Kinship

Kinship is the relation of a group of persons of common ancestry and in some instances others who have been adopted formally or informally into the family. Although the degree of kinship varies across different groups, it plays an important role for all racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Although the definition of family and kin has changed throughout U.S. history, kinship still plays a defining role in the function of familial groups, especially ethnic and racial minority families. This entry examines kinship historically and currently for the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States.

Notions of kinship vary considerably across both settings and minority groups. The term kinship is sometimes used to include only people related by common ancestry, or “blood.” Other times, it is used in a broader sense, in which a whole group shares kinship. At still other times, it includes those with whom one feels closeness. These latter uses are reflected in the related concepts of Confucian filial piety and the Christian concept of charity toward others. In all of these uses, individuals may be expected to forgo their own wants and needs for needs of the larger group.

Kinship, then, is the tie formed through familial relationships or larger group relationships that bring economic, emotional, or other support. Family kinship connotes a tie that is sufficiently strong that the kin group is expected to help members when needed. Hence, this expectation explains why some people, especially in immigrant groups, are immediately integrated into a family structure that provides economic and social well-being. Kinship relations also help new immigrants while they establish themselves in their new countries. Kin give important advice and emotional support. To some, these ties may be the only defining relationships they have. These helps are expected and often provided without request. Thus, kinship is key to group identity and even survival.

Classically, kinship units provided sustenance for all of the members of the group. Members had a duty to provide for the survival of their extended families. Some argue that kinship historically was defined only as it related to human reproduction and biological relat-edness. With the change from a traditional, agricultural-based society into a more modern one, the view of kinship ties broadened. The unit of kinship remained the ancestral family but was now viewed as providing emotional support as well as sustenance. During industrialization, kinship became more limited for European Americans, with a focus on the nuclear family instead of the extended family. Minority families have often relied on extended family to compensate for grinding poverty and as a source of emotional support. Thus, these families have tended to retain larger family ties that provide financial, social, and emotional support.

Kinship for African Americans began immediately as they arrived here as indentured servants and, for most, as slaves. Though often from different groups in Africa, they melded together as a community, albeit a suppressed one. Kinship played a vital role in the emotional health of slaves in their transition from African freedom to American slavery. Plantation slaves were related by blood or marriage. For example, it is estimated that slaves on the Good Hope Plantation of South Carolina from 1835 to 1856 were related by “blood” to 28% of the other slaves. Geographic isolation and oppression often made for tight communities of related slaves. As slaves were bought and sold, the kinship ties were reduced, but a sense of a larger kinship of all slaves emerged. Evidence of kinship among the African American community continued after slavery, as numerous ex-slaves traveled long distances to find family members from whom they had been separated.

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