Locating Multiethnic Families in a Globalizing World

Abstract

To derive new insights into the growing number of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families in the United States and abroad, we need to incorporate the concept of globalization into our analysis. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, an ever-growing number of heterogeneous individuals are associating with each other and being exposed to new lifestyles, behaviors, and cultural values. This exposure is leading to increased heterogamous relationships and families. The fluidity, flow, and dynamism that characterizes contemporary social life is a critical aspect of understanding multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families. To conduct research and design policies that encourage the well-being of families, we need to integrate into family scholarship a focus on economics, migration, and varied beliefs and values.

Globalization has become a dominant theoretical concept in the social sciences. Globalization has not, however, entered mainstream discourse when it comes to the scholarship and provision of services to families. This has not served the field of family studies well. To develop the understanding of multiethnic families and the increased diversity of U.S. society, it is critical that the concept of globalization and its concomitant effects become a significant part of the family-oriented scholarly discourse.

A critical consequence of globalization is the growing heterogeneity of societies around the globe, especially in the industrialized world (Nagar, Lawson, McDowell, & Hanson, 2002; Scholte, 2000). The recent escalation of migration and the new forms of transnationalism with which it is accompanied are characterized by various types of inclusion and exclusion based on economic inequalities and markers such as race, ethnicity, national origin, and gender (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002). This growth in the diversity of the population and the potential for increased multiethnic relationships and families poses unique challenges as we move into the future (Adams, Sewell, & Hall, 2004). In particular, multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families that maintain their roots in home societies and forge new relationships in host societies complicate simplistic, often taken-for-granted categories such as race, ethnicity, citizenship, and biculturalism (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002). Multiethnic families are challenged to integrate those members living in host societies as well as other kin who may potentially be dispersed among multiple home societies. Attitudes and opportunities in the receiving and sending societies, the flow of money between regions and family members, and sources of stress from the migration and resettlement complicate our understandings of the context and lived experiences of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families. Little empirical scholarship currently investigates these dynamics, and most of our theoretical frameworks are unable to incorporate and shed light onto their complexity (Jayakody, Thornton, & Axinn, 2008; Rodrik, 1997; Schwartz, Unger, Zamboanga, and Szapocznik, 2010; Trask, 2010). As Schwartz et al. (2010, p. 246) said:

More research is clearly needed to delineate the ways in which heritage-culture and receiving-culture practices, values, and identifications are interrelated and change in similar or different ways—as well as the ways in which these patterns differ on the basis of characteristics of the migrants themselves, the context in which they have settled, and the extent of discrimination and other stressors that they have experienced.

Even acculturation theory, which attempts to account for the process of bidirectional change when two ethno-cultural groups come into contact with each other, is insufficient for understanding the flows, dynamism, and multiple influences that are creating complex family arrangements, identities, and ethnicities (Bourhis, Moise, Perreault, & Senecal, 1997; Schwartz et al., 2010). As Schwartz et al. and Chen, Benet-Martinez, and Bond (2008) pointed out, focusing solely on cultural practices, values, and identifications as has been past practice does not capture the multitude of factors that are an integral aspect of understanding the experiences of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families and their relationship to the larger society.

Contemporary family studies scholarship acknowledges the importance of “diversity” but also ignores the reality that increased migration coupled with the rapid spread of information through the proliferation and advances in information and communication technologies is effecting constantly accelerating change in the values, ideas, customs, and beliefs in the United States and in far away regions of the world. Individuals in home societies as well as the ones who migrate are inundated with new beliefs and concepts about identity and lifestyles that are still commonly not accounted for in contemporary research (Kelly, 2001). We, thus, have an incomplete understanding of the effects of social policies, economic shifts, new and varied lifestyle representations, and cultural variation on families and communities. In the field of family studies we are now faced with the challenge of moving toward a more global (centric) paradigm. We can no longer concentrate only on American White middle-class values, interests, and communities with some “diversity” thrown into the mix. Only by incorporating a more global perspective into our scholarship, teaching, and practice can we better prepare the next generation of academics and practitioners for the new and altered environment in which they find themselves. Multiethnic families need to be conceptualized, studied, and understood within this framework.

What Is Globalization?

There currently exists no agreement in the social-scientific literature about the definition of globalization (Appadurai, 1990; Rodrik, 1997; Scholte, 2000). The term first entered scholarly discourse in the mid-1990s through the increased awareness that the movement of capital, the changing role of the nation-state, the increased transnational migration of individuals, and the growth and expansion of multinational corporations and transnational organizations was changing social life (Cole & Durham, 2006; Scholte, 2000). Specifically, economists and political scientists pointed to the changes in the economic sphere and the decreased power of nation-states as evidence for a changing world order (Brady, Beckfield, & Zhao, 2007). Today, there is some consensus that globalization is associated with a new form of bridging geographic and cultural distances and that these developments are the product of constantly evolving transportation, communication, and information technologies (Guillen, 2001). Despite the recognition that globalization has altered taken-for-granted categories such as the nation-state, economies, communities, and families, these changes have not been incorporated into the various dimensions of family studies research (Baars, Dannefer, Phillipson, & Walker, 2006; Cole & Durham, 2006).

Currently, analyses of globalization continue to focus almost exclusively on the political and economic arenas. In fact, for many, globalization primarily describes basic changes in the world economy—the growing mobility of international capital and labor and changes in production brought on through economic restructuring, coupled with advances in communications and information technologies (Scholte, 2000). These transformations are thought to have brought economies together and have led to the prediction that we are becoming an increasingly interdependent global economy. Mainstream approaches to globalization do not delve into the effects of this phenomenon on culture, on societies, on families, and on individuals. Globalization is perceived as an autonomous uncontrolled force, removed from social interactions and consequences (Cole & Durham, 2006). Critics of this approach, however, point out that globalization is, itself, a construction of a particular version of global space and interaction and that incorporating individuals, families, communities, and societies, with understandings of national and transnational economies and politics, gives us greater insight into the dynamics and effects of the phenomenon. In other words, globalization is not just an economic, political, or social force. Instead, globalization is socially constructed, a dynamic phenomenon, that is itself constantly under transformation, in part through human activity. This perspective allows us to understand globalization as multifaceted and not just as an inevitable material process (Nagar et al., 2002).

Although globalization is now understood to be a critical aspect of contemporary social life, there is disagreement about this phenomenon on virtually every level of analysis. There is little if any consensus about how to define globalization, when and where it originated, and what its actual social effects are (Kellner, 2002; Lieber & Weisber, 2002; Rodrik, 1997; Scholte 2000). Most analyses are highly general and often convey strong political and economic agendas. Typically, globalization is described as a dangerous phenomenon leading to increased poverty and inequalities between people and societies (Kingfisher, 2002) or as beneficial, creating opportunities and advantages in places and for people who had no access to them before. Particularly problematic is the fact that many of these discussions are not based on empirical research and instead are driven by ideological stances (Guillen, 2001; Kellner, 2002; Rodrik, 1997). For instance, many popular discourses on globalization that emphasize its economic nature do not take into account local circumstances, sociohistorical time, or cultural beliefs and practices. Instead, many of these discussions tend to focus on the assumed homogenous influence of globalization. Grew (2005) suggested that “by positing common influences and pressures across countries, it invites comparison and stimulates generalization” (p. 853). He points out that certain assumptions about globalization are themselves the product of the process. So, if we examine arguments around the allegedly homogenizing effects of globalization or its influence on purportedly undermining family relationships, we find dissimilar conversations. Different discussants ascribe very different meanings to the term globalization and, yet, assume similar effects. These difficulties are further exacerbated by those detractors who argue that globalization is an overused term with little meaning or utility and, thus, should be discarded (Scholte, 2000).

The sheer amount of scholarship dedicated these days to understanding and analyzing globalization, however, points to the significance of the phenomenon. For example, Scholte (2000, p. 40) argued that

current knowledge of globalization may be largely confused and contradictory, but that is no reason to abandon the topic as a vacuous buzzword. On the contrary, when key issues of security, justice and democracy are so prominently in play, social responsibility demands that researchers give globalization serious attention.

Despite its dominance, globalization as a concept and a transformative mechanism has remained separate from discourses on families and family change. This is surprising, given that individuals and families are directly, and indirectly, affected by globalizing processes all over the world. Although family arrangements vary, depending on place and time, some form of bonded human relationships characterize all societies. As we increasingly become integrated into new complex world systems, individuals and their close associations necessarily are implicated in the process.

Globalization is complex because it encompasses varying concepts including global connectivity, deterritorialization, increasing opportunities and widening income differentials, the acceleration of change, and the concomitant meanings of these changes for families (Aisbett, 2007; Edgar, 2004). In a social analysis of families, Giddens (2003) has argued that we do live in a “different” world and that this new globalized order has changed individuals' and families' lives, on an ideological level and with respect to lived experiences. In the industrialized world, for instance, the patriarchal family that has characterized so much of Western history and family studies scholarship is slowly dissipating (Castells, 2004). The transformation of families is, however, even more extreme than is captured by just analyzing changing gender roles and gender role convergence (Bianchi, Robinson, & Mikie, 2007; Cunningham, 2008). Globalization is a critical component in the worldwide movement of women into the formal and informal labor forces. This is a phenomenon that is transforming the economic and social relationship between women and men. But globalization is also affecting families by introducing and spreading new concepts of childhood and childrearing, parenting practices, and caretaking arrangements. Further, beliefs about individual empowerment and self-actualization as well as unconventional family arrangements also accompany the process (Giddens, 2003).

Globalization is neither beneficial or detrimental to families. Instead, it is critical to recognize that globalization is affecting families' self-identification and their relationship to the larger society. For example, the concept of citizenship is becoming increasingly problematic as individuals self-identify as part of multiple societies and groups and as nation-states lose some of their power of ascription to their citizenry (Carrington, 2002). Moreover, there are those who argue that the traditional importance of the nation-state for individuals' lives is giving way to an increasing concern with family and other fundamental social units (Lieber & Weisberg, 2002). This viewpoint assumes that as individuals are besieged with a multitude of new images, beliefs, ideas, and values, their instinct will be to retreat to more familiar norms and relations—their families and fictive kin (those individuals who play an important emotional or material role in people's lives.) Another perspective suggests, however, that as individuals are able to construct new identities founded on varying relationships across regions and worlds, families will take on a different significance than in the past (Giddens, 2003). This throws into question older paradigms that focus on unilinear identity development and families as self-contained systems.

Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic, Transnational Families as an Integral Aspect of Globalization

An essential characteristic of globalization is the migration of individuals both within societies and across borders. As the course of global integration accelerates, an increased number of individuals are on the move, and with this movement comes the phenomenon referred to as “transnational families.” In the contemporary context, when individuals and families migrate to the United States and other high-income countries, they are able to preserve, build, and change their relationships with those left behind in their home societies. A transnational family may be geographically dispersed but is able to reconstitute itself at certain points and, more importantly, holds together through a collective feeling of unity and mutual purpose (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002). These immigrant, transnational families become multiethnic families in every sense of that term. Members of the same family may be documented or undocumented, may hold different nationalities, and may be exposed to widely varying cultural influences. Despite such different experiences and characterizations and depending on material and emotional conditions, these families are able to maintain ties to one another and to reconstitute a family unit at various points in time. Multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families are not a new phenomenon, and yet the ease with which they are able to maintain relationships over distance and time is unique in human history. Contemporary multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families are characterized by the personal agency of their members in navigating the complexity of geography, cultural beliefs, and nation-state boundaries and laws.

Although migration is not a new occurrence, it has expanded with respect to numbers and significance since 1945. It further accelerated in the latter part of the 1980s with the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Castles & Miller, 2003). As a consequence of growing inequalities within and between countries, sizable numbers of individuals began to move from rural to urban areas and from low-income developing countries to high-income industrialized countries in search of opportunities and resources. Current migration is also the consequence of refugee flows, career opportunities in global organizations, and the creation of new free-trade zones offering employment.

According to United Nations estimates, as of 2005 approximately 191 million individuals, or 3.0% of the world population, were living outside of their native countries. Of those, approximately two thirds were living in industrialized countries in contrast to the developing world, where about 1.5% of the population are not native born. Currently, most global migrants come from China (35 million), India (20 million), and the Philippines (7 million). With respect to the United States, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are approximately 38 million foreign-born individuals in the United States, constituting about 13% of the population. This is a significant increase in comparison to 1970, when approximately 4.7% of the population was foreign born.

Contemporary immigration varies considerably from the key migrations that distinguished the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, the proportion of migrants today in relation to the global population is proportionally much smaller than was the case at the turn of the 20th century. Today's migrants are also much more likely to be female than at any point in the past. Migration is also very closely intertwined with family reunification policies and practices in the United States. For example, between 1990 and 2002, 65% of legal immigrants entered the United States under the category of “family preference.” In comparison, during the same time frame in Canada, about 34% of migrants came in under this provision (United Nations, 2005). It is noteworthy that today's migrants come almost entirely from low-income countries.

Although contemporary migrants are varied with respect to their skill sets and usually provide much needed labor for their host countries, their status has become highly controversial. This has resulted in a tightening of immigration laws in the United States and Europe, often resulting in divided families living simultaneously in multiple countries (Ruhs & Chang, 2004). Currently, we know little about the relationships these migrants forge with members of their host societies or with each other (Parrenas, 2005).

Economics, Migration, and Multiethnic, Transnational Families

The increased flow in migration has had significant economic, social, and cultural effects in sending and receiving societies. Specifically, international migration results in significant monetary remittances that flow from high-income to low-income countries. Globalization has facilitated this process, in part, through the opening up of free-trade zones, the improvements in transportation and communication technologies, and the easier flow of money between regions. For instance, the significance of remittances in global economic transactions has been of particular concern to current scholars of migration and family relationships. Parrenas (2005) pointed out that although remittances are not a new concept, the constant, intense repeated interactions that accompany contemporary economic interactions between family members residing in different societies take place in a different migratory experience than in the past. According to World Bank estimates, approximately $283 billion in officially recorded remittances moved to developing countries in 2008. India, China, and Mexico led the list of receiving societies, followed by the Philippines, Poland, Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan. Contemporary scholars of remittances indicate that their importance is only growing and that in many cases remittances have become equally important to the gross national product of nation-states as exports (Orozco, 2002). Despite a downturn in global economic conditions, remittance flows have proven to remain relatively steady in contrast to government aid and private capital (Ratha, Mohapatra, & Xu, 2008).

Economic remittances provide the catalyst for significant societal and familial ramifications. They create a dynamic connection between host and home societies, and a number of poorer countries rely on remittances for a significant portion of their GDP (Ratha et al., 2008). The money sent home from work in host countries allows families in home societies to survive and at times to prosper. This financial foundation may be used for the establishment of new businesses, the education of children, and a myriad of other opportunities. Work abroad also leads to an exposure to new ideas and lifestyle choices. For instance, migrants are exposed to new and varied social norms and beliefs that may encourage transformations in gender and generational roles within families. Migrants are also a conduit to their home societies for a variety of new concepts and values with respect to family values, democracy, training, and self-empowerment (Levitt, 2001).

How Contemporary Multiethnic, Transnational Families Vary From the Past

The connections and associations multiethnic families forge are quantitatively and qualitatively different from those created in past decades by binational migrant families. Contemporary communication technologies allow for an “immediacy and frequency of migrants' contact with their sending communities and allow them to be actively involved in everyday life there in fundamentally different ways than in the past” (Levitt, 2001, p. 22). Parrenas (2005), Levitt, and Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila (1997) refered to this phenomenon as “intimacy across borders.” From this perspective, migration may entail not just economic consequences for families but also includes nurturing and parenting across distances. For example, a growing literature focuses on transnational mothering and its implications for the children who remain behind in home societies (Parrenas, 2005).

Globalization, however, does not just impact families where one or both parents migrate. Instead, we are seeing new family configurations such as the phenomenon of parachute children (Zhou, 1998). In stark contrast to Western conceptualizations of the relationship between parents and children, children primarily between the ages of 8 to 17 mostly from well-to-do families in Asia are sent to live by themselves in the United States to take advantage of the U.S. educational system. Communication technologies and relatively easy means of travel allow these children to be separated from their parents and yet maintain consistent contact. This type of relatively new family configuration not only impacts the involved members but also introduces new conceptualizations of family relationships to those that may never have interacted with anyone beyond distinct geographical and cultural boundaries.

In a globalized context, all individuals, if they so wish, are able to forge relationships with others from very different cultures and places (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002). New forms of communication technologies allow for the formation of communities around shared concerns, interests, and identities. For example, international adoption allows multiethnic families to be formed by individuals who may never have physical contact with each other. In the context of international adoption, multiethnic families are created around complex notions of ethnicity, race, and social class. For instance, Caucasian parents that adopt a child from Asia subsequently need to decide to what extent they want to emphasize the child's native culture in its upbringing (Brodzinsky, 2005; Grotevant, 1997). They now become a multiethnic, multicultural family facing developmental and social challenges and opportunities for which there are no clear societal blueprints that they can follow.

What we find is that globalization has brought on unforeseen and unimagined transformations to our taken-for-granted categories such as gender roles, parenting practices, and caretaking (Jayakody et al., 2008). As we move into the future, it is critical to retain Pierre Bourdieu's insight that domestic life is not insulated from the wider social sphere (Bourdieu & Coleman, 1991). We are part of a rapidly transforming world where changes in the meaning, beliefs, and relationships that we have valued are in flux (Giddens, 2003). To understand the complexity of contemporary multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families in our and other host societies and to create social policies that will strengthen and support them we need to incorporate these complicated facets of social life into our analyses. This can be accomplished by closely examining the relationship between immigration, economics, technology, and social context and its effects on issues such as identity development, acculturation, and family relationships. Moreover, because globalization is a complex, multifaceted dynamic phenomenon, the temporal aspect or sociohistorical context must always be taken into account.

Complexity and Multiethnic, Immigrant, Transnational Families

Changing Gender Roles

An important aspect of contemporary multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families is the increasingly gendered nature of migration (Morrison, Schiff, & Sjoblom, 2008). Thus, concepts around patriarchy that family scholars have long upheld as pivotal to understanding immigrant and ethnic families need to be reexamined. For instance, in 1992 Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, writing about migration and gender, explained:

In family stage migration, patriarchal gender relations are embedded in normative practices and expectations that allow men and deny women the authority and the resources necessary to migrate independently. Men are expected to serve as good financial providers for their families, which they attempt to do through labor migration; patriarchal authority allows them to act autonomously in planning and carrying out migration. Married women must accept their husbands' migration decisions, remain chaste, and stay behind to care for the children and the daily operation of the domestic sphere. (p. 394)

Just two decades later, although some of these interpretations still apply, it is increasingly women who undertake migration to preserve and improve the economic circumstances of their families. In recent years, it has become common for women from low-income developing countries to leave their families behind in order to pursue job and financial opportunities in other places, either moving from a rural to an urban area or seeking employment in high-income countries. This type of migration necessitates a variety of changes in gender and parenting roles. Often referred to as transnational mothering, this particular phenomenon has become increasingly controversial in both host and home societies (Parrenas, 2005). Women who “mother” across distances have to defend their choices in environments that often promote the importance of intensive mothering and close physical proximity to children. And, yet, recent empirical research indicates that to understand transnational mothering, these parenting relationships need to be understood through culturally specific lenses. For instance, an ethnographic study on Filipina women who work in Singapore found that migrant women do not necessarily feel isolated from their children and instead perceive themselves to be psychologically close despite their physical separation (Asis, Huang, & Yoh, 2004). Women also use remittances as a means of engendering intimacy and creating interdependencies within families (Parrenas, 2005). Although it can be argued that this is a commodification of familial relationships, research indicates that in many cases migrating women who send home remittances feel that they are actually strengthening relationships within their families (Pessar & Mahler, 2003). Female migration, however, does not necessarily lead to gender role convergence in non-Western contexts. Parrenas describes a variety of scenarios in the Philippines where grandmothers, aunts, and daughters took over the household chores and childrearing, relieving the husbands of migrating women of these duties. These types of findings alert us to the importance of integrating changing cultural contexts, economics, and the gendered nature of multiethnic families into our analyses.

Citizenship Status

Mass immigration from the developing to the industrialized world has fueled heated debates on the meaning and importance of ethnicity, race, and the role of multiculturalism and diversity. Most often these days, migrants are culturally and linguistically separate from the inhabitants of their host societies. They may have rural roots and varying religious and cultural traditions and differ in physical appearance from the majority of the host population. Commonly, their status is that of “noncitizen” or immigrant, and they may be subject to prejudice and discrimination. Because of the pejorative sentiments of many of their citizens vis-à-vis migrants, governments in host countries are in the process of enacting and reinforcing strict laws around immigration and family reunification, forcing family members to live apart for long periods of time (Parrenas, 2005).

In the United States, issues around illegal immigration have become confounded with legal immigration. This creates a complex environment for understanding and studying family processes and family development in immigrant families. For example, an increasing number of Mexican and Central American migrants may contain both documented and undocumented children (Viramontez-Anguillano, 2010). Parents and children may have very different experiences with the educational system, social services, and legal authorities. In these situations, siblings may also have varied encounters and understandings with authority figures and organizations creating complex family dynamics. Viramontez-Anguillano describes how, in families that contain both documented and undocumented members, the legal siblings may have opportunities for schooling, jobs, and health services that their illegal siblings may not have access to. Moreover, in many cases, the children who are legal citizens are under great pressure to protect their illegal siblings and worry that they may draw attention to their complex families. Scholarship on multiethnic families needs to recognize this intricate social environment and move away from a simplistic categorization of race and ethnicity as the basis for understanding differences in families' lived experiences.

Social Class, Regionality, and Multiethnic Families

Although multiethnic, transnational families share the characteristics of being situated in multiple geographic locations and face varying experiences depending on cultural context, it is also critical to incorporate class and regionality issues into any analysis of these families. The type of occupation held by parents, their level of education, the economic circumstances of both the host and home societies, and the conditions of employment all impact family relationships. For instance, Parrenas (2005) pointed out that women who work in the nursing professions abroad often have many more opportunities to interact with their children over the course of a day than women who work as household domestics. Because most places do not have an employment standard with respect to domestic work, migrant mothers often are not able to communicate on a regular basis with their families. In turn, this changes the quality of the relationships and bonds they are able to forge over distances. Parrenas also points out these relationships are embedded in a larger context of political economic inequality between high-income and low-income countries.

Rural versus urban contexts are another critical component with respect to the experiences of multiethnic families. Families that live in rural areas often lack access to the communication technologies that facilitate interactions between geographically dispersed members. In contrast, families that live in urban contexts often have opportunities for increased contact due to the availability of these means. Accounting for rural-urban differences in the experiences of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families remains a limited enterprise, however.

Identity Formation, Globalization, and Multiethnic Children

Closely connected to migration is the complex issue of cultural identity formation. Identity formation is an important aspect of any discussion on globalization and multiethnic families because identity formation, at least in its initial stages, has traditionally been closely linked to family relationships. According to Erik Erikson (1963), the single most important developmental task facing young people is creating a coherent sense of identity. To develop in the most positive manner, Erikson argued, there needs to be a fit between an individual's sense of self and the social environment in which he or she functions. This popular model, which provides the basis for much of developmental psychology, assumes that young people develop their identities in a culturally homogenous environment where they move between social spheres. Today's heterogeneous, transnational world, however, throws into question the whole process of identity formation (Jensen, 2003; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Globalizing processes and the rapidity of technological change raises questions about how and where identity is formed. This issue becomes particularly complex in the context of migration, where individuals are confronted with various choices and contexts with respect to identity development. For example, immigrant children need to create identities that will permit them to succeed in multiple environments, including in their families, in school, and later at work places. There may, however, be wide cultural gaps between these settings as different languages, ways of behaving, values, and ideologies characterize each of these spheres—particularly for those from new societies. Moreover, as Jensen argued, increasingly in a globalizing world young people interact with heterogeneous individuals, leading to the formation of multicultural identities.

Identity and its linkages to migration have long been of interest to family scholars and policy makers. In immigration societies such as the United States, despite a rhetoric valuing diversity, a hegemonic ideology advocates assimilation into mainstream culture. This requires a change whereby migrants begin to see themselves as belonging first and foremost to their adopted host society. They are expected to learn the culture and the language and, as much as is possible, to “blend in.” Ackroyd and Pilkington (1999) suggested that there are four important aspects to understanding contemporary identity formation: One, increasingly individuals do not maintain one fixed cultural identity but instead negotiate a range of ever-changing cultural identities; two, individuals are engaged in a constant process of representing who they are that is crucial to their portrayal of their identities; three, cultural identity is influenced by forces stemming from the global environment; and four, individual agency determines and constrains each individual's distinctive cultural identity. Central to this interpretation is that individuals have a range of identities to choose from and that these may differ depending on characteristics such as social class, educational level, age, and sexual orientation. Encompassed in this concept is the understanding that an identity, for example, based on ethnicity, may be modified contingent on context and sociohistorical time. As individuals shift between venues, they are often aware of their fluid identities and in the process create fresh hybrid identities (Arnett, 2000; Jensen, 2003). Ackroyd and Pilkington pointed out that this complex negotiation is a process that serves to confirm and authenticate the social construction of identities.

Globalization has facilitated and accelerated the process of multiple identity formation by opening up numerous venues and exposing individuals to a wide variety of values, contexts, and lifestyles. These days, already very young children are subjected to a complex, diversified set of images and individuals. As technology and communication capabilities advance, individuals are increasingly able to refashion and reinforce various identities. Their range of choices keeps proliferating and facilitates transgressing traditional boundaries. For example, Rosenau (2003) pointed out that

as distant developments become ever more proximate, the emergent epoch enables people to develop new, more flexible constructions of themselves. Their orientations, practices, and lives are still shaped by macro structures, but the latter are now more numerous and flexible than in the past, freeing (even forcing) people to shoulder greater autonomy and to evolve new identities and shifting allegiances. The decline of tradition and fixed systems of roles and norms of behavior has led to the imposition of an inescapable and unrelenting autonomy on many people, just as the Internet and other technologies have enabled individuals to greatly expand the range of their interpersonal relationships beyond face-to-face contacts and thus to participate in the formation and enlargement of groups, in an ever more networked world. (p. 24)

What this discussion indicates is that hybrid identities are rapidly becoming a significant aspect of development and, thus, family life. With respect to migrants and individuals of multiple ethnicities, their respective ties to home and host societies create a complex dynamic as they negotiate between numerous cultural spheres. Their identities are no longer necessarily tied to their origins, nor can it be expected that they will be primarily assimilated into their new environments. As they shift back and forth between environments in both a geographical as well as a psychological sense, they negotiate various aspects of themselves. As a result of these numerous associations and stimuli, they are able to form or select new hybrid identities. Contemporary globalizing conditions suggest that this process will only accelerate, throwing into question static assumptions about identity formation. Particularly problematic will be understanding identity formation of children in multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families.

The complexity of child development, identity formation, and multiethnicity is highlighted in the European context. Because of historical factors in combination with migration brought on through globalization, many European societies have become hosts to migrant workers and refugee populations. Specifically problematic for policy formation are the many children who are born and raised in these European countries (Koopmans, Statham, Giugni, & Passy, 2005). In countries such as the United States and Canada, children born to immigrants are automatically accorded citizenship at birth. They, thus, from a legal perspective are bestowed with the same rights and opportunities as the rest of the legal citizenry. The European situation, however, presents a complex dilemma: In most European countries, immigrant children, despite the fact that they are born and raised abroad, are not granted citizenship. Thus, from legal and cultural perspectives they remain outsiders to the societies in which they are being raised. Here we are faced with a situation where children's identities develop in multiple contexts and yet, there is no clarity even from a legal perspective about which aspect of their hybrid identities these children can and should be drawing from. They are characterized by a complex amalgam of identities that they continually negotiate depending on context (Koopmans et al., 2005).

From a strength-based perspective, Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco (2001) postulated that these contemporary immigrant children may be at an advantage in a globalized environment specifically with respect to identity formation. Further, they suggest that traditional assimilationist paradigms that presume unilinear development have lost their usefulness. Instead, as a consequence of globalization, all individuals now need to negotiate multiple cultural contexts simultaneously. From this viewpoint, immigrant children actually benefit from the lack of a traditional framework, as they acquire capabilities that allow them to navigate a wide variety of environments.

With respect to multiethnic families, scholarship needs to focus increasingly on the lived experiences of immigrant children growing up with multiple traditions and backgrounds, and the cultural struggles that are often a fundamental aspect of their worlds. From a traditional perspective, children are commonly perceived as an integral part in the transmission of cultural values. They may be taught their parents' languages and are often raised with valued belief sets that are understood to connect them to their origins. Yet, this upbringing is often in great contrast to that which is taught in the formal educational system. In multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families these processes become even more complex, as various family members draw from a wide range of cultural belief systems. Thus, children are often caught at the crossroads in debates about minority self-expression, ethnicity, and the role of mainstream culture (Jensen, 2003; Stephens, 1995).

Implications of Understanding Globalization and Multiethnic Families

A discourse on globalization and multiethnic families is particularly relevant for 21st-century U.S. family scholars because the demographics of American society are visibly changing. Recent census statistics describe vast shifts in the racial, ethnic, cultural, regional, and religious makeup of the United States. Increasingly individuals from markedly varied backgrounds interact with each other, resulting in heterogeneous couplings and multiethnic families (Dennis, 2005). Multiethnic, transnational families that are formed through immigration, adoption, and/or marriage and long-term partnerships are increasingly pervading the social landscape. Understanding the cultural complexity of these families needs to be an integral aspect of contemporary scholarship. By incorporating a focus on gender role shifts, identity formation, transformations in the nature of parenting and caretaking, and the connection between the flow of global labor, capital, and varying cultural beliefs in transnational contexts to family relationships, we can begin to expand our simplistic conceptualizations and categorizations of contemporary family life. One path to investigating these issues is to draw on the scholarship on intercultural communication. For example, Collier (2003) and Zhu and Hildebrandt (2007) suggested that we examine “intercultural alliances” (intercultural collaboration and interdependence) between constituent parties and how they are achieved through the consensus and negotiation of beliefs, identities, and norms. In other words, studies that focus on the intersection of cultural beliefs and practices and how they are resolved will lend us insight into the subtleties of the flows that characterize 21st-century relationships. By examining discourses and practices around issues such as the division of labor, the parenting of children, and the meaning and perceived gains and losses in the immigration experience, we gain insight into the negotiation of these spheres in multiethnic families. This dynamic approach to understanding disparate cultural encounters and the ensuing changes in practices and beliefs takes into account the fact that individuals seek to interact and communicate based on fixed stable scripts. It illuminates the fact that change occurs through both confrontation and consensus and through mutual negotiation. This type of a model highlights the tension between fluidity and rigidity in cross-cultural encounters. When applied to the study of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families, this perspective provides insight into how globalization affects various realms of family life, including the construction of meaning in the family experience, shifts in role distribution, and divergent developmental paths with respect to identity formation. These types of insights are particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners, and policy makers concerned with facilitating the experiences of immigrant families and their children.

In the 21st century, multicultural understanding has become a crucial tool through which professionals and students alike must view the populations that they work with and serve (McIntosh, 1998). This multicultural understanding cannot, however, be based purely on categorizations such as those of race and ethnicity. These are socially constructed categories that, when viewed over time, shift with respect to meaning and membership. Ethnicity in the 21st century differs both in meaning and practice when compared to the early 20th century. As I have argued, in our contemporary environment families are subject to the accelerating, intensifying influences of globalization. In particular, multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families provide an analytic arena within which we can develop new understandings of the role of citizenship, economics, and social policies in helping shape family life. It is here that we can question and examine concepts and potential myths around issues such as gender convergence, the decline of patriarchy, the homogenization of parenting practices, and other family-related concerns.

Developing a multicultural perspective through which social life can be observed (Adams et al., 2004; Christensen, 1997; Zygmunt-Fillwalk & Clark, 2007) is a constant process that requires a reexamination of existing paradigms and the creation of new theoretical frameworks. An integral aspect of this process is reflection and empirical research that can elicit new types of reasoning and understanding (Fried, 1993; Zygmunt-Fillwalk, 2005). The route toward developing a multicultural perspective is one in which a range of competencies that are related to perceiving, evaluating, believing, and practicing in multiple ways are advanced (Banks, 2006; Falicov, 1995). To produce scholarship that gives us insight into pertinent family issues of the 21st century, we need to understand how individuals negotiate the new social constraints and the vast cultural opportunities to which they are constantly exposed through migration, communication technologies, and the flow of capital, ideas, and individuals (Gollnick & Chinn, 2005; Holm, 1995). For example, the preceding discussion on the complexity of gender relations in multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families highlighted the fact that economics interacts with migration and gender conceptualizations in complex ways. Although migrant women may send remittances home to their families in order to secure their families and to provide new opportunities for their children, their efforts are not necessarily appreciated by their husbands. Instead, in these types of multiethnic families a new division of labor may emerge where extended female kin take over the domestic chores. This example cautions us not to simplistically apply concepts developed through the study of middle-class American families, such as “increasing gender convergence through female breadwinning,” to the analysis of multiethnic families. By exploring in a more nuanced manner the dynamism and fluidity of concepts such as ethnicity in our contemporary environment and by incorporating globalization in all its complexity into the frameworks on multiethnicity, students and scholars learn to recognize that cultural diversity includes elements beyond race such as religion, social class, regionality, gender, language, age, cognitive styles, and physical abilities (Nieto, 2003). We can then design social policies and programs that more appropriately support and strengthen families.

Conclusion

I have argued that in order to derive new insights into the growing number of multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families in the United States and abroad, we need to incorporate the concept of globalization into our analysis. The fluidity and dynamism that characterizes contemporary social life is a critical aspect of understanding multiethnic families. To conduct research and design policies that encourage the well-being of children, adults, and families over the life span, globalization needs to become a core concept in the field of family studies. Specifically, understanding migration, the role of economics, and intercultural communication as aspects of globalization can allow us to derive new insights into relationship processes and the construction of family unity and meaning that are foundational to multiethnic, immigrant, transnational families. These insights will also allow us to create more culturally appropriate programs for diverse children and adults as they are integrated into U.S. society and yet maintain close ties to home societies. Moreover, expanding our categorical boundaries around race and ethnicity will allow us to better understand the increasingly transnational nature of so many families in a globalized world.