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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Mexican American families, blood relations, familismo

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

Researchers define familismo as a “strong identification with the family” (Triandis, Marin, Betancourt, Lisansky, & Chang, 1982). Sabogal et al. said that “perceived support from family,” “family obligations,” and third, using family as cultural “referents” are important parts of familismo(Sabogal, Marín, Otero-Sabogal, Marín, & Perez-Stable, 1987). All researchers seem to have an underlying assumption that familismo-style relationships are phenomena that occur between blood-relation (Sabogal et al., 1987)(Steidel & Contreras, 2003)(Triandis et al., 1982)(Davila, Reifsnider, & Pecina, 2011). I argue that Mexican kinship is not defined simply by blood relations and that a kin group can be formed through reciprocal relationships. Familismo relationships can therefore be formed among people that are not biologically related.

Included in

Anthropology Commons

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