Examining your family history

The specific task of this paper is to examine your family history using the ideas about stratification, gender,
love, property, history of the family, and families and work. Almost all people living in the U.S. are descended from immigrants who came here from another part of the world. One way to begin your paper is with an immigrant generation from either the maternal or paternal side of your family. Here are some questions to get you started thinking about the paper. However, do not write your paper as a series of answers to these prompts. Think about these ideas and what you can use from this class to analyze what happened. Where did your predecessors come from? Why did they immigrate? Where did they settle in the U.S.? What kinds of work did they do? What was their economic status? Did they face difficulties due to race, ethnicity, religion or language? What were gender norms and relations like in each generation? Who fit in, who didn’t fit in, and why? Look at generational differences, e.g., great-grandparents, to grandparents, to your parents, to you.
That’s an example. It’s not required to have multigenerational information about your family. It’s okay if you can’t go back that far, or if you can go even farther. If you know only about your generation and that of your parents, that’s enough. If you have children now, you may also include differences between the ways you grew
up and those of your children.
The important aspect of the assignment is to make a sociological analysis of family characteristics based on what we are studying. It’s not necessary that you communicate about anything that seems too private or confidential. Whatever the story of your family, again, the purpose is to make a sociological analysis of it.
**I am a 30-year-old, white woman. I am very close to my grandparents who were both born in the late 20’s early 30’s. Grandparents had kids at 19 years old, mother had her first at 26, I am having my first at 30. My boyfriend is an African American man. I live with my boyfriend but we are not married. My grandparents and my mother never lived together before marriage. My mom and dad are divorced and both met their new spouses on an online dating site. I would like for my paper to focus on marriage, childhood and interracial couples and how those things have changed over time. (from the late ’20s early 30’s to now). One required file is attached, I have one other on cohabitation that I will attach shortly that needs to be used as a reference as well.