From Generation to Generation

This book applies various social approaches to investigations of real people as they function in a specific context, the family. Of all the social facts we construct, identity is probably the most critical. And of all our identities, cultural identity is one of the most central to who we think we are. We learn our cultural identities first within families. The authors all examine the families they know best, their own. The chapters examine four critical issues: how family members jointly work to construct identity; how parents convey that identity to their children; the conflict between mainstream expectations and the traditions of discrete cultural groups; and the range of possible ways to display identity within and across groups.

Contents: Introduction: Maintaining Cultural Identity Over Time, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. Homemade Talk: Language, Identity, and Other Mexican Legacies for a Son's Cultural Competence, Patricia Covarrubias. Cultural Identity Among Mormons: A Microethnographic Study of Family Home Evening, Curtis D. LeBaron. Communicating Chinese Heritage in America: A Study of Bicultural Education Across Generations, Casey Man Kong Lum. (Re)defining Turkish Identity Across Generations: Politics of Home, Nation, and Identity, Nazan Haydari. I, Too, Am a Coal Miner's Daughter: Maintaining Identity in Hillbilly Land, T. Ford-Ahmed. "Be a Mensch": Judaism as Ethnic and Religious Identity, Wendy Leeds Hurwitz. Our Roots are in Iceland: Transferring Icelandic Cultural Identity Over Generations, Erla S. Krisjánsdóttir. My Mother is Greek and My Father is Plain: Growing Up Greek in America, Elenie Opffer. Surviving Cultural Suppression: Sharing and Transferring Ojibwe Identity in Lac du Flambeau, Selene Phillips. Transmitting Cultural Identity from Generation to Generation in Tibetan Diaspora, Tenzin Dorjee. Am I an Albanian American, Katherine Gregory. "Mommy, I Like Hamburgers and Indian Food": Good Parenting and the Limits of Identity Politics Discourse, K. E. Supriya. Both Sides Now: Raising Colombian Americans, Kristine Fitch. Braiding Lives: Raising African-Pacific-Asian Children In-Between Homes, Fay Yokomizo Akindes. Author Index. Subject Index.