A Note From the Guest Coordinators

Abstract

We are pleased to introduce the Special Collection on Families. Editor Joyce Arditti first suggested this collection at the 2006 Groves Conference on Marriage and Family on Families: Borders and Boundaries in Tucson, Arizona, where we were energized by our many experiences talking with families living in Nogales on both sides of the U.S. border with Mexico. At that time, immigration policies were being vigorously debated in the press, in the halls of government, and in the streets of America. Yet, most political arguments did not seem reflective of the serious economic, emotional, and ethical issues facing immigrant families themselves. In addition, the traditional distinction between immigrants and those left behind is no longer clear in today's postmodern world when economic globalization, air travel, and Internet communication are increasingly common (Stone, Gomez, Hotzoglou, & Lipnitsky, 2005). In the United States, approximately 37.5 million people or about 12.5% of the U.S. population are foreign born, with more than one out of five children (23% of all children in the United States) currently living in an immigrant family (Migration Policy Institute, 2008). Living in one or more cultures and maintaining connections to both have been defined by immigration scholars as transnationalism (Waldinger & Fitzgerald, 2003). families are defined as families where some members of a family are anchored in one place but where family relationships transcend national boundaries. The myriad ways that transnational families sustain complex social relations between their societies of origin and settlement (Basch, Schiller, & Blanc, 1994; Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002) are of special interest to family scientists and practitioners. Thus, our broad aim in organizing this special collection is to highlight how applied child and family scholars contribute to intervention, program improvement, and policy development for transnational families. This collection of five articles includes original research focusing on immigrants, migrants, or refugees who maintain family relations across borders. These mostly qualitative articles address an array of today's most challenging issues confronting transnational families - negotiating immigration policies (Dominguez & Lubitow), sending international remittances (Johnson & Stoll), reuniting war-separated children (Luster, Qin, Bates, Johnson, & Rana), and maintaining intergenerational relationships (§enyiirekli & Detzner; Treas). These authors have been guided by varied theoretical perspectives, including social network, ambiguous loss, role strain, intergenerational solidarity and ambivalence, and life course theories. Common to all five articles is the underlying assumption that although transnational families are affected by both financial and emotional strains, they benefit from strong systems of social and family support through which they can maintain a sense of cultural and family identity. The article by Silvia Dominguez and Amy Lubitow titled Transnational Ties, Poverty, and Identity: Latin American Immigrant Women in Public Housing helps us to better understand the significance of transnational ties in the context of poverty. In this study, impoverished women utilized family connections across the border in order to escape domestic violence or when in need of a safe haven for their children during the summer months. By sending them across the border to live with relatives, transnational ties served as a protection strategy for the children who live in dangerous U.S. neighborhoods. The experience of poor urban mothers can be contrasted with the struggles of Sudanese men and boys in two separate articles represented here. We hope both these articles will help raise awareness about the plight of Sudanese families who are survivors of the North-South civil war. In the first article, we learn of Sudanese refugee men who serve in a global breadwinner role, a useful term coined by authors Phyllis Johnson and Kathrin Stoll in their study, Remittance Patterns of Southern Sudanese Refugee Men: Enacting the Global Breadwinner Role. …