The Race Of Family Life

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

To begin with, the aim of this paper is to respond to the article written by Ian F. Haney Lopez. The main idea of this article was to discuss the question of belonging of a person to this or that racial group. According to Lopez the construction of race is mostly based on the choice of the society, but not on the genetic or other information. My response to this article will be rather neutral because it is fifty percent agreed with her point of view and half a hundred percent disagreed.

Over the course of the last sixty years, family values have consistently continued to change. With a heavier influx of women entering the work force and the social emphasis of individualism, the traditional family image has changed, and with

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes

Families around the world consist of many variations. The traditional family includes a mother and father of the same racial background and their children. While this is the most acceptable type of family dynamic, today there are families that consist of countless different types of deviations. Many children grow up with one parent, gay parents, or with their grandparents. There are also families that consist of two parents that are of different races. Interracial families consist of relatives who are from diverse origins. Interracial families include families where the parents are of two different races or when the adopted children are of a different race than their parents.

A week ago I found myself reading Patricia Hill Collins, “It’s All In the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation” and it made me reflect on the ways in which both gender and race are socially built out of distorted interpretations of family. Collectively constructed as opposed to an innate understanding. We have grown dependent on dysfunctional projections of family, giving rise to a hierarchy which aims to serve all: “…a male headship that privileges and naturalizes masculinity as a source of authority…mothers comply with fathers, sisters defer to brothers, all with the understanding that boys submit to maternal authority until they become men.” (Collins 159) The commitment towards this flawed assemblage of characterizations, has in a way, normalized the social hierarchy. However, this expectation has become unrealistic. Many females find that they are not adequately prepared to survive in a male dominated country, although there is little rebellion against these imposed values.

Many people question, does race affect the depth and strength of a family’s ties? Gerstel and Sarkisian used their essay, “The Color of Family Ties,” to support their opinion that yes; race does have a direct effect on the strength of a family. “We often hear that Black and Latino/a, especially Puerto Rican, families are more disorganized than White families, and that their family ties are weaker, because rates of non-marriage and single parenthood are higher among these minority groups. (Gerstel and Sarkisian p. 1)” The writers continue on to say, “taking this broader perspective on family relations refutes the myth that Blacks and Latinos/as lack strong families… Even if they don’t live together, Blacks and Latinos/as are as likely as Whites – and in some ways more likely – to be supportive family members. (Gerstel and Sarkisian p. 2 and 3)” Although commentators believe that a family should consist of both parents, should only be strongly involved with their nuclear family and need to be more than financially able, I believe family to be more than just that.

The beautiful rich county, Prince’s Georges, is where I grew up in a blended family in the city of Hyattsville, Maryland, raised there by my mother, step-father and grandmother. The ethnic composition of my family is African-American also known as “black”. On a bright sunny day in the city of Langley Park, Maryland, my parents met at a shopping center. The two of them emigrated from Africa to the United States; my biological father was born in Ogun State, Nigeria and my mother was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In addition, I was given my first name after my late grandfather and middle name after my late great-grandmother. Even though I’m half Nigerian, however, I was mostly raised on the maternal side of the family. My mother’s side of the

Family is an important aspect of society. Keeping a family stable is a hard task and the definition of family has expanded from what it used to be because nuclear families are not the norm nowadays. Throughout history the African-American family has had to face traumatic events such as slavery, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement. The racism, segregation, and discrimination that followed these movements have also played an integral role in developing the black family. It takes diligence, strength, and courage in order to be able to persevere through hardship. Society as a whole has tried to undermine the black family by implementing in them a false identity of inferiority. If there are strong nuclear black families today, that means that powerful people in history have been forced to step up in order to make a difference within their community. From the beginning of the play to the very end, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun displays the vital theme of family. In the play there are multiple generations within the Younger Family’s household. The different generations come to show how the African-American family has had to evolve over time. A Raisin in the Sun highlighted the difficulties that families have in order to be able to overcome poverty, aspirations, and the society.

A family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society; society’s moral values and ethics have changed over time. The fifties decade was called “The Last Stage of Innocence” where families dined together, chatted with their neighbors regularly, and went out for frequent outings. However, the typical 2010’s family commonly eats dinner separately, children will be on their phones constantly, and all the members of the family do their own thing at the times they want to. An example of society differences throughout the decades can be shown on television. Two television shows that illustrate these differences are Leave it to Beaver and Modern Family.

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

As I walked in olive garden, just like any other time the hostess greeted me politely and assisted me to be seated. It was around 7:00pm on a Sunday evening with many people as I expected. There were many things I noticed during my observation such as homosexual having dinner with their families and being accepted. Children are not being disciplined when needed whether they’re in a public place or not. Interracial families was eating in peace, and the restaurants are non-smoking, or secluded smoking areas which were all looked at as deviance in the early 1900s. There are many teenage parents that spend time with their parent at restaurants whether the dynamic was mother, child, grandmother or father, child, grandmother; the social norm is

In society everyone is categorized under a race; this is what divides individuals according to their physical characteristics which are inherited such as skin color, eye color, and hair color. Many people are easily confused between race and ethnicity, the difference is that ethnicity relates to cultural factors such as nationality, language, and beliefs. In the story “ Life as the Maid’s Daughter” by Mary Romero we explore the boundaries, Teresa one of the main characters has to deal with everyday based on her race, gender and class. We see that living with boundaries creates frustration and confusion within Teresa’s early stage of life.

Race and class can play powerful roles in people’s family experiences. Race is defined as a socially constructed category of individuals who share common inborn biological traits (Newman 2009). Class is defined as groups of people who share a similar position in society based on their wealth and income (Newman 2009). Social class and race shape family lives in many ways, which in return reproduces class and race inequalities. In Annette Lareau’s study of families, she uses real stories of real families to show important social patterns.

Families in today’s busy culture often don’t spend enough quality time together; eventually, serious problems arise in these families. How can families stay healthy and strong?