3/28 Reading

Reference: Made in America, Chapter 6

1) "Her schooling is over. Her adult life as a wife is about to begin." (pg. 122) - I was excited to read this chapter on Love and Marriage and what the difference was for the immigrants. I read this quote and it immediately reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine. I had a couple of girl friends in junior high and high school whose families were staunchly Arabic. One girl's family had been here for 3 or 4 generations, in the other's family, she was the first generation born here in the United States. It was amazing to see the difference in their family lives; one had to wear the hijab (I think that's how you spell it?) and one did not. One could not come over to my house and hang out with me, the other could. One could hang out with boys and go to the mall, but the other only could with a chaperone. It was really interesting to see how that played out in their family relationships, and I always asked my friend if it bothered her that her family was so traditional and old-fashioned, but to her, that was just a way of life. She never questioned what her parents said or asked her to do, because that is just the way things were. This same girl left right after high school to get married in Palestine, and I have not seen her since. Her parents were not even totally willing for her to graduate, but she convinced them to let her graduate at least and then she was gone. The other girl married a couple years ago right out of high school and now she has a baby. I guess it's my perspective of being American and that it boggles my mind. I think it is strange enough that people from my own culture get married so young, but I feel like it's more understandable when you know their culture. We have totally different expectations of young people here in the United States; no one expects us to get married right out of high school and have children right away. To us, it's like being back in 1950's, or at least to me, it is!

2) "Schooling is viewed as a place to engage in social activities that are constricted outside of school." (pg. 125) - I found this to be an interesting quote because I completely agree with it. School to us is kind of like a free zone where we can be with our friends, say whatever we want to our friends, and just be ourselves away from our parents. School is where we forge social relationships, especially where we learn to forge intimate or dating relationships. I think that having a restriction on dating, in my opinion, can go one of two ways for a teenager. They can rebel and go behind their parents' back (not a good option), or they can obey their parents and be made fun of by their peers by not dating (another not so good option). In high school, nothing is ever a win-win situation. If you do not have a date to a dance or a boyfriend for a long time, you are looked down on as being a loser. I know because I have experienced it myself. I was so desperate just to go to a dance with a guy to be socially accepted and I was just so happy when I finally met my ex-boyfriend because I had someone to show off to my peers. I know it is all very silly and juvenile, but it is how high schoolers think. When you are at home, dating and sex are not things that get talked about often, even in American culture. I have friends that did not even understand anything about it until they were in health class at 16 years old. I was very fortunate that my parents are open and willing to talk about things like that with me, and that's because they remember their parents being very restrictive and unwilling to help them in that area. However, being in a different culture is a whole other concept. It seems that parents are fine with them forging friendships with their peers, maybe even fine with them having friends that are from another race, but when it comes to dating, it is either date inside your race or not at all. It is so unfortunate that they cannot even think to marry someone outside their ethnic background for fear of being cast out by their parents.

3) "For many of the immigrant girls, the hopes of their own futures are set aside as the struggle for family survival in the United States demands their time, energy, and focus." (pg. 129) - This whole section on having to work outside the home totally boggled my mind. I guess I was always under the impression that a lot of immigrant children did not work, but that was maybe because the immigrant kids in my area did not do so. After reading it, I definitely understood the reasoning for the older kids working; it is like any other family in times of economic uncertainty, even in American culture. I got my first job when I was 18, which was a lot older than some of my own group of friends whose families were not as economically solid as mine. In American culture, having a job when you are a teenager is rarely about the money. It is about learning to use your money independently and teaching you some values about working, and a good side effect is that your parents are not constantly footing you money for food or the movies. However, for some teenagers especially as described in this chapter, the money is about helping to feed your own money so obviously they feel obligated to be helping their parents out and taking care of the littler siblings who are not old enough to get out and start working. I think it would be so difficult for the older kids to watch their younger siblings get to go home and relax and have time for homework, but yet they have to be under pressure and be like another parent. It is a hard concept to rationalize. Teenagers are already stuck in this transition period between being a kid and being an adult, and working to support their money just makes it even harder to figure out that distinction.

4) "If you have education, you can get a better job. If you're married, it's difficult if you don't have an education, because you have to stay home and look after kids and you never can say anything." [Shani] (pg. 136) - I feel like this chapter is full of contradicting or opposing opinions, and this is a perfect example of one of them. Shani, a girl described in this chapter, really wants to continue on in higher education and be a doctor for two reasons: 1) because she actually wants to become a doctor and 2) because she is trying to postpone having to marry someone so young. I think Shani wants to please her parents by being successful and being a doctor is the picture-perfect example of an enviable career, but at the same time, her parents are not pleased because they want to see her get married and have kids. What Shani wants them to understand is that getting married means that is then up to the husband to decide if he wants her to go to school or not, and that brings forth a great deal of other issues, like where would she go to school? They could not possibly move far away unless his job allowed him to, so she would have to limit herself to finding something close by. Secondly, if they end up having children, when is she going to find the time to go to school at all if she is taking care of them all day? In the end, she will likely end up quitting and just being a full-time mother, which obviously there is nothing wrong with doing so in any cultural sense, but she would be giving up her dream of being successful and independent and making her parents proud of her. I cannot even imagine (being a college student and being American) my parents telling me that they chose a husband for me and that I need to just go get married and give up everything that for which I have worked so hard. It seems completely unfair, but I am culturally and gender biased in this sense. I want all women, no matter what background, to have equal treatment in the workplace and to have husbands that support them. I know that I would never marry someone who did not support my career but this could just be an American thing.

5) "For the immigrant girls, there were two strongly opposing peer group concepts of appropriate future gender roles: the romantic lover where attractiveness is key, and the respectful, dutiful wife/daughter." (pg. 142) - I think this is another dichotomy that can be very confusing to immigrant girls who are watching American girls interact. American girls do not have as many expectations as other cultures do, and we can essentially just go date, do what we want, dress how we want without any real consequences unless you have some very strict parents. The newcomer girls are then jealous and confused as to why American girls can act like that and why they cannot be like them. I am absolutely sure that some of them do not want to be like us at all and would prefer their own culture's way of doing things, though. It amazes me every day how silly teenage girls are and how they act to get boys' attention; I know because I live with a 16-year-old sister. Sometimes I just kind of wonder what it would be like to have an arranged marriage, have family pick out someone for you. I just think that it is always portrayed negatively in movies or television shows, any sort of media speaks out against it, but do we ever really think to ask people who are in arranged marriages what it is like? I wish I could ask my Arabic friend about it but I rarely see her anymore. I do have a friend here who is American but from a very conservative Christian religion who was arranged to marry her husband. They have been married for a little over a year now, and she tells me all the time that she is so happy that she trusted their families to set them up. She said it was never a question for her whether or not she should marry him, she just knew that she trusted the people around them and her faith to get her through, which honestly I find pretty admirable. It takes a lot of courage to just pick up and get married without really knowing someone, and she says that their relationship gets stronger every day that she is with him. Anyway, back to the point of the quote, there exists a kind of strange dichotomy of what a wife is expected to be; this just goes back to gender roles in general. I find it fascinating that we, at the same time, have to be sexual and romantic partners and then be the housewife and mother that men seem to expect us to be and that is even more true of other cultures. I just wonder how they must feel entering into a marriage with no prior dating or intimate experiences and then somehow are expected to be perfect in all areas of marriage and that they have to please their husband. I am really not trying to criticize how people do things, but I guess I am not in that place and do not really understand because of my own background. I have a strong, independent mother who is pretty much the head of our household and that is what I am used to; I am not used to traditional gender roles and I guess that is what I expect of other relationships at times, but I know I have to learn to be more open to other ways of living and being in a marriage or relationship.