Introduction to The Family in Times of Conflict and Change

The family is an enduring social unit, even in times of conflict or when faced with substantial adversity. This chapter looks at wartime families, immigrant families, refugee families, and slave families. Immigration tests a family's resources, but it also proves that the basic social unit of the family can transcend national and cultural contexts. Since the concept of family is so often defined and influenced by its surroundings, immigrants are often faced with the challenge of reconciling the family structures, laws, and customs of their home country with those of their new country. Also, many immigrant families must face prolonged physical separation from family members.

This chapter also looks at families affected by conflict and war. Whether aiding a war effort on the home front or fleeing war on the battlefront, the family is affected by tumultuous surroundings. Contrasted here are the efforts of the homefront family, the planning of a victor garden or the rolling of bandages, with the violence and horror of the family caught in war. "Diary of the Great Deportation" describes the plight of several Jewish families during the Holocaust in the final weeks before the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto.

Finally, slavery fractionated families and influenced African-American family identities for generations. Two sources in this chapter feature images and personal narratives of slaves and former-slave families. "A Family Divided" features a correspondence between white family members divided by differing views on the institution of slavery.