Family Separations And Its Effects On Family Relations

The most distinctive trait of American family life, then the trait that differentiates it from family life in other western countries, is sheer movement: frequent transitions, shorter relationships. Americans step on and off the carousel of intimate partnerships (marriages and cohabiting relationships) more often. Whether an American parent is married or cohabiting or raising children without a partner, she or he is more likely to change living arrangements in the near future than are parents in the rest of the western world. It is consequential and we should be concerned about it, both as parents and as a nation, because it may increase children’s behavioral and emotional problems. Simply pu, some children seem to have difficulty adjusting to a series of parents and parents’ partners moving in and out of their home. It is not just parental divorces and breakups that are hard for children. Even transitions that bring a new partner or stepparent into the home can be difficult to cope with. Children whose parents have remarried do not have higher levels of well-being than children in lone-parent (a parent who is neither married nor living with a partner) families, despite the addition of a second parent. One reason is that new

. . . there will probably always be immigrants in the U.S., coming from a wide variety of countries, who cannot speak English but whose grandchildren and great-grandchildren will end up being native English speakers. The reason for this is, again, the fact that it is much easier for children to learn another language than it is for adults. Adults who immigrate to the U.S., especially later in life, may never really become fluent in English. It's not that they don't want to speak English; it's simply much more difficult for them to learn it well. Their children, however, will be able to pick up English easily from their friends and the society around them. These second-generation immigrants, the children of the adult immigrants, are likely to be bilingual, speaking their parents' language at home and English at school and in the English-speaking community. When they grow up and have children of their own, those children - the third generation - will most likely speak only English, both at home with their bilingual parents and in the English-speaking community. This three-generation pattern has been repeating itself for many years, through wave after wave of immigrants. . . . (Par. 9)

The changing environments throughout the ages have caused the movement of thousands of families out of their homelands. Whether forced to make such decisions or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. To speak about the experiences of all these different people using the same ideas and examples would be quite inaccurate. They all, however, had to live through similar situations and deal with similar problems. Many of them succeeded and found the better future they were looking for. Many others found only hardship and experienced the destruction of their hopes and dreams. All of them were transformed.

It is very difficult for someone to leave their place of origin and arrive to the United States, in a melting pot of different cultures. Based on the module readings and the documentary, “Lost in Detention”, immigrant’s experiences many physical and mental damages to their health, which can make their new life in America, a negative, rather than a positive. Immigrants arrive to the country in overall relatively good health (in comparison to natives) and with a hopeful attitude. After a few years, immigrants began to suffer depression, anxiety and poor health due to the conditions that they are presented with.

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

Being separated from your family forcefully or optionally has to be one of the hardest objects in life. While children in the family choose to go their own way in search of a career for the better, others are being ejected from the country for the worse. In Alfred Lubrano’s “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts” and in Michael Omi’s “Living in Color: Race and American Culture”, both passages from Signs of Life in the U.S.A, they both explain how heartbreaking it can be to get separated from a family. Families are being torn apart day by day and it affects the whole family emotionally and exasperatingly.

An astounding twenty-five percent of children in the United States are born of at least one foreign-born parent; eighty-eight percent of those children are second generation (Zong). Second generation immigrants typically acquire the language spoken in the receiving country (the L2 language) when old enough to leave the household for schooling. By contrast, first-generation immigrants who emigrate in adulthood often neglect to learn the L2 language, relying instead upon residential ethnic concentrations and the language-brokering of their children to get by. The lingual disparity between parent and child causes a cultural rift within the relationship, thereby stressing it.

To improve my knowledge on the subject of immigration, I researched how education correlates with the speaking of the English language amongst immigrants. In the book, “Closing the Educational Gap: Benefits and Costs” by Georges Vernez, Richard A. Krop and C. Peter Rydell, it is believed that the education contained by immigrants ,once they traveled here, has

Smells of fried chicken, collard greens, and peach cobbler wafted up from the Church kitchen and filled the sanctuary in preparation for the wedding celebration and mingle with the scent of purple, pink, and white flowers. White ribbons hung neatly at the end of each bench, pink to mark the bride's side of the church, and white to mark the groom's. Two teenage girls, meeting each other for the first time just a week previous, sat motionless on a front pew on the groom's side of the church, aware that they were strangely connected to each other and that this day marked the addition of new foreign relationships. As both stared blankly forward at the spectacle unfolding before them, the bride in her white gown, the groom in his tux, the pageantry, the play, one of them expelled a deep sigh that resonated for the both of them as she matter-of-factually stated, “Gee, I hope this one works.” The other girl nodded in agreement. The marriage resulting from that wedding only lasted for three years, and the groom would go on to marry again. The nodding head girl was me and the prophetic girl was my step-sister from one of my father's previous marriages. Divorce is considered one of the most stressful and traumatic events in a person's life. In the Extended Family Life Cycle, Constance Ahrons outlines the effects of Divorce on a family system and on the individuals within that system.

his statement, he admits that “No respect was shown…” Indeed no respect was shown. Separating families for the desire of money may be looked at as corrupt. No shame was brought to those capturing and destroying family bonds. Instead, the ones in shame were the ones in captive. Going further into the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, Separation of family continued. A young boy by the name of Frederick Douglass did not have the constant love and warmth of a mother throughout his developing life. At the time, captive African were now slaves. Slaves were expected to work hard and long hours each day or physical punishments may happen. Due to Douglas’s mother being sold away to another plantation, “She made her journeys to see me in the night, traveling

In this case, it would be family-separation crisis. A story of an immigrant’s journey to the United States, tells of how “Mrs. K. had experienced the separation from her family as though it were an amputation of parts of herself without which she could not live. The quiet sustaining functions of her mother, her sisters, and the ever-present sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the other were abruptly gone” leading to her being in a depressional state. However, while Mrs. Kosawa’s story isn’t a unique story that many wouldn’t come by through their life, many immigrants have felt a desperation to see their friends and families during this long-distance separation. A person that abruptly moves from their home, doesn’t fully comprehend the

According to literature, parent divorce and separation, job relocations, as well as family migration were three main components for family-child separation (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Jones et al., 2004; Amato & Cheadle, 2005; Huurre et al., 2006; Asis, 2006; De Silva et al., 2007; Graham & Jordan, 2011; Jordon & Graham, 2012). Parent migration is a more serious problem for most Asian countries comparing to western countries, and more and more research were conducted in Asian. There are not many research investigate the influence of parent-child separation caused by parent migration in western countries instead of mainly focusing on parent divorce or separation and job opportunities. Therefore, it is essential to see family migration as a factor contributed to parent-child separation could make any difference for children’s psychosocial development. The current study provided evidence in research to examine the psychosocial health for middle school children with parental migrations conducted in the U.S.

Divorce is a factor that is able to have a critical influence on the parents’ wellbeing. It reshapes their attachment to their acquaintances, where attachment is a key aspect which determines personality and behavior throughout an individual's lifetime (Eagan). A personnel’s wellbeing relates to broader life domains like physical health, economic success and social relationships, and wellbeing is important for the general welfare of societies (Sodermans, et al). In comparison, the wellbeing of parents is defined by their relationship with their children, their financial standing, and their health. When divorce takes place in a marriage, it is competent to alter the lifestyle of its participants, especially the lifestyles of the parents. The negative effects are gender specific, meaning they have differing effects for both men and women. Its adverse effects include a decline in wealth for both individual parents, the decaying of the relationship between the parents and their children, and the harming of individual parents’ physical and psychological state of wellbeing. Ultimately, the spectrum of effects of divorce on parents is noticeably vivid in that divorce affects them greatly in a negative light.

Sociologists typically assume that immigrants' acquisition of English as a second language follows the opportunities and motivations to become proficient in English, while many linguists argue that second language acquisition may be governed by maturational constraints, possibly biologically based, that are tied to the age at onset of language learning. In this article, I use U.S. census data to investigate the relationship between age at onset of second language learning and levels of English language proficiency among foreign-born adults in the United States. The overarching conclusion is that proficiency in a second language among adults is strongly related to age at immigration. Part of that relationship is attributable to social and demo-graphic considerations tied to age at entry into a new country, and part may be attributable to maturational constraints.( Age at immigration acquisition of language, English as second language, second language proficiency)* When investigating second language (L2) acquisition among immigrants, sociologists and economists often rely on "exposure" or "human capital" frame-works, in which L2 learning is prompted by opportunities and motivations to become proficient in English. Much of this research shows that social and demo-graphic factors, such as length of residence in the U.S. and educational attainment, strongly predict levels of proficiency in English among foreign-born adults. Linguists, by contrast, start from the premise that

Both parents are important to a teenager’s life. Both parents are fundamental to a teenager's wellbeing and development. Both are central to a teenager's world, and he/she needs the guidance both parents. That’s why parental separation is a difficult stage that a teenager can undergo.