Report for Kinship Project

在这家庭关系调查报告项目中，作者选择了一个灾区作为调查的地点，发现整个家庭是在良好的秩序和有一个明确的内在的风俗。
I. Introduction
In this kinship project, I chose Luuly, a female of twenty years old, as my interviewee. Luuly’s parents, her 56-year-old mother Giap and her 57-year-old father Hue, have four children in total. Luuly, ranking the second among the children, has one older sister named Thuong, one younger sister, Tuy and a younger brother whose name is Buv. In the matrilineal side, Luuly has two aunts and one uncle, and all of them have married with their husbands or wives. Each of their family has a child. Luuly has two matrilineal parallel cousins and one matrilineal cross cousin. Since Luuly’s father is the only child descended from Luuly’s deceased grandparents, there are no patrilineal cousins of Luuly. Xin, aging 87, is the only grandfather of Luuly at present.
II. Analysis of Assignment of Analytical Tools
In luuly’s mind, there are sixteen family members considered in her family, including her two parents, her two sisters, her brother, her grand parents, her uncles and aunts together with their children, and herself. Since her parents Hue and Giap are husband and wife, and the four children are all immediate family members, the six members in her family have blood relationship with each other. There are no other people whom Luuly considers to be “kin”. The parents have given birth to Luuly and her sisters and brother. Obligations and responsibilities also exist in the process of raising them up and giving them education. Besides, Luuly’s family is a joint type of orientation and procreation, since the numbers of her families increase through ways of newborns and marriages.
Seeing from the family tree of Luuly with the help of online resources on “Family” (Net. 1.), it is a nuclear family. In the circle she draws, there are only her parents and the unmarried children living together. Therefore, this is a family where there are only two generations and that is why it is a nuclear family. In Luuly’s family, there are all together six family members, her father and mother, her three brothers and sisters, and herself.
In Luuly’s kinship group, all children of her generation live with their own parents in their homes. Luuly’s father and mother were both born in Hu Zhi Ming City of Vietnam, but moved to live in Marietta, GA for their children’s education. And Luuly and her siblings also live there together with their parents. When they first moved to the U.S., they did not have a house to live in, for that reason, they lived with her uncle for about five years. There are no obvious difference between the settlements of the male and female children. Except for Luuly’s family, where there are four children, all other families of her cousins have one child only. On matrilineal side, there are more family members, except Luuly’s mother; there are also two aunts and one uncle with their spouses and children. On patrilineal side, on the contrary, things are much different. With the father of Luuly being the only child of her deceased grandparents Dao and Hoac without any brothers or sisters, there are no uncles or aunts of Luuly as well. In Luuly’s immediate family, her parents are all in their middle ages, and the children are in their teens or early twenties, it is quite likely that the children are still studying in their high schools or just begin their university years. 
Luuly’s father and mother are both assembly line workers, and it is likely that the parents in the family shoulder the main burden and responsibility of raising the whole family. There is no family business in Luuly’s family, neither is there any pressure or obligation for children to follow their parents’ occupation foot steps. The whole family atmosphere is harmonious and free, since Luuly’s father and mother and other siblings never give her any pressure and other intervene on job seeking matter. What is more, the parents of Luuly will not give any pressure and obligation to her to help to raise her siblings, and it is enough if she can take care of her own things well. However, in the deep heart of Luuly, there is a sense of responsibility for her to help her family, since her father and mother have spent so much money on her and raised her up through many years’ struggle and hard work, she is determined to repay them and take care of them especially when they are not in good health conditions. Observations on the family structures of Juuly’s cousins show that their families are not under the control of an marry-early idea since Soc was born when his father and mother reached 61 and 40 respectively. That may also account for Nham’s not getting married at the age of 35. As for family emotional attachment, all the kin members in Luuly’s big family are in good relationship and well contacted with one another, and every member in Luuly’s family are willing to take the responsibility to contact with other family members, and they often writer letters and send greeting cards together.
As for the inheritance, the custom in the family of Luuly is that when parents pass away, their estate will be inherited by their children. Since there are all together four children in this family, the estate of Luuly’s parents will be devided into four parts in the future, and Luuly will inhere one of the four parts. However, she does not except anything to be inhered from her grandparents. There are also rituals in Luuly’s family, when a new year comes, all the family members will get together in her grandmother’s house to enjoy the family reunion, and this is often organized by her aunts and uncles.
From analyses the family tree of Luuly and her questionnaire, we can see that Luuly has a healthy family according to Callaghan’s theory on functions and characteristics of healthy families (Net. 2.). Callaghan suggests 8 features in a functional family, including “clearly identified hierarchy, well-defined parental roles, flexibility & adaptability, consistent, clear rules & expectations, consistent affection, consistent limit-setting, open communication, bi-directional, increased degree of support nurturance and acceptance of family members”. From the data collected, Luuly’s family are of good qualification since she understands the hierarchy system and maintains a healthy relationship with her parents and other relatives. She specifically notes that she would be willing to take care of her families in face of an emergency. Her grateful attitude towards her parents and other family members’ endeavors into a harmonious family could be sensed easily. They may be parted geographically, but they are of a stable emotional connection with each family members in the form of gatherings and communications.
III. Comparisons and Summary
There are many similarities between Luuly’s family and my own. To begin with, we both have a big family with many aunts, uncles and cousins. And most of the children in the family are still in school. Besides, the atmosphere in the family is happy and harmonious with many family gatherings on holidays. However, the most unique thing in the information selected is that the family kinship structures are quite different between patrilineal side and matrilineal side of Luuly. Since there are more matrilineal branches but very few patrilineal branches, and that is where lies the biggest difference with my family. The structure of my family tree is just the opposite, with more patrilineal branches and fewer matrilineal ones. What is more, another obvious difference is that Luuly has three siblings, whereas I am the only child of my parents.
In conclusion, the kinship in Luuly’s family is quite clear. She has siblings in her own family and parallel cousins and cross cousins in her uncles’ and aunts’ families. The whole family is in good order and has a clear inherence custom. The children in Luuly’s family are mostly still in schools, and the main responsibility of raising the family is mainly shared by the parents. Luuly has many matrilineal relatives. On patrilineal side, however, there are no other relatives, since her father is the only child of her deceased grandparents on her father’s side. In Luuly’s family, all the family members are in good relation with each other, for they usually have close contacts on holidays and other occasions. Her grandmother links the whole family together, and when some important traditional festivals come, the whole family usually get together in the grandmother’s house to communicate and care about each other.

References:
1.Net. 1. Entry on Introduction to Sociology/Family from Wikibooks. (Retrieved November 20, 2014 from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Family)

2.Net. 2. Entry on Family Functions from Towson. (Retrieved November 20, 2014 from http://pages.towson.edu/anemerof/family_functions.htm)

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