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
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/32418 |
| Date | 10 July 2001 |
| Creators | Manoogian, Margaret M. |
| Contributors | Walker, Alexis J., Richards, Leslie N. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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