Talk:Inequality within immigrant families in the United States

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dianiz1988. Peer reviewers: Dianiz1988.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yjtalk0825. Peer reviewers: Karyan23.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Plan

I plan to write an article on the topic of "Inequality within immigrant families," specifically focusing on immigrants to the United States. There is a large body of research in the areas of family, inequality, and immigration, which I will draw upon heavily when writing my article. I did a search and can find no existing Wikipedia entries that specifically cover either inequality within the family or the family dynamics of immigrants. Although there is extensive literature on many facets of social inequality, current Wikipedia articles tend to focus on inequalities between larger societal groups such as those based on socioeconomic status, gender, and race. When measuring inequalities in factors such as income and education, the family is often taken as a homogenous unit in which resources are distributed equally. Many scholars have pointed out that such an assumption is problematic since inequalities often exist within the family. I wish to bring these inequalities to light, specifically focusing on the unique disparities that are often generated through the immigration process. Though they hail from a diverse array of countries, immigrants to the United States share many of the same challenges associated with entering a new society with a different culture and set of values. The processes of integration and assimilation can pose a threat to traditional family structures and can deepen the divide between members of different genders and generations. Such shifts may alleviate some forms of inequality while simultaneously creating new disparities. The proposed article will address the inequalities that exist within immigrant families in the United States, particularly those inequalities that occur on the basis of legal status, generation, and gender. I will use texts including "How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor" by Waldinger and Lichter, "Family Tightrope" by Kibria, and "Gender and U.S. Immigration" edited by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo as a starting point for creating this Wikipedia entry. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions Naomi FK (talk) 09:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC).

I have expanded this article and have added sources but still need to flesh out some of the sections and to incorporate more sources Naomi FK (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggested revisions

Hey Naomi,

Your article looks great! Here are a few minor suggestions I have:

• Under “Shifts in gender roles,” I would suggest expanding on this sentence: “Depending on the home country, U.S. society may contain a much higher level of gender inequality than immigrants are accustomed to.”
• When you say “lower-status group” in the second paragraph of “Shifts in gender roles,” do you mean lower socioeconomic status? What kind of status?
• I think you should restructure this sentence: “Men, who may have been accustomed to filling the role of sole ‘breadwinner’ in their home country may find themselves unable to do so due both to restricted access to jobs and to the fact that the jobs they are able to obtain may be low-wage jobs where these men cannot earn enough money to support their entire family.”
• Consider changing the title of the subsection “Global relationships as a strategy to uphold gender roles.”
• In the section “Distribution of household labor,” I would suggest either changing the title to reflect your focus on Vietnamese immigrants or forming a separate case study about Vietnamese immigrants.
• Consider changing the title of the section “Generation” to something more specific.
• Would it be possible to address the effect of immigration on the oldest generation in the “Generation” section?
• I would recommend expanding your introduction paragraph in the “Access to resources” section. What kind of resources are you referring to specifically?
• I would suggest adding more links to other Wikipedia articles.

Good job overall! You present the topic in an interesting way and provide a wide range of information.

Jak8 (talk) 03:05, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Jak8, thank you for the feedback!

• I've updated my article to try to address some of the clarification and wording issues you've mentioned.
• For the "Distribution of household labor" section, I'm still hoping to include the experiences of a greater variety of immigrant groups, but if it ends up being primarily about Vietnamese immigrants I'll definitely change the heading.
• I'll definitely think about changing some of the headings--at the moment I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with titles that really reflect what I'm trying to cover.
• I'll try to find more information about first generation immigrants to include under the "Generation" section

Thanks again for all of the suggestions! Naomi FK (talk) 17:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible Revisions

The section on "Legal status" lacks any citations, and could be expanded tremendously. I see that you have some subsections that are empty, so once those are filled with information, this section will become a lot better. Under the "Mixed-status families" subsection, you touch upon the issue of violence and how many times immigrants are trapped in abusive situations. I would suggest looking up some statistics or case studies, if available, that will help back up these truths. Your section on "Gender" is very well developed and thought out as you address multiple aspects. Good job. Although you section on "Generation" is a good length already, if you fell a need to expand it feel free to look at some of my sources in Second generation immigrants in the United States. There you will find a lot of scholarly journals discussing the process of assimilation for immigrants. I also went ahead and linked your article to mine under the "See also" section as they tie nicely together. Overall, it seems like you are on track and are aware of areas that need expansions and citations. Good luck!
Marymorales291 (talk) 04:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, User:Marymorales291!

• I've begun to flesh out the "Legal status" section. Though it still needs a lot more work, this is definitely going to be my focus in the remaining time we have for this project.
• I'll definitely try to go into more depth about the prevalence of abuse in mixed-status relationships
• For the "Generation" section, I linked your article within the body of my work and will definitely look at some of your sources to make this section more comprehensive.

Thanks again for all the help! Naomi FK (talk) 17:44, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggested Revisions

Naomi, great job so far! You have clearly undertaken a large article—it is so detailed and has many different components to look at. Though it is not yet finished, the article structure flows very well in terms of sections and subsections. My only concerns and/or suggestions are:

• In a few of these sections, I am curious as to the differences between immigrant groups—e.g. which ones may experience more inequalities within families. There is mention of Vietnamese immigrants, but only in one aspect (distribution of household labor). I feel that specifically mentioning some ethnic groups may be beneficial, as readers are otherwise left to believe that inequalities of the same extent can be generalized across all immigrant groups. For instance, 2.1 Shifts in gender roles could elaborate on which ethnic groups are more impacted by the Americanization of women.

• However, if information is not available on specific ethnic groups, would it be possible to highlight the varying scales of impact on different kinds of cultures? E.g. collectivist versus individualist cultures, patriarchal versus other social systems, etc.?

• To build on the previous points, it seems that more references are necessary to fully expand on your article.

The scope of your article is very large. I remember we had discussed this during the in-class peer review, but you have expanded upon it very well since the rough draft. Once the incomplete subsections are done, it will be a wonderful new contribution to Wikipedia. Excellent job overall!

JoyceChou (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

User:JoyceChou, thanks for the helpful feedback!

• I have struggled with the issue of both providing examples of specific challenges faced by different immigrant groups while not making my article too narrow. I plan to try to incorporate the experiences of more ethnic groups to give a more nuanced view on the topic. I'll definitely look into your suggestion--I'm sure that certain immigrant groups are indeed more impacted by changing gender norms than others.
• Examining the difference between collectivist vs. individualist cultures may actually help solve some of the issues I've been having with scope--I'll definitely look into this!
• I've added a few more references and am still working on adding in more citations throughout

Thanks again for all of the advice! Naomi FK (talk) 17:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

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