代际关系与跨文化冲突——以美国华人移民家庭为例

在美国,许多华人移民的家长对子女的教育和品行要求很严,期望他们日后事业有成,帮助家庭发财致富,并为父母养老送终。然而,在华人移民家庭中维护中华传统规范和行为准则以及执行此类家教并非易事。原因是父母为外来移民,而子女则在美国本土生长,两代人同化的取向和速度都不同。家中不仅充满任何家庭中常见的父子两代的代际冲突,也充满移民家庭特有的跨文化冲突。本文研究了美国移民家庭的代际关系与跨文化冲突问题,着重探讨矛盾重重的华人移民家庭中父母与子女如何处理复杂的、不断变动的家庭关系以及移民父母如何选择轻重缓急的策略,依靠社区的力量来确保下一代的健康成长。

Intergenerational Relations and Cultural Conflicts:The Immigrant Chinese Family in the United States

In the United States,the parents of immigrant Chinese are strict with their children in study and behavior.Parents expect that their children may succeed in the career,make fortune for the family and attend upon a dying parent. Therefore,deviation from these expectations is regard ed as a family shame.However,it is not easy for immigrant families to enforce these traditional Chinese values and behavioral standards and guarantee that familial expectations are met because of vulnerabilities associated with parental foreign birth,changing intergenerational relations,intense cultural conflicts,and the different paces of acculturation between immigrant parents and their US-born or US-raised children.This paper aims to examine the intergenerational relations and cultural conflicts related with immigrant families.It mainly explores how the parents of immigrant families and their children deal with their complicated and changing family relations and how the family and the ethnic community function to facilitate immigrant children’s successful adaptation.