Ayoub Mekkaoui
Cultural Anthropology
The Family Analysis and Kinship Chart of Sayom Smith I chose my friend Sayom for this assignment. I chose Sayom because she is the product of an African American father and a Cambodian mother, so I thought it would be interesting to analyze the dynamics, similarities, and differences of each parent. Instead of just interviewing her, she agreed to let me interview both her parents in order to get a deeper insight. Although I interviewed the father, he was both too busy (and a little hesitant) to give me his family’s kinship chart, so I only have the kinship chart of Sayom’s mothers side. I first interviewed Sayom and her father. Her dad Pete is 50 years old and was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. …show more content…
Up until this interview, Sayom did not realize how many of her cousins, who are very close to her age, are actually her second cousins. Since her grandmother had 5 kids, they have 5 smaller families inside of her big family. Some families are bigger with lots of kids while others are small with few to no kids. Her grandmother has the biggest inner family with 5 kids, 8 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. In Pete’s family, there is really no different attitudes towards the older and younger family members. A lot of his family is mixed with two or more races. It seems that throughout the years they have had more bi-racial babies born into the family. There are no conflicts with social interactions between the different races and actually welcome them more and “enjoy the …show more content…
The boys were the rulers of the house, while the girls were treated as the “house makers”, cleaning and cooking. Xin grew up believing that a man was superior to a woman. Women are to be submissive and honoring. Sayom strongly disagreed with her mother, and said this made her to struggle to find herself growing up, and realized it still has a lasting effect on her. She finds herself treating all of her boyfriends the same way her mother treated her husband (her father).
Xin says still tries to teach her children the way of her culture. She wants them to be respectful of their eldest brother and follow what he says. Sayom says her brothers have a lot of influence on her mother. The oldest was the most powerful. Sayom assumes she has since changed some of that belief, since the younger brother and the baby sister have just as much if not more influence on her. Perhaps it is because she’s getting older and is trying to hold on to her youngest of both
Cultural Anthropology
The Family Analysis and Kinship Chart of Sayom Smith I chose my friend Sayom for this assignment. I chose Sayom because she is the product of an African American father and a Cambodian mother, so I thought it would be interesting to analyze the dynamics, similarities, and differences of each parent. Instead of just interviewing her, she agreed to let me interview both her parents in order to get a deeper insight. Although I interviewed the father, he was both too busy (and a little hesitant) to give me his family’s kinship chart, so I only have the kinship chart of Sayom’s mothers side. I first interviewed Sayom and her father. Her dad Pete is 50 years old and was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. …show more content…
Up until this interview, Sayom did not realize how many of her cousins, who are very close to her age, are actually her second cousins. Since her grandmother had 5 kids, they have 5 smaller families inside of her big family. Some families are bigger with lots of kids while others are small with few to no kids. Her grandmother has the biggest inner family with 5 kids, 8 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. In Pete’s family, there is really no different attitudes towards the older and younger family members. A lot of his family is mixed with two or more races. It seems that throughout the years they have had more bi-racial babies born into the family. There are no conflicts with social interactions between the different races and actually welcome them more and “enjoy the …show more content…
The boys were the rulers of the house, while the girls were treated as the “house makers”, cleaning and cooking. Xin grew up believing that a man was superior to a woman. Women are to be submissive and honoring. Sayom strongly disagreed with her mother, and said this made her to struggle to find herself growing up, and realized it still has a lasting effect on her. She finds herself treating all of her boyfriends the same way her mother treated her husband (her father).
Xin says still tries to teach her children the way of her culture. She wants them to be respectful of their eldest brother and follow what he says. Sayom says her brothers have a lot of influence on her mother. The oldest was the most powerful. Sayom assumes she has since changed some of that belief, since the younger brother and the baby sister have just as much if not more influence on her. Perhaps it is because she’s getting older and is trying to hold on to her youngest of both