In cofigurative transmission, there are multiple role models--old ones and the contemporary one.Emergent cultural traits may be attributed to the sharing between parents and children at a time when the traditional cultural patterns have lost some power over the young. Cofigurative communities may be represented, for example, by immigrant groups that are partially disengaging from the past and are beginning to relate in different ways to their children growing up in the United States. (Ovando, 169)
My Chinese parents as I mentioned in my previous blog post were raised in China. They were raised to obey their elders without question. Individual opinions are discouraged. Children are expected to sacrifice their own personal interests to the interest of the elderly parents. The elderly parents hold all the power in the family. The elders decide who the young marry, what work they do, and the elders are the holders of centuries of Chinese culture and tradition. When my parents emigrated to the US, they expected their children to obey them just like they had obeyed their parents in the Confucian tradition of respect for authority and state. However, that is not what happened.
In traditional Chinese culture, if a son marries a barren wife, he is expected to divorce her to marry a wife who can give him children to carry on the family name. Even if the son loves the barren wife, because the wife cannot bear children and the father orders the divorce, the son is expected to obey his father. A daughter in law can never argue with her mother-in-law. She is always expected to kowtow to her mother-in-law.
My brother, however, is very Americanized. When he discovered his wife was barren, instead of leaving her, he stayed with her and they adopted a child. Instead of obeying Chinese tradition, he forged his own path for his own happiness thus disobeying Chinese tradition. Then, my mother and sister in law argued over politics. One of them said they were a Trump supporter and a life long Republican and the other one said she was a Bernie supporter and a life long Democrat. First of all, the sister-in-law is expected to just obey her mother-in-law no matter what, but that is not what happened. Instead, my sister-in-law lost her temper and threatened to take my brother away from my mother. My sister in law blocked all my mother's emails and phone calls from my mother. In effect, for the first time in 40 years, my mother was cut off from her adored son. And my brother took his wife's side when in Confucian tradition, he is supposed to take my mother's side.
Having been raised in the Confucian tradition, my mother could not understand why my brother took his wife's side. As a result, she was heartbroken. She felt she had lost the love of her life. My mother did not understand that in America, individual happiness is more important than the strict obedience of parents. My brother cared more about his personal happiness than the good of the family. My mother's relationship with my brother after this was never quite the same. She became convinced until the end of her life, that my brother does not really love her no matter how many times my brother apologized.
With cofigurative transmission, the dominant American culture has more and more sway with the young and sometimes, like my mother, immigrant parents become lost and confused in the way their children act or react to their orders. Instead of obedience, Americanized children want to forge their own path, have their own personal happiness and have their own lives. Therefore, a lot of family conflict occurs between the immigrant parents and their children.
Ovando, Carlos & Combs, Mary Carol Bilingual and ESL Classrooms 6th Ed.
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