American Families and American History

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American Families

And

American History

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Pre 1500 1776 Colonial

Years

First American Families:Native American

Tribal TreatiesThe British colonies and, later on, the newly independent country dealt

with the Native tribes as independent nation states via treaties.

The arrangements covered geographical domain and behaviors

accepted by both sides from tribal members and new settlers. Compliance to

treaties was often broken by the need of expansion and unequal military powerbetween the factions

Traditional family practices vary among tribes, more so depending on the extent of contact

with and acculturation to non-tribal communities. Thus the family definition is a partialcomposite of traits found among limited number of families living in reservations and

recorded orally or in few documents.

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Family definition: The family is a group of people who reside together and care for each

others survival through reciprocal defense and economic cooperation (Taylor, p.227)

It is organized along a variety ofstructural patterns of residence, authority, and

marriage: patrilocal, matrilocal, patrilineal, matrilineal, extended, nuclear; combined

gender roles of homemakers, breadwinners, teachers of tribal traditions, religious leaders,and socio-political coordinators. Child rearing practices follows value systems that

emphasize harmony with nature, sharing, equality, cooperation, and respect of

elders and authority, and servitude by leaders.

Consequences of encounter with Europeans: By 1670s the Native population residing in

the territories occupied by the colonies was decimated to one tenth of its original size.

Adults and children were killed by disease, war, and conquest. The family resisted to thepoint that today there are about 2.36 million American Indians i.e. 0.9% of the total

population or 610 000 families (Taylor, p. 227)1. See p. 7 below.

First Immigrant Families:North/Western Europeans

The Alien Act

From Colonial times to early years of the new republic

- Settlers required five years of residence and lawful standing to apply for

citizenship- Immigrants from Northwestern European countries mainly Great Britain,

followed by Germany, Sweden, Ireland and Deutschland. Other

population groups included, African born slaves and their descendants,

and other smaller groups from France, Spain, and non-conquered native

tribes. By definition slaves and Native Americans were not citizens

Family definition: group formed by members related by blood and law with common

residence, caring for each other and in charge of childrearing and social support ofdependents.

See B p: 60 64 for marriage patterns, child rearing practices, and gender roles in the earlysettlement family.

1 Remember that the US Census Bureau uses a definition of the family that many a times obscures the

notion and living arrangement of families among American Indians

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Africans

Indentured Servitude and Slavery Codes

- First arrival recorded in 1619 as voluntary immigrants

- Later, African immigrants came largely involuntarily as indenturedservants initially and later on as slaves.

- By 1660s the Slave Codes regulated trade of slaves and increasingly over

the years imposed strict rules on slaves behaviors.

- Though miscegenation was forbidden, owners retained the power to do as

they pleased with their property, namely to bed slave women.

- Slave owners encouraged marriage and many children in order to

maintain and increase their property yet, the profit-orientation of slavery

decimated these marriages.

Family definition: See B pp: 66- 69 and p. 92 -96

To learn more about Consequences of Slavery for African families in American society:See The Negro Family in the United States by E. Franklin Frazier (1939), University of

Chicago Press; Slavery by Stanley Elkins (1963), University of Chicago Press; The

Negro Family: The Case for National Action by Daniel Moynihan (1965), U.S.Government Printing Office; and, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925

by Herbert Gutman (1976), Pantheon Books

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Population in 1790 USA

48.3%

6.9%5.2%

4.8%

1.8%

2.9%

18.9%

6.6%

2.7%

1.8%

English

German

Unassigned

Scots-Irish

Swedish, French

Irish

African

Scots

Dutch

Native American

US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 2, Series Z 20-132 (Washington, D.C., Governme

Printing Office, 1976)As presented in Diversity in America by Vincent N. Parrillo1996

1800s Westward Expansion

Immigration from Southern and

Eastern Europe

Residence Policies- Immigration from England, Germany and Ireland continue for most of this

century.

- Immigrants from England and Germany and their descendants born in the

United States (Natives) were preferred over the Irish who were treated

badly and perceived problematic because of their Catholicism and

drinking habits.

- The Naturalization Law of 1790 had a color consciousness streak. Itallowed only free, white immigrants to apply for citizenship. Otherwise,

it denied citizenship to Native Americans, Africans, and Asian immigrants.

- Growth in immigration led to the development of the Western USA.

Resettlement of Native Americans (Trail of Tears and establishment of

reservations), annexation of former Northern Mexican territories (Texas,

New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Mountain states) created land

opportunities for new settlers.

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- The construction of the railroad system expanded immigration to other

groups for the first time. Asian immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

settle in the west to do this work.

- From the last two decades of this century and through the first half of the

1900s, immigrants came from Southern to Eastern Europe. Italians, Greek

and Slavic-origin, and Jewish settlers were now the target of prejudice anddiscrimination. These new ethnic groups were seen not only as different

but as strange and dangerous (Xenophobia).

- The largest waves in the history of immigration occurred during thiscentury. By the 1920s, immigration has dwindled significantly.

Definition of familySize of population

Gender roles

MarriageProperty

Child rearing

Mexican-American Families

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Treaty of Hidalgo

- The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo declared the end of the 1848 Mexican-American War and ceded the currently known Southwestern states of New

Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada as well as Montana and

Texas to the United States

- The resident population of these areas (about 100,000 people) wastransformed into American citizens, at least on paper.

- However, the new laws about land property, labor system, and trades

disrupted the traditional family arrangements and turn them into an

exploited group at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.

- The traditional two-parent married family dramatically decreased due to

the need to find jobs outside the local community. By the late 1800s one

third of family households were headed by females.

- The extended family was a source of support for dealing with migratory

labor and transmitting the Mexican customs and values offamilism

Family definition: Group composed of extended kin, which may include grandparents,

aunts, uncles, married sisters, and brothers and their children, and also compadres andpadrinos (Griswold del Castillo 1984).

See B p: 69 71

Consequences of Annexation for Mexican-American families: The traditions of

Mexican culture that includes Catholic religion, Spanish language, gender-roles

specialization, and patriarchy remained strong despite the loss of status and increasedeconomic competition for jobs from new European settlers and temporary Mexican

workers.

Indian Reservation Families

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Bureau of Indian Affairs (1831)

http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1776833

Since the encounter with Europeans, native families have experienced dramatic changes in

size, composition, and living conditions. Beyond the political domination e.g. Trail of

Tears and creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, American Indian families have

undergone forceful family policies by the federal government aimed to assimilate adultsand children into American society with the consequential result of loss of tribal language

and way of life as experienced in the reservations.

Beginning in 1802, the Trade and Intercourse Act paved the way for federal

involvement in Indian education. From this point forward, the education ofIndians was synonymous with the loss of tribal culture and values (Taylor, op.cit. p: 245)

The record about Native American families is scarce and mostly compares American

Indian families along a continuum from traditional to non-traditional patterns, wheretraditional is defined in terms of linguistic, racial, and cultural Indian values and styles of

living.

See B pp: 64-66

In addition to their current diversity, American Indian families are characterized by anability to adapt, withstand, and endure changing social conditions as evidenced by their

historical survival, tribal organization, and preservation of native culture.

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http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.htmlhttp://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1776833http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.htmlhttp://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1776833


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Asian families

Immigration Policies 1840s-1868Chinese Exclusionary Rules 1882-1920

`- With the expansion of the economic power of the United States, China

offered an opportunity for cheap labor power fueled by an unstable local

economy and displaced peasants in search of a livelihood for their families

in a new land.

- The Chinese were the first non-Western immigrant group. Males came as

peons to fill in the agricultural, mining, and railroad construction jobs

while women worked mainly as domestic servants for Whites.

- From their arrival the Chinese were deemed as second-class people with

strange and pagan customs, good only for labor. As the jobs dwindled they

were officially made persona non-grata through a campaign known as

the yellow peril that denied them most civil rights while imposed special

taxes and business limitations to earn a living. As a result, they were

confined to limited geographical areas to live; denied unification with

family left in China; and whenever possible, pressured to return to China.

- New immigrants from China were not allowed. The Chinese ExclusionaryAct of 1882 denied entry of Chinese on the basis of their racial and ethnic

traits.

- The exclusion was originally planned to last 20 years, but it was later

expanded in time and extended to the Japanese and Koreans.

Consequences for Asian families: confinement into areas known as

Chinatowns, limited business opportunities, low fertility rates, strengthening

of Chinese traditions due to bans of intermarriage and women forced toprostitution brought to US

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1868 1964

African-American Families

- African Americans were granted citizenship by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or250 years since their first arrival

- The benefits of Emancipation were eroded by the end of Reconstruction with

the expansion of Jim Crow Laws in traditional Southern states- To escape the hardships of Southern life coupled with those caused by the

Depression, African Americans moved northward

- By 1960, only 60 % of African Americans remained in the South.

-Family definition: The two-parent family was the common pattern after Emancipation up

to the second half of the twentieth century.

Today married couples are the most common type of family structure (52%), followed by

single-parent headed families (46%) (US Bureau of the Census 2000, March 1999)To the degree that Black families differ in family organization with regard to White

families merely reflects their limited access to economic resources, benefits and rewards inAmerican society.

1920s 1950s

National Origin Policy of 1921

- With the decrease in immigration, the national feeling was to seize themoment and create a policy that would foster immigration from

Northwestern Europe and drastically control and even curtail immigration

from elsewhere. The goal was to engineer the social conditions to breed the

best American-born family and consequently, society.

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- The policy formula allowed 3 percent of immigrants from each countrybased on the number of residents in the US who originally migrated from

that country. Consequently, immigrants from Great Britain, Germany,

Ireland, France, and other Northwestern European countries were allowed

entry in much larger numbers than those from countries with more recenthistory of immigration, such as Italy, Greece, or Russia

Pure American families

Families during WWI Depression Years WWII 1950

1960s 2008

Immigration and Naturalization Act 1965

- This policy has several goals: a) reunification of families; b) protection andexpansion of the American economy; c) growth of highly skilled,

specialized, and professional American labor market; and, d) political and

religious asylum to refugees fleeing from Communist countries.

- Country of origin was no longer the determining condition for grantingentry.

- The policy fostered another wave of immigration, though not as large as

the earlier one. It increased the size, diversity, and composition of theAmerican population.

- Due to the preference for highly educated immigrants, the implementation

of the INA has produced a brain drain of qualified individuals who are

much needed in their homeland, yet decide to immigrate to the US.

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Latin American FamiliesSouth/East Asian Families

Middle-Eastern FamiliesAsian Indian Families

Consequences for families

Ethnic diversity of American families

Reform of Immigration and Naturalization

Act of 1986- The original goals of the 1965 INA are not changed. The purpose is to

include a proviso in the policy to deter the flow of illegal immigrants

looking for jobs.

- The reform establishes the showing of documents that legitimate residenceor permit work when applying for jobs in the US, and sets penalties for

employers who hire illegal immigrants.

- Documentation of this sort is needed to request social services in states likeCalifornia and Florida

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American Families and American History