7.6.1 Essential Ideas

Learning Objective 1: How can we consider belonging a social problem?

Although we often think that creating families and experiencing belonging is a personal choice, in reality, laws, policies, and practices impact who gets recognized as a family. For example, multigenerational families are rarely recognized with the same rights as nuclear families. These structural differences result from differences in values related to family. Because of this, some families experience privilege, and others experience oppression. Mixed-status families and queer families have less power than other families. However, queer dreamers are taking action to create the social justice of belonging for their families.

Learning Objective 2: How do changing definitions of ethnicity and citizenship impact who belongs, historically and currently?

Ethnicity is a social location where a group of people share a cultural background, such as language, location, and religion. Sometimes, an ethnic group experiences violence or prejudice related to their belonging. In addition, our definition of ethnicity is socially constructed. For example, we use Hispanic, Latino/a, and Latinx to describe a particular ethnic group. The amount of power an ethnic group has may change over time. In addition, people of different races and ethnicities may be granted citizenship or not. To be a citizen is powerful because you can participate in our political process and enjoy the benefits of government programs. However, obtaining citizenship can be challenging in the past due to the historical institution of slavery and in the present due to the immigrant industrial complex.

Learning Objective 3: What does it mean to be queer, particularly queer in the context of family?

Queer is a term that has been used to harm people who are LGBTQIA+. However, the word is being reclaimed by people who are deliberately challenging norms of gender identity and sexuality. Although queer families are generally as healthy and stable as straight families, and they are at least as likely to parent well, many families experience heteropatriarchy. This structural inequality limits resources and choices for their families, including unequal resolutions in child custody disputes and lack of access to adoption.

Learning Objective 4: How do sociologists explain the social problem of belonging?

Functionalist sociologists explore what roles people in the family take so the family can function in a healthy way. Although the gender divisions this approach was founded on are no longer valid, La Familia functions as a support system for immigrant families. Conflict theorists examine money, power, and inequality. They see that they create wealth for the upper class and exploit the labor of documented and undocumented migrants. Symbolic Interactionists examine how families create themselves. In queer families, roles are negotiated because traditional gender norms don’t apply. Queer theorists remind us that families come in all shapes and sizes and that some of us have chosen families and families of origin. Feminist theorists apply the ideas of bodily autonomy to understand who has the power of consent and choice in their lives. Critical race theorists combine the ideas of bodily autonomy and gender identity to examine the intersection of race, class, and gender to understand belonging. They also argue that families of color bring community cultural wealth as a resource for their families to create belonging.

Learning Objective 5: What are the interdependent individual and collective actions taken by activists to increase the social justice of belonging?

Queer dreamers, the activists fighting for a path to citizenship for immigrant families, are using the strategies of coming out as queer and undocumented as sources of power and agency. They act within their own families, bravely being their authentic selves. And they act together, in collective action, to challenge the lack of humane immigration policies and practices in the United States. Their passion for social justice creates belonging.

7.6.3 Discuss and Do

1. Family: As you consider your family of origin and your current family, which sociological theory best explains the social construction of your family?
2. Ethnicity: How are race and ethnicity the same or different? How have we used law, policy, and practice to enforce ethnic identity?
3. Immigration: What issues around immigration are surfacing in your community? How might you use the concepts of this chapter to explain either side of the argument or create change?
4. Belonging and Critical Race Theory: Please read Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth. How does Community Cultural Wealth explain the power of belonging for oppressed families?
5. Queer Families: Complete the Gender Unicorn exercise. How do the expanding definitions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and family increase people’s power with and power to? Is there a recent change in laws, policies and practices that empowers or oppresses queer families?