Section 7.4: The Family/La Familia

 

Family Dynamics

Familism refers a sense of closeness and obligation to the family unit and even placing the interests and needs of the family unit ahead of individual needs and desires. There may be positive and negative consequences of high rates of familism. One negative consequence with regard to educational attainments may include discouraging youths from pursuing a higher education in order to provide for the family unit. There are also positive consequences which include the availability of family networks, emotional support during times of crisis, financial assistance, caring for the young and the elderly, and cultural and linguistic maintenance. In their comprehensive study on Latin@ family structure, Landale, Oropesa, & Bradatan (2006) found that Latin@ families do have higher rates of variables associated with "familism" such as intact families, lower rates of divorce and cohabitation, and more likely to care for their elderly relatives compared to their white and African-American counterparts. However, they also found difference across Latin@ subgroups and declining rates of "familism" across Latin@ generations.

Machismo and marianismo are terms related to gender identity and expectations and commonly linked to gender and family dynamics in Latin American societies. In Latin@ families, machismo is a form of traditional masculinity that, on the one hand, may include more positive aspects such as taking responsibility for the family, chivalry, and protector. Gill & Vasquez (1996) describe this side of machismo as el caballero ("the gentleman") often personified in film and television, who protects his wife and family from dangers and is chivalrous but still afflicted by machismo. On the other hand, machismo is also associated with negative and harmful aspects such as sexual domination, aggressiveness, and expectation of submissiveness for women and children (Gill and Vasquez, 1996). Marianismo is the complementary female role for Latin@ women, who are expected to personify the ideals of true femininity, such as being modest, virtuous and abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage. The term derives from the paradoxical beliefs of the Virgin Mary and most likely originated during the Spanish Colonial Period in Latin America. Gill and Vasquez (2006) write that marianismo is about "dispensing care and pleasure, not receiving them", suffering the negative consequences of machismo and marianismo in silence, and submission to patriarchical forces and family dynamics.

Figure \(\PageIndex{8.1}\): "El Machismo Mata.(Trans. "Machismo Kills") (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; lorena pajares via Flickr)

Despite the existence of evidence of cultural dynamics such as familism and machismo in Latin@ families, it is important to not reduce the behaviors and experiences of ethnic groups entirely to culture. This is referred to as cultural essentialism and may lead to a "culture of deficiency" approach to defining and analyzing the social experiences of Latin@ and other racial/ethnic groups. Also, cultural essentialism may also prevent one from considering the importance of other important social forces, such as social class or racial discrimination. Gonzalez-Lopez & Vidal-Ortiz (2008) remind researchers that such cultural paradigms are not used when studying non-Latin@ groups but with Latin@ groups they have become "uncritically accepted - and they have become shorthand to explain gender inequality from a culture-blaming perspective" (p. 312).

 

Latin@ Intermarriage

Regarding racial and ethnic intermarriage, in 2015 approximately 27% of Latin@ newlyweds were intermarried, the second highest rate among the four major racial and ethnic groups. This has also led to an increase in the percentage of multiracial babies in the United States. In 2015, 14% of all babies under the age of 1 living with two parents were multiracial or multiethnic. Among the 14%, a large percentage (42%) were babies with one Latin@ parent and one white parent and 22% had multiracial or multiethnic parents. A lower percentage of multiracial babies had one Latin@ parent and one Black parent (5%) and one Latin@ parent and one Asian parent (4%).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8.2.48.2.4: About three-in-ten Asian newlyweds in the U.S are intermarried. (Used with permission; Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C.)

 

 

Figure 8.3.58.2.5: The growing share of multiracial and multiethnic babies in the U.S. (Used with permission; Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contributors and Attributions

• Ramos, Carlos. (Long Beach City College)
• Tsuhako, Joy. (Cerritos College)
• Introduction to Sociology 2e (OpenStax) (CC BY 4.0)

Works Cited

• Gill R. & Vasquez, C. (1996). The Maria Paradox: How Latinas Can Merge Old World Traditions with New World Self-Esteem. New York: Putnam.
• Gonzalez-Lopez, G. & Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2008). Latinas and Latinos, sexuality and society: A critical sociological perspective in Latinas/os in Rodriguez, H. et al (Eds.). 2008. The United States: Changing the Face of America. New York: Springer. p. 308-322.
• Krogstad J.M., Gonzalez-Barrera A., & Noe-Bustamante L. (2020). U.S. Latinos among hardest hit by pay cuts, job losses due to Coronavirus. Pew Research Center.
• Krogstad J.M. & Lopez M.H. (2014, September). Hispanic immigrants more likely to lack health insurance than U.S. born. Pew Research Center.
• Landale N., Oropesa R., & Bradatan C. (2006) Hispanic families in the US: Family structure and process in an era of family change. in Tienda, M. & Mitchell, F. (Eds.). 2006. Hispanics and the Future of America. Washington, DC: National Academies Press
• Light M., He J., & Robey J. (2020, December). Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
• Myers, D. (2007). Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America. Russell Sage.
• Educational attainment of Hispanic population in the U.S. (2019). Pew Research Center.
• Vigdor, J. (2008). Measuring immigrant assimilation in the United States. Manhattan Institute.