Kinship

My Mother

My interviewee is my Mother, she was born in Anaheim and raised in Los Angeles.  From the outside my mother's family is of European descent and they attended a Baptist Church on Sundays. They were a middle class family that owned several businesses including rental properties. My Mother kept busy with gymnastics, rainbow girls and jobs daughters (masonic affiliation). She was raised to strive for an upper class and "perfect" life style. Inwardly, child abuse and secrets ultimately resulted in drug abuse, trust issues, social awkwardness and a son by age 19.

My interview was conducted over FaceTime, since face to face wasn't available. From an anthropologist perceptive, collecting at the data was difficult and confusing. Difficult because my subject didn't know a lot of the names of family members or where they are now. Confusing because the family is very large and most of the upper generation is deceased. For example on my subject's father's side, she knew there had been 13 children but most of which had died before she was born. I never felt awkwardness or discomfort during my interview since I was speaking with my mother, honestly is one of the foundations of our relationship. Had I interviewed someone unrelated to me, I think this would have been more difficult and probably awkward, especially since I went into detail about the nature and closeness of each family relationship.

My mother seemed to have a lot more relatives on her mother's side that she was or is close too. There are large age differences through out the family, accounting for much of the separation. My mother's paternal family mostly lives in small towns in Arkansas, and her maternal side lives mostly in Southern California. The older generations were were very larger, my mother had 13 aunts and uncles her fathers side, it was a different time they lived on a farm and many of the children died young. The younger generations are average 2-3 children. Most of my family is of European descent, with almost no ethnic variation.

My Sister, Aunt and Mother

I am not every close with my extended family, with the exception one of my aunts on my fathers side, I am close to her and her children. I am extremely close to my siblings, my mother and my niece and nephew. My boyfriend and I have been together for more than two years and I am growing increasing closer to his immediate family as well. I grew up with my mother and sister, I am closest to them. I have always had trouble bonding with my extended family. We all independently make decisions, I put more weight on the opinions of my my mother and my aunt. In my family we having a saying "you can divorce a spouse but you cannot divorce a family". To mean blood isn't always thicken then water. Family is about the love and commitment to each other not the blood line. There are a lot of woman, strong woman in my family, I think the men feel out numbered. I don't think I learned anything new during this exercise other than some funny names of family members. I think this exercise reminded me of the importance of family and keeping close to your loved ones.


By Andrea Garrison