Critical Analysis of Family Life:For this week's blog entry, I would like you to consider how race, gender, social class, and sexuality (1) impacted and shaped your family life so far, (2) affected your ideas about families, and (3) might affect your family life in the future. The purpose of this assignment is to get you thinking about how social positions affect our family experiences as well as to contemplate what your beliefs are and why you have them. Such things often seem “normal” or “natural” so try to think critically when doing this exercise. This blog entry will be graded based on your critical thinking about these issues.

Social positionality such as race, gender, social class, as well as sexuality are extremely important in determining an individual's perspective and experiences in life. I believe an important function and role of a family in society is to accept each member's social positions and act as a source of communal base/ buffer in which certain experiences and beliefs are shared. An especially crucial factor that has impacted my family is the issue of race; with a Korean background, my family has always grounded itself in the Korean tradition, language, culture including close family friends and social networks. Typically, Asian communities are known for their exclusivity and my family, whether for the good or bad, has delved into that sort of environment. However, being Korea has provided unique experiences and a different environment than those who have not experienced that culture; thus, I believe that it is important for a family to be involved in cultural experiences, whether traditional or adapted modern versions. Further, I believe that most families have their own distinctive shared culture. Being Korea, I think will always affect my family in forming new experiences, doing activities, sharing culture, and the fact that we are a minority will not change.
The fact that I am a female has impacted my life, but in many ways, not very much affected my family. Being that sons were (are?) more valued within Asian societies, it probably would have more a relief to my parents if i had been a boy, but as my sister and I got older, I think we both proved that being female was not inferior. Further, Asian societies are generallly not as patriachal anymore. However, i believe that more Americanized families would have not considered that this factor was even important, because many parents would not care if it was either gender whereas in most Asian societies, most families are openly or secretly hoping for males. This view on gender has been changing and will further continue to change as Asian societies continue to modernize, my family including.
\n\u003cdiv\>Social class has had somewhat of an impact on our family concerning the level of social networks, wealth and income, and the type of educational choices. If we were in a lower social class, higher educational possibilites would have been rather slim and much harder; further, our lifestyle would have been impacted, yet, I do not think overall cultural aspects and mindsets would have not changed. This issue has impacted my view on other families of different social networks, because i feel like lower social class families would have more problems and therefore be less happier but have closer solidarity whereas higher social class families, in my point of view, would be more stability but less personal connection because in order to get to that upward scale people need to work harder. It is hard to determine how this issue would affect my family life in the future, because it depends on how it would be affected but i do not believe my family support system would be highly affected either way, especially since my sister and I are older and are not children anymore. \n\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Sexuality has not been a big issue in our family, because everyone is heterosexual and is quite expected, especially within Asian communities. There is a conservative, traditional mindset about sexuality and is most of the time not even a questionable/debatable factor. Thus, it sometimes surprises me how many families within the United States are so liberal and open about accepting differences whether it is concerning sexuality or other matters. I do not think that my immediate family would not be accepting of sexuality differences, mostly because Asian society in general is not accepting of it; however, there may be more acceptance of modern practices in sexuality as well as other factors well into the future as society is more exposed and more movements are developed. Further, my family as time progresses will change as the younger, more open-minded generations get older and decide where their moral beliefs lie.
Social class has had somewhat of an impact on our family concerning the level of social networks, wealth and income, and the type of educational choices. If we were in a lower social class, higher educational possibilites would have been rather slim and much harder; further, our lifestyle would have been impacted, yet, I do not think overall cultural aspects and mindsets would have not changed. This issue has impacted my view on other families of different social networks, because i feel like lower social class families would have more problems and therefore be less happier but have closer solidarity whereas higher social class families, in my point of view, would be more stability but less personal connection because in order to get to that upward scale people need to work harder. It is hard to determine how this issue would affect my family life in the future, because it depends on how it would be affected but i do not believe my family support system would be highly affected either way, especially since my sister and I are older and are not children anymore.
Sexuality has not been a big issue in our family, because everyone is heterosexual and is quite expected, especially within Asian communities. There is a conservative, traditional mindset about sexuality and is most of the time not even a questionable/debatable factor. Thus, it sometimes surprises me how many families within the United States are so liberal and open about accepting differences whether it is concerning sexuality or other matters. I do not think that my immediate family would not be accepting of sexuality differences, mostly because Asian society in general is not accepting of it; however, there may be more acceptance of modern practices in sexuality as well as other factors well into the future as society is more exposed and more movements are developed. Further, my family as time progresses will change as the younger, more open-minded generations get older and decide where their moral beliefs lie.