Families stay connected over time through the intergenerational transmission of legacies. Legacies help family members to articulate family identity, learn more about family history, and provide succeeding generations with information about family culture and ethnicity. This qualitative study examines how older mothers transmit family meanings, history, and culture to family members through legacies and how ethnic histories influenced this process. Thirty older Armenian American mothers residing in California were interviewed. A life course perspective provides the overarching framework for analysis. Participants described the legacies they received and those they planned to pass on to family members. Emphasis was given to those legacies that symbolized connection to family, underscored family cohesion, and accentuated Armenian cultural roots. Individual age, larger historical events, and the gendered construction of family life influenced both the receipt of legacies and those that were passed on to family members. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Armenian families were forced to leave their native homeland. Because of these events, Armenian families passed few physical legacies on to family members. Legacies took on other forms such as stories, rituals, family gatherings, religious participation, cooking, and service to others. Women viewed their legacies within the context of motherhood and worked to ensure that certain legacies would be valued and remembered by future generations. Shaped by age, generational position, and ethnic identity, women expressed variation in types of legacies and the ways they planned to share them with family members. Women reported tension when certain legacies lacked meaning for their children (in-law) and grandchildren due to the influences of assimilation, intermarriage, changes in family and paid work patterns, and the characteristics and interests of adult children. A focus on legacies provides a useful lens for understanding how families transmit family identity, culture, and ethnicity to succeeding generations. / Graduation date: 2002

Hypertension presents a significant health risk to both developed and developing countries, affecting approximately 78 million Americans of various ethnic backgrounds. Though a great deal of research about hypertension and minority groups has been published, few studies have examined hypertension in the Armenian American population in the Los Angeles area, one of the most concentrated Armenian American communities in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in health promotion behavior between hypertensive and normotensive Armenian Americans. The theoretical basis for this study was Pender's health promotion model and the health promoting lifestyle profile (HPLP-II), which is used to measure 6 different subscales of health promotion behavior. A quantitative approach was used to examine the relationship between hypertensive status and health promotion behavior. With a sample size of 204, this study found that while there was no significant difference in overall HPLP-II scores, the normotensive group scored higher on physical activity (p = 0.001) and stress management (p = 0.004). These differences remained significant even when controlling for body mass index (BMI). Additionally, the study found high smoking rates and elevated BMI across both samples. These results suggest that interventions that target stress management and physical activity and use the cultural strengths of interpersonal relationships and spiritual growth may be the most effective. This information may be used as a foundation in future interventional studies and may create significant social change by decreasing hypertension among the Armenian American population and increasing awareness of risk factors and prevention.

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