Every year thousands of families experience a major
life-changing event when they are torn from their
homeland and become refugees. Little is known about how
the refugee experience impacts the family and how members
perceive it affects their sense of family identity. The
construct of family identity as proposed by Bennett,
Wolin, & McAvity (1988) includes: (a) family membership,
(b) quality of day to day life, and (c) an elusive
historical dynamic that includes recollections and
beliefs about a family's past. The purpose of this study
was to explore the third component, that is, how family
history affects family identity. This was done by asking
family members how they perceive that their experience,
the discrete event of being refugees, shaped, and
continues to shape, their sense of family identity.
Seventeen members from ten refugee families who fled
Cambodia and Vietnam and who subsequently resettled in
the United States between 1975 and 1990, were
interviewed. Transcripts were qualitatively analyzed.
Findings support the two primary components of the family
identity construct as well as the existence of a third
component. The experience of being a refugee influences
(in both expected and unexpected ways) how members
perceive their family identity. / Graduation date: 1997
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/34389 |
| Date | 06 December 1996 |
| Creators | Lynch, Maureen Jessica |
| Contributors | Richards, Leslie N. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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