美国华人移民家庭的代际关系与跨文化冲突

Intergenerational Relations and Cultural Conflicts:The Immigrant Chinese Family in the United States

本文旨在研究美国华人移民家庭的代际关系与跨文化冲突问题。作者通过对其本人在洛杉矶和纽约两大华人移民社区所进行的田野调查、个人访谈和实地观察所收集的实证资料的系统分析,着重探讨矛盾重重的华人移民家庭中父母与子女如何处理复杂的、不断变动的家庭关系以及移民父母如何选择轻重缓急的策略,并依靠社区的力量来确保下一代的健康成长。

In the United States, immigrant Chinese parents often claim to have sacrificed for their children＇ s better future through migration and thus expect that their children attain the highest levels of educational and occupational achievements possible, help move the family up to middle - class status, and, most importantly, take care of parents when they are old and frail. Deviation from these expectations is considered a family shame, or a family failure, and is thus sanctioned by the family andthe ethnic community. It is not easy, however, for immigrant families to enforce these values and behavioral standards and guarantee that familial expectations are met because of vulnerabilities associated with parental foreign birth, changing intergenerational relations, intense cultural conflicts, and the different paces of acculturation between immigrant parents and their U S. - born or raised children. Based on data from fieldwork （face - to - face interviews and immigrant Chinese family create new challenges for intergenerational relations and how the family and the ethnic community function to facilitate immigrant children＇ s successful adaptation.