American Families

And

American History

Pre 1500 1776 Colonial Years

First American Families: Native American

Tribal Treaties
The 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 power between 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 partial composite of traits found among limited number of families living in reservations and recorded orally or in few documents.

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 of structural 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 the point 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 of dependents. See B p: 60 64 for marriage patterns, child rearing practices, and gender roles in the early settlement family.

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

Africans
Indentured Servitude and Slavery Codes

First arrival recorded in 1619 as voluntary immigrants Later, African immigrants came largely involuntarily as indentured servants 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

Population in 1790 USA

1.8% 2.7% 6.6% English German Unassigned 18.9% 48.3% Scots-Irish Swedish, French Irish African Scots Dutch Native American 5.2% 6.9%

2.9% 1.8% 4.8%

US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 2, Series Z 20-132 (Washington, D.C., Government 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. It allowed 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. 5

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 and discrimination. 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 this century. By the 1920s, immigration has dwindled significantly. Definition of family Size of population

Gender roles

Marriage Property Child rearing

Mexican-American Families
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Treaty of Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo declared the end of the 1848 MexicanAmerican 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) was transformed 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 of familism

Family definition: Group composed of extended kin, which may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, married sisters, and brothers and their children, and also compadres and padrinos (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 increased economic 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 adults and 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 of Indians 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, where traditional 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 an ability to adapt, withstand, and endure changing social conditions as evidenced by their historical survival, tribal organization, and preservation of native culture.

Asian families

Immigration Policies 1840s-1868 Chinese 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 Exclusionary Act 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 to prostitution brought to US

1868 1964
African-American Families

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 in American society.

African Americans were granted citizenship by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or 250 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.

1920s 1950s
National Origin Policy of 1921
With the decrease in immigration, the national feeling was to seize the moment 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. 10

The policy formula allowed 3 percent of immigrants from each country based 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 recent history 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 and expansion 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 granting entry. The policy fostered another wave of immigration, though not as large as the earlier one. It increased the size, diversity, and composition of the American 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 Families South/East Asian Families Middle-Eastern Families Asian 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 residence or 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 like California and Florida

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