatives than are their poorer counterparts.” (51) This data read made an interjection to my personal life due to the fact that even though I am systematically poor than the majority of my family, I still gain both financial and moral support in my family because it’s just a special case that they’re willing to help me

As of 2015 the U.S Census Bureau revealed that approximately 116 million families are living in the United States. These families possess their own unique style, culture and set of beliefs. My family, consisting of my married parents and my older sister, are no different in the aspect that we too hold our own set of beliefs. The socially constructed term ‘family’ traditionally is defined as a unit that is related by marriage or blood, share financial responsibilities and care for any children/dependents (Lofquist et al., 2012). Growing up as a Haitian American, my ideas of what it means to be a family have been greatly influenced by my cultures and my religion. The Haitian culture greatly emphasizes family relationships and familial

Have you suffered and feel disappointment in your life? Who is willing to support to you without any reason when you fail in doing something? The answer is your family. Usually, family members can tolerate our mistakes and help us to solve our personal problems. Many people believe that having a family is happiness and they don’t need to be alone and support with each other. The family life is a very important to discuss because our attitude on the family value may effect to our views toward the world. In the article “ The Color of Families Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement”, Gerstel and Sarkisian argued that that the social class did not make the poor family had weaker ties and the relationship between the extended family members was more fragment. Actually, Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian claimed that financial problems create weak ties among the color family.

Currently within the United States one of the fastest growing minority population (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) is the Latinos. In 2010 Census Bureau Brief ( Ennis, Rois-Vargas, & Albert, 2011) it stated how an estimated 15 million Latino individuals were living within the United States, which is approximately about 16% of the entire U.S. population. There is one big problem with addressing the Latino population, and that is the family patterns are either misrepresented or not properly understood, due to the label of Hispanic and Latinos being placed together. These two groups may share the same spoken language of Spanish and have similar cultural ancestry but the diversity among Hispanic and Latinos (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) make generalizations about their lifestyles difficult. The term Hispanic came to be used in the 1970’s by government officials (cdc.gov, 2011) in trying to provide a diverse label on this population that had connections to speaking Spanish and the Spanish culture. Latino became more of a termed to be used when distinguishing between Mexican (Hispanics) and Latinos who descendants from Latin America such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

The essay starts with a very simple definition of a family, accompanied by an explanation of the relationship between family structure and the strength of the link between different people forming the family in question. The introduction has been put in a simple language to provide a fluid understanding of what the reader should expect throughout the text. Literal tools like proverbs and similes have been applied. There is a clear language connection of cultural legacy and a family unit where the authors explain that legacy in the society does not determine how different ethnicities connect with the family unit. Gertsel and Sarkasian believe that deliberations made on family responsibilities tend to pay more attention to nuclear family as opposed to the general family unit. The language used here implies that the general meaning of extended family unit is ignored or in some cases misrepresented.

Annette Lareau, author of Unequal Childhoods Class, Race, and Family Life, revealed her research findings in this enlightening text featuring twelve socially, economically, and culturally diverse families having a child nine to ten years of age respectively in their nuclear family unit. These families were garnered from the author’s coinciding study comprised of eighty-eight children. Lareau, along with her research assistants, visited each family approximately twenty times. Visits included time spent within the home, as well as family events, school functions, doctor’s visits, structured activities, shopping trips, and church services. Wide-ranging contexts allowed researchers a unique opportunity to observe and record a multiplicity of interactions within each family unit.

     The African-American family is defined as networks of households related by blood, marriage, or function that provide basic instrumental and expressive functions of the family to the members of those networks (Hill, 1999). It is one of the strongest institutions throughout history, and still today. Family strengths are considered to be cultural assets that are transmitted through socialization from generation to generation and not merely adaptations or coping responses to contemporary racial or economic oppression (McDaniel 1994; Hill 1999). This definition is contrary to the belief that the Black family is an adaptation to harsh conditions, instead of an ongoing establishment. Hill (1999) discusses

The ideal family is always portrayed as the two parents and the children, but both “An Indian Story” by Roger Jack and “ Looking for Work” by Gary Soto, surpass that stereotype by showing families that are not ideal. One is a Native American family that doesn’t live together, the other is a working class Mexican American family . As mentioned in, “The Color of Family Ties” , “...commentators often emphasize the disorganization and dysfunction of black and Latino/a family life”, (pg. 54) because they are minorities they are looked upon on, and the way their family is structure is linked to their ethnicity or race, although those two don’t necessarily correlate. “An Indian Story” and “Looking for Work” illustrate nontraditional families, both show love and care within their family regardless of the situation, but “An Indian Story” shows a stronger family tie because they manage to lookout for each other and they continuously show their support to one another in order to be united.

Gerstel and Sarkisian both argue that minority families do not have weaker family ties than whites, contrary to popular belief, and that the reason for this myth is because of social class. Both authors describe how minority families aid one another through practical help, financial aid, and emotional support. They claim that minority families surpass white families in all forms of assistance for financial help and emotional support in terms of women. By revealing white families to be shockingly inadequate compared to minority families, Gerstel and Sarkisian prove that social class and money are the two defining factors that make a decent family. However, financial assistance seemed to be their only argument when explaining why minority families were not as loving and caring as they could be.

Falicov, C.J., & Brudner-White, L. (1983). The shifting family triangle: The issue of cultural and

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

Africans, Nigerians, and the Middle East have larger families (including extended) which affects the familial hierarchy

Many people say that they are scared to let people into their lives, but my family loves to let other people into our lives. For example we have let in many kids that either don’t have a good family life, live far away from school, or don’t have enough money to provide for themselves. It is awesome having these “older brothers” come into our house because I become very close to all of them. I will be talking about the effects from having these people live with us.