Family Study - Assignment Example

The structure of minority families in the USA represents historical adaptations to broader political, social, and economic conditions. This is because, such minority families were constructed based on the political, social, and economic situations of traditional America, for example, the African Americans as slaves and the Mexican Americans as acquired and immigrant groups, while the Indian Americans faced invasion (Newman, 2007). Thus, the common categorization of the structure of the African American family as constituting large-extended family units, with the Indians and Mexican Americans (Hispanics) being categorized as closely-knit families emanates from their traditional socio-political and economic conditions. The Africans had to live together as large family units, to be able to fend for themselves, since the status of slaves did not offer opportunities for venturing into prime economic generation ventures (Newman, 2007). The Mexican and the Indian Americans had to form tightly-knit together families, due to the need to establish identity either as an acquired/immigrant group or as the invaded group, respectively. This traditional social construct of minority families defines the structure of these families to the present day. Focusing on race and ethnicity in defining the structure of minority families is woefully misleading since there is no set of shared physical characteristics that tie people together (Newman, 2007).  

The attempt to understand families should be based on the similarities that exist across ethno-racial and religious groups, since focusing on differences results in emphasizing the boundaries distinguishing the members from non-members (Newman, 2007). Additionally, focusing on the differences results in the analysis of belonging to a certain group as something to be proud or ashamed of, instead of focusing on the cultural uniqueness of the different groups (Newman, 2007). This results in a negative social construction.  Assimilation should therefore be the aspired mode of defining the future of American society. Nevertheless, ever reaching a point where racial and ethnic categorizations are irrelevant does not seem a possibility.

Growing up in an interracial or interfaith family has the advantage of helping to break the racial stereotypes held by different races against one another. However, the major disadvantage associated with growing up in an interracial or interfaith family is the difficulty in building a self-identity (Newman, 2007). This is owing to the fact that self-identities are built around cultural ethnicity.

A large number of researches have depicted gay marriage in mixed lights, with both positive and negative depictions occurring in equal measure. However, the main problem with the depiction is that the research has shown children growing under gay families are lacking a balanced gender life, thus showing them as negatively oriented toward certain gender-specific inadequacies (Newman, 2007). Most especially, the research on gay marriages has portrayed the children growing up under such families to be likely suffering from gender-identity issues (Newman, 2007). The other major problem identifiable with gay marriages is the nature of the custody arrangements that can be adopted by such parents, in case of divorce or separation. This is because; under such circumstances, the children will have a major problem regarding the adoption choice; as opposed to a heterosexual marriage where gender difference makes the choice easier.