Questions to Guide your Reading about Race

AF 1 Fictive Kin, Paper Sons, and Compadrazgo: Women of color and the struggle for family survival by Bonnie Thornton Dill and

AF 3. Excerpt from Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave, "The Threat of Sale: The Black Family as a Mechanism of Control" by Norrece T. Jones (Raquel)

Video to view before class: Black Women in History and Culture

1. How has fathering in the slavery period contrast from fathering in the present?

2. More and more women are becoming the dominant source in their household. How has this changed over time?

3. How has the war forced change for African-Americans ?

4. Why was it that African-Americans feared beng sold more than they feared a sadistic beating ?

AF 2 Excerpts from Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 by David Wallace Adams

**Why were Indian children put in boarding schools? In what ways did these schools try to assimilate them into the White culture?

AF 4 Split household, small producer, and dual wage earner: An analysis of Chinese-American family strategies

by Evelyn Nakano Glenn

What are the three family types discussed by Glenn? What environmental factors "caused" these family types? How would family communication differ between these family types?

29. Excerpts from Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life
Annette Lareau

1.  Accomplishment of Natural Growth VS. Concerted Cultivation.  Is one option better than the other when raising a child? (Pg. 405-406)

2.  On pg 411, we see that children were allowed long and frequent blocks of leisurely time with friends and family after WWII.  We have only recently seen a shift from that accomplishment of natural growth to concerted cultivation or as the book says “institutionalization of children’s leisure.”  What are the causes of this shift?  Do you think this is a positive or a negative shift?

3. Hyper Scheduling (Pg. 413).  How do you feel about the community in New Jersey that declared a community wide “family night” that exclude organized activity, homework included?  Would this “family night” concept work in your community?  How would it benefit and/or hurt the community?

4.  On pg. 414 we see the term “code-switch.” What does code switching mean to you and why is it important to know how to code switch between home and encounters with institutions?