FATHERWORK IN THE CROSSFIRE: CHICANO TEEN FATHERS STRUGGLING TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS  By  Rudy Hernandez                      A THESIS  Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of  SociologyMaster of Arts  2016 ABSTRACT  FATHERWORK IN THE CROSSFIRE: CHICANO TEEN FATHERS STRUGGLING TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS  By  Rudy Hernandez  In-depth, qualitative interviews with young Latino fathers are used to bring to light the work young men do as family men in a Midwestern rustbelt barrio.  Teen childbearing has been a topic of much research and policy debate for many years.  However, recent and dramatic changes in the demography of the U.S. landscape, and racial patterns of teen pregnancy necessitate more attention to Latino communities.   Despite a common assumption is that African Americans are responsible for the recent rise in teen childbearing, the fact is that during the nineties, birthrates for African Americans have remained the highest, but they have risen more rapidly for Latinos, particularly for Mexican Americans.   Latinos have also recently become the largest category of minority children in the U.S.  This study focuses on young Chicano fathers, most of whom do not reside with their children.  It finds that these young men go to great and neighborhood institutions in order to construct culturally meaningful and valued expressions of masculinity and fatherhood.   Keywords: Chicano, Mexican, fatherwork, fathers, fatherhood, masculinity.  iii  TABLE OF CONTENTS     INTRODUCTION 1 LATINOS AND TEENAGE CHILDBEARING 5 LATINO TEEN FATHERS 7 FAMILIES, YOUTH, POVERTY, AND GENDER IN THE BARRIO 8 NON-TRADTIONAL FATHERS 13 RESEARCH QUESTONS 16 METHODS 18 SAMPLE 23 ANALYSIS 25  Major Theme: Masculinity and Fatherhood 25  Jésus 25  Junior 27  Beto 29  Andrés 35  Major Theme: Responsibility   39  Major Theme: Fathering through Familism 41  Chava 41  Miguel Angel 43  Major Theme: Competing Self-Interests 47  José and Maria 47  Major Theme: Strategies of Exploiting Local Resources 54 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 56   APPENDICES 61  Appendix A:  Portraits in Brief 62  Appendix B:  Other Informants 63  Appendix C:  Biodata 63    65         1  INTRODUCTION Increased divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births have precipitated much national conversation about the well-being of children raised in single family households. Commonly evoked is the image of a single mother who is struggling to raise children without the help of her of remarrying a man whose ex-wife and children are being primarily supported and raised by yet another man (Coleman, Ganong & Fine, 2000). If the mother is poor and young, the image quickly becomes that of a Black or brown woman who is perpetuating her condition by irresponsibly becoming pregnant repeatedly, by multiple men, most often in her teens, without regard or need for establishing a traditional family; she is replacing familial support: economic, social, emotional and psychological, with that of the state. The Black or brown father(s) are seen as irresponsible, incorrigible, highly oversexed, sometimes depraved, boys or men who derive their self-worth from irresponsibly fathering as many children as possible and who have no   Many political and academic pundits lament that the above conditions contribute to the ---values that dictate that a woman should enter into a heterosexual union, through marriage, and preferably not work outside the home so she can raise -class America and no variation from this family model could or should be considered family at all.  Their moralistic musings n that is insidiously argued by many family values stalwarts to be a pathology associated with non-Anglo values that threaten to pull apart the fabric of American society (see Whitehead, 1993; Popenoe, 1995, 1996; Blankenhorn, 1996; Horn, 1997).  In contrast, other family scholars, rooted in structural and 2  feminist ideologies (Baca Zinn, 1999; Coontz, 1999; Thornton Dill, 1999; Rubin, 1999), argue that traditional family values and traditional family units are a luxury from which many poor and non-white people have been systematically excluded; while the configuration and the strategies that these families employ to maintain and to reproduce themselves may vary greatly from what family values zealots call moral (read: normal), they are nonetheless resourceful, effective and admirable given the brutal structural conditions under which these families exist (see Stack, 1974).     Until recently, most academic literature pertaining to Latino families has primarily only included Mexican American communities and has failed to recognize important effects that variables such as socioeconomic status, immigration generation and nativity have on shaping family experiences (Massey, Zambrana & Bell, 1995). Yet earlier studies that under-analyze structural, cultural, regional and ethnic differences within Latino communities are applied with a broad stroke to describe Latino family experiences across the board; unfortunately, they have created an essentializing effect. Consequently, the simplistic cultural clichés that they have generated, whether positive or negative, are not very useful in understanding contemporary Latino youth or their families. Furthermore, very little research deals with the family lives of minority males, especially Latinos in the Midwest. This work attempts to add to the revisionist scholarship that Maxine Baca Zinn (1995: perspective of a social insider  from the same ethnic background and neighborhood. From this vantage point, I hope to place the issue of teenage fatherhood for Chicanos within the context of contemporary urban culture as well as within structural challenges that many minority and poor youth face in our shifting economy.  3  The study of teen childbearing/rearing has been largely motivated by the desire to establish correlation and causation with success and failure of young mothers and their children, the people whose lives are believed to be most affected by it. Furthermore, there is no shortage of literature pertaining to teen pregnancy/childbearing that focuses on young women, although considerably less that focuses on Chicanas and/or Latinas, and even smaller amounts that focus on adolescent Chicano fathers. There is, however, a growing interest in the subject of adolescent fatherhood. But, compared with our knowledge of teen mothers, there is very little literature available that offers little more than demographic data or anecdotal accounts (Allen & Doherty, literature to poor birth record tracking methods, to trouble in recruiting subjects for studies because of the stigma associated with negative stereotypes, and to fatherhood denial or noninvolvement (Allen & Doherty, 1996. Elaine Bell Kaplan, 1997: 22), who studied teenage Black mothers in northern California, found it impossible to include fathers in a meaningful way study] were not involved in their   However, I do not believe young fathers to be absent from the literature because they are invisible in the teen childbearing/rearing discussion. Rather, their absence is a reflection of scholarly theorizing about fatherhood that has been closely tethered to mainstream ideals and norms, which offers little room for understanding how young men, particularly young men of color, do fathering outside the context of middle-class, heterosexual marriage or after its dissolution.  Certainly Chicano teen fathers face incredible challenges. The intersection of youth and poverty is a particularly precarious place to be. Add to that the social and economic disadvantage related to immigrant status, segregation, racism, substandard education and the restructuring of 4  our economy. Furthermore many of these youths are also saddled with cultural and structural forces that obligate them to contribute to the maintenance and management of their sanguineal ong depended (Gold, 2000; Stepick, 1998). Now add to this the burden of inventing ways to deal with the superfluous responsibilities of contributing financially, emotionally and temporally to a child with whom he often does not reside. Of course not all Chicano teen fathers are poor, not all are individually as burdened by poverty, racism, etc. The fact is not all even attempt to explore the responsibilities one would assume are inherent to fatherhood. Given the paucity of research in this area, it is imposterm used widely in inner cities to describe those young men who care for their children to varying degrees. This study is largely informed by a structural analysis that offers contextual meaning to a critical understanding of family systems. This study is also slightly influenced by the three sociological premise on which Herbert Blumer bases symbolic interactionism (Winton, 1995),  the basis of the meanings that things have through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters Wellman (1993: to meet the needs of their children and next generation, posed by proponents of the generative fathering framework, which operates under the assumption that young men have a desire to be involved with their children and that they contribute positively to raising their children in many ways that are best understood when viewed in cultural and structural contexts (Hawkins & 5  Dollahite, 1997), as ways to explore how young Chicano fathers perceive fatherhood, how that perception is influential in constructing the meaning of fatherwork, how this fatherwork is tempered by structural and cultural forces, and how it translates into the actual work they do to meet the needs of their, family, children and next generation. Given that these young fathers are also adolescents, who in most cases occupy a semi-dependent position within a larger family unit, I purposefully trained my attention to observe the extent to which Chicano families marshal perception of the meaning of fatherhood juxtaposed to their experiences with being young, poor, urban and Chicano. By no means is this study representative of all young Chicano fathers and their families, but it does augment the few other studies of its kind which add to our knowledge of this vastly understudied population. LATINOS AND TEENAGE CHILDBEARING  Many studies point out that teen childbearing has racialized dimensions and much to do with minority status, lower social positioning, school failure, school dropout and residence in a single-female-headed household (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999; Erickson, 1998; Romo & Falbo, 1996; Bell Kaplan, 1997; Mauldon, 1998). Among the greatest debates is whether teen pregnancy begets poverty and limits opportunities, or vice versa. While poverty and limited opportunities may, in part, be perpetuated by teen pregnancy, the fact is that 38% of all teens live in poverty and that 38% is responsible for 83% of all teen pregnancies (Mauldon, 1998). Studies show that for most poor teens, educational problems, poverty, underemployment and lack of opportunities precede teen pregnancy, and having a baby has little or no bearing on whether or not these adverse conditions change (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999; Marsiglio, 1986, Romo & Falbo, 1996; Erickson, 1998; Baca Zinn & Eitzen, 1999). If anything, having and caring for a baby may 6  be one of the only things that a teen living in these conditions can control and do successfully (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999; Raley, 1999; Mauldon, 1998; Fennelly, 1993).  Most literature produced on teen pregnancy for the past decade has centered on the White and Black populations, thereby ignoring the fastest growing segment of the U.S. society  Latino youth (Erickson, 1998; Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999). In fact, the overall numbers of Latino youths have recently eclipsed those of Black youths (Hernandez, Siles & Rochín, 1999), and they exhibit the lowest rates of educational attainment and are poorer than any other minority group (Baca Zinn & Eitzen, 1999. Researchers (Erickson, 1998; Romo & Falbo, 1998; Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999) have reported that Chicana teens are now the most likely of all racial-ethnic groups to give birth. In 1994, Latinas had a 107.7 birthrate per 1000 live births (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999), compared to 116.2 for African Americans and 42.5 for Whites (Erickson, 1998). When the birthrate for teenage Latinas is divided by individual ethnic categories (e.g., Puerto Rican, Mexican American, Cuban American, etc.), Mexican American teenagers had a live birthrate of 116.2, which really means that Mexican American teenagers, taken by themselves, are the racial/ethnic group most likely to give birth (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999; Goodyear, Newcomb & Allison, 2000). While it is true that recent data suggests that the national teen birth rate has been in slow decline from 1991 to 2000 for women 15 to 19, reversing a 24% rise between 1986 and 1991, the U.S. retains the distinction of having the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Moreover, recent trends also indicate that the sharpest decline was reported for Black women, but Latinas showed the smallest decline over this same period (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001). Therefore, despite the recent decline in birthrates for teenage women in general, the gap between birthrates for 7  teenage Latinas and other women is widening, which makes teen childbearing/pregnancy a continuing concern for Latino communities, especially Mexican American communities. been mfamilies (Sullivan, 1989 and 1993; Baca Zinn & Eitzen, 1999), these trends for Latinas should come as no surprise. Yet most mainstream researchers fail to recognize this (Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999). However, there is a growing body of literature examining both Latina teenage pregnancy and sexual behavior as it pertains to acculturation, education and poverty (e.g. Erickson, 1998; Romo & Falbo, 1997; Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999). Most of this literature seems to support the notion that cultural norms and values are important factors to consider when studying teenage childbearing (Erickson, 1998; Baca Zinn & Riba, 1999). Even though this literature has made invaluable contributions that have been pivotal to our knowledge about teen childbearing and how it is affecting Latino families, it has offered sparse information regarding the men involved.  LATINO TEEN FATHERS In general, literature on teen fathers has not been very useful in many ways beyond providing (sketchy) demographic data. What we know is that most teen fathers have a genuine know that despite an overwhelming percentage of teen fathers not residing with their children, they still manage to stay involved with their children in important ways (Danziger & Radin, 1990). Where Latino teen fathers are concerned, it has been shown that despite structural economic factors that severely traditional ways, they have developed complex and creative ways to stay involved with and  8  by culture (Sullivan, 1989 and 1993; Marsiglio, 1986; Robinson, 1988; Danziger & Radin, responsibility (Cohen, 1999), there is consistent evidence that these pressures are not new. They have been, for a long time, just misunderstood (Mirandé, 1998). Latino scholars who have studied masculinity and manhood have, for many years, taken the stance that being a caring, nurturing father and family man is culturally intertwined with Latino masculinity and is an integral part of familism. Measuring masculinity by how well one provides for the economic and emotional well-being of his family rather than male dominance, sexual prowess and aggression (Mirandé & Enríquez, 1979 as cited in Réyes, 1995; Mirandé, 1998; Réyes, 1995; Mirandé, 1988; Baca Zinn, 1982 as cited in Vega, 1995). Moreover, as the opportunities to earn viable wages in the industries that once supported urban Latino families dwindle, these kinship systems are as important to preserve Latino families, communities and culture as they once were during other times of great transition; from agriculture to industry, and from stationary to transitory work (Thornton Dill, 1999). FAMILIES, YOUTH, POVERTY, AND GENDER IN THE BARRIO  to borrow a term from Hawkins and Dollahite (1997). In many ways, the experiences of many young Chicano fathers are shaped by immigration and poverty. Indeed, these issues are intertwined, and the literature pertinent to these areas provides contextual insight into the family experiences of first, second and third generations of Latino youth. Furthermore, this body of literature provides compelling evidence that suggests that children who are poor and/or are part of an immigrant family, regardless of their generational order, become important household agents who facilitate settlement (Fernandez-Kelly, 1995; Valenzuela, 1999; Gold, 2000; Zhou, 1997; Stepick, 1998). 9  settlement. Furthermore, these children assume adult roles at an early age; they act as interpreters, translators, daycare providers, financial consultants, mediators between their families and the outside world (Valenzuela, 1999). childhood experiences in immigrant families, several other studies suggest that in second or third generation Latino families, children serve as the oil that lubricates the mechanisms that maintain and manage families (Sanchez Jankowski, 1991; Vigil, 1988; Moore, 1991; Furstenburg et. al., 1999; Zhou, 1997; Gold, 2000). They take on jobs, whether in the formal market or not, at an early age education. However, the restructuring of our economy from an industrial base to a service base means that even second-generation youth, who may not have language or other barriers common amongst immigrants, are being excluded from even lowskilled labor (Gans, 1992).  (Furstenburg, et. al., 1999: 18).  In the Midwest, where this study takes place, manufacturing and low-skilled jobs are disappearing at an alarmingly rapid rate (Mishel & Bernstein, 1992: as cited in Zhou, 1997). Jobs that require even minimal training are being relocated outside city limits, creating highly concentrated pockets of poverty in inner cities  barrios  where most Latinos live (Zhou, 1997; Furstenburg et. al., 1999). These concentrated, low-income barrios  highly segregated, alienated from the mainstream, virtually denuded of institutional resources and void of viable role-models  have had tremendous social consequences on their inhabitants and play an important role in shaping families and gender relations (Zhou, 1997; Furstenburg et. al., 1999). Moreover, increasing unemployment has seriously decreased the number of marriageable men 10  and consequently there is a rise in female-headed households, even for Latinos (Zhou, 1997). While the point of departure of most studies on contemporary Latino families is their close-knit familial structure and extensive kin networks, they also conclude that these same families are highly flexible, adaptive to their environment and hardly the monolithic, patriarchal institutions that was once the stereotype (Baca Zinn & Eitzen, 1999; Coltrane, 1996; Mirande, 1998). As with most families, Latino families are in constant flux, inventing and reinventing themselves, changing in composition, meaning and function in order to maintain and manage their existence (Baca Zinn, 1995; Gold, 2000). Increasing unemployment and shriveling opportunities for even poorly paid jobs also have forced many Latino youths to wander in and out of the underground economy in order to situation usually conjures the image of a young Cholo [Chicano hoodlum] sporting baggy clothes, thick gold chains, tattoos and a wad of cash that could choke a horse. However, nearly all studies of contemporary barrio youth life (read: gang literature) support the notion that young  oftentimes illegal  economy, as a means to eke out an existence and earn respect in the absence of many viable opportunities (Sanchez Jankowski, 1991; Vigil, 1988; Moore, 1991; Bourgois, 1995; Anderson, 1999; Furstenburg et. by oldconditions and with the constant risk of imprisonment  hardly the hands-over-fists of cash that the media would lead us to believe is inherent to selling drugs. In his study of Chicano youth and barrio gangs, Vigil (1988: 37) explains the activities of youth in school and on the streets by pointing out what Merton (1949) previously suggested: 11   income populations have no or little means to attain goals established by higher-status these deviant paths are condemned by society to be immoral (Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 1995; Sanchez Jankowski, 1991). Along this vein, other researchers are quick to point out that the national image that Latino youth have come to represent  one that is immigrant, gangbanging, oversexed, hypermasculined and violently criminal (Moore, 1991). Consequently, being young, brown and poor  maybe not even being poor  constitutes immorality. However, the gang literature also points out that entrepreneurialism amongst Latino youth, whether gang member, an opportunity to achieve a sense of self-competence and of thinking of themselves as capable of economic success, around which their sense of being and masculinity is precariously constructed (Anderson, 1999; Sanchez Jankowski, 1991; Vigil, 1988; Moore, 1991; Bourgois, 1995). If this is true, perhaps there is great reason for these young men, regardless of gang affiliation, to ape the stereotype in order to have more street credibility (Anderson, 1999), which drastically decreases their odds of legitimate employment or educational success. However, given the few venues for legitimate employment, it probably matters little. When, and if, these young men do gain an opportunity to obtain self-worth through legitimate means  in other words, when a young man gets a etc.  they lose street credibility, but redefine and reinvent their sense of being and masculinity (Sanchez Jankowski, 1991; Vigil, 1988; Moore, 1991; Bourgois, 1995; Cohen, 1999: 1-2) reported that fatherhood caused many of the low-income young men in his study drastically to change their lifestyles from ones that involved crime, womanizing and absentee fathering to law 12  abiding Moore (1991: Institutions develop where there are gaps in the existing institutional structure.social needs for Chicano youth that families and school no longer provide. Most all gang literature pertinent to Latinos takes this approach. Interestingly, virtually all the aforementioned literature has a section examining how family and/or fatherhood work to shape and define, at one point or another, masculinity. These studies present evidence that Latino youths either had very little contact with their fathers due to absenteeism, or that the relationship they had with their fathers was at best strained. As Moore (1991: discussed [by her respondents]. Most of the descrip fatherrs (and even some of   on the misunderstood sense of Mexican masculine nurturance. Rather, my experience of growing up fatherless and finding myself strapped with the responsibilities of fatherhood at a young age in the very same neighborhood where I did most of this research, under many of the same social pressures and insecurities about which Moore speaks are more related to the precarious situation in which these blue-collar fathers find themselves because of a changing economy, one that is seriously limiting pathways to constructing traditional families that were once available to urban  and I suspect it is at 13  least partially  familial gender relations (Coltrane, 1996), and is seriously compromising their sense of masculinity and fatherhood. Furthermore, perhaps their sons, who have even fewer legitimate opportunities, are just now beginning to learn to exploit those illegitimate opportunities that are increasingly the only available resources to them in poor inner cities; learning to forge these resources into viable, if limited, support for their families  masculinity.  NON-TRADITIONAL FATHERS  Sociologist Vaughn Call, who in 1993 directed the national Survey of Families and Households, pointed out that the U.S. Census Bureau can document that there are 70 million mothers over the age of 15 in the U.S., but has an inadequate idea of how many fathers there are (Gibbs, 1993: 53). Not all unwed mothers report the identity of the father (Robinson, 1988; Lindsay, 1990; Sonenstein, 1986; Erickson, 1998). However, where the age of an unmarried man who has fathered a child to a minor is reported, only 25% of them are minors themselves (Wattenberg, 1998; Erickson, 1998), but 80% are young; within three years of the age of the teen mother (Mauldon, 1998). The few small, non-representative studies that have compared racial/ethnic communities and how they deal with teen fatherhood, report that these young men are overwhelmingly poor, with 80% not residing with their child; 60% of Latino teen fathers reside with sanguineal families (Wattenberg, 1998; Horn, 1999). remains difficult and contentious. Both of these men, along with a few other conservative within a family and that 14  responsible fathering is most likely to occur within the context of a heterosexual marriage. Consequently, they discount the reality that many, many single women have successfully raised children with very little or no help from thand that many fathers who do not primarily reside with their children remain actively involved 1986; Cohen, 1999; Mauldon, 1998). The foundational premise on which fatherlessness proponents build their arguments is that a father plays a biologically predisposed role, differentiated from that of a mother because of their sex. The father is the breadwinner and protector of his family. He is the good provider  a role that is naturally fitted to his competitive and aggressive nature  indispensable, and one that only has meaning within a heterosexual, father-headed family. He portrays a role that has duties are, put plainly, to be a good wife and mother; dependent; roles fitted to her sense of nurturance; complimentary to  but never overshadowing  meant to conscript men to their moral obligation as fathers and husbands. Within this context, fatherhood  for them  is an institution that not only grants men biological and moral authority to raise children like only fathers can but, by implication, one that also grants a then we must first return fathers to their proper place as head of the household.  separate spheres  is not new. However, it has proven to be more of a cultural ideal than reality, 15  and it is tied to the ideals and myths that are associated with nuclear families. Both universal cultural ideals, separate spheres and nuclear families, have long since been shown to be mechanisms that men use to maintain power of over women (Coltrane, 1996).  Coltrane (1996) also points out that poor women, women of color and working-class women have always had to participate in productive labor, that middle- and upper-class women have also participated in work outside the home, and that men have benefited by encouraging women not to do productive labor because it raises mwomen in romantic and marital relationships. Similarly, the ideal perpetuated by fatherlessness arguments is that married fathers are extensively and qualitatively involved with their children and their involvement is indispensable and irreplaceable; by extension, the myths perpetuated are that unmarried fathers are never involved and that single mothers do not perform the duties traditionally performed by fathers. But, just as feminist and racial/ethnic family scholars have argued that nuclear families are but one form of family, largely only historically experienced by people privileged enough to afford them, fatherhood within a nuclear family is also just one representation of this experience. It is also an experience that is mostly representative of a privileged class. However, many family scholars still operate within a deficit framework where there is perceived to be a norm (i.e., nuclear family, married father, etc.) against which all other types are compared and found to be deficient. Unfortunately, the idea that gets perpetuated by these deficit-type perspectives is that there is an underlying biological reason (rather than a structural one) that accounts for variation from the norm. A recent trend in scholarship, however, is one in which a distinct call is made to abandon deficit perspective approaches. Frameworks that operate within paradigms that attribute social 16  problems to deviation from universally prescriptive roles (i.e., ascent of fatherlessness) are dangerous and counterproductive. Instead, a call is made for successful fatherhood to be characterized within the context of socioeconomic, racial/ethnic and historical meaning that men and women work together to create, whether inside or outside enduring relationships (Lamb, 1998; Coltrane, 1996). Hawkins and Dollahite (1997: xiii) argue that a significant reason for the language to help uparadigm theories, in particular role inadequacy paradigms, in order to attempt to build a language and a theory suitable to study fatherhood meaningfully  a theory they introduced as constraints under which most fathers labor, the good desires men have to be generative fathers, and their efforts to improve (and next generation. They pumay be a role. RESEACH QUESTIONS icano teen fathers. For one, it recognizes that most young men want to be involved with their children. Secondly, it departs from the notion that fatherhood is a biological role, which can lead to simplistic models that posit merely fathering children is inextricably linked to identity and self-worth for Chicanos 17   masculinity (see Goodyear, Newcomb, & Allison, 2000 for example). Third, it considers that  Perhaps most importantly, it not only recognizes how research and literature have contributed to myths and misconceptions about teen fathers and/or to their invisibility, but it consciously works to create a more accurate portrayal of young fathers and their contributions (Rhoden & Robinson, 1997). But, a caveat may be in order: generative fathering is offered as a conceptual ethic rather than a framework. It is not meant to be an approach to describe reality, rather it is meant to be a way by which to suggest what is possible and desirable (Dollahite, Hawkins & Brotherson, 1997). While I remain a bit apprehensive about the moralistic undertones that a conceptual ethic the direction of fatherhood studies away from the stream of popular thought that has  historically at worse  damaged our perception of non-White, poor, unmarried and teenage fathers, or  at best  cast them into obscurity. But in no way is this study meant to have framework operates  that young men have a desire to be involved with their children and that they contribute positively to raising their children in many ways that are best understood when viewed in cultural and structural contexts  makes its use worthwhile in the study of Chicano teen fatherhood in the industrial Midwest.  I have shown that much of the recent work on Latino youth and Latino teen fathers presents a demographic picture that suggests they have a high propensity toward being involved mother (Danziger & Radin, 1990; Gray, 1994; Sullivan, 1989 and 1993; Marsiglio, 1986; 18  Robinson, 1988). And they juggle fatherhood  taking care of their business  with their responsibilities to contribute to their sanguineal families (Wattenberg, 1998; Fernandez-Kelly, 1995; Valenzuela, 1999; Gold, 2000; Zhou, 1997; Stepick, 1998). It has also been documented that, in general, mothers and grandmothers often create obstacles that discourage and/or prevent a meaningful father/child relationship (Allen & Doherty, 1996; Wattenberg, 1993: as cited in Doherty, Kouneski & Erickson, 1998); and, the nature of fatherhood and masculinity is in transition (Coltrane, 1996; Mirande, 1998; Kimmel, 1995; Cohen, 1999). The primary purpose of my work is to explore how young Chicano fathers perceive fatherhood, how that perception is influential in constructing the meaning of fatherwork (fatherhood, taking care of their business, etc.), how this fatherwork is tempered by structural and cultural forces and how it translates into the actual work they do to meet the needs of their, family, children and next generation. Therefore I examine ways that the fatherwork these young men do may be influenced by their perceptions of fatherhood and masculinity; how the perceptions of fatherhood and masculinity, held by young Chicano fathers, may be constructed from the social interactions they have with their own family members, children, peers, the mother of their children, and her family; and, finally, how these young men may interpret and modify their perception of fatherhood and masculinity in order to invent strategies to maintain meaningful relationships with their children. METHODS The study used basic grounded theory techniques (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to identify and code common family issues related to teen fatherhood that emerged from in-depth interviews that were first conducted with four youth advocates who work with Latino families and children, and, later, to identify common themes that surfaced from interviews with the informants. 19  However, one of the objectives was to provide a richly detailed account of family systems that operate in an urban context. Therefore, interviews tried to capture other events and occurrences ni status  for lack of a better translation) as both a neighborhood affiliate and youth advocate gave me considerably more access to information that llman, 1993). who would more than likely be White, middle-class and not so quickly trusted by participants (Wellman, 1993: 67). He also presumed that because of the sensitive nature of the issues being discussed, initial group interviews would minimize the discomfort and render much richer data. -own experience dictates that Chicano youth who frequent youth agencies are not very open to discussing their intimate family business in front of their peers, nor are they quick to confide in people who are not familiar fixtures at the agency. So, I chose not to use group interviews as a workers and the presence that I had established at the agencies, over the course of a year, to assuage any apprehensions the youth may have had about my interest in their lives. Consequently, my interviews were not one-shot affairs.  20  Wellman used tape recorders, which he thought would encourage looseness and spontaneity and allow the interviewers to participate and exchange ideas with their informants. However, to reduce discomfort and because I have been pressured in the past by authorities to divulge information regarding gang affiliations and delinquency, my interviews were not tape recorded. Instead, they were later recorded as field notes from memory and only information pertinent to my study was included. There were a few times, however, when extremely pertinent and poignant statements were made, at which point I immediately wrote them down and later incorporated them into the field notes for analysis. Since most everyone, including my youth advocate colleagues, had no knowledge that I was a student, I introduced my intentions from the very start so that I would not hamper my credibility as an advocate. Also, prior to all interviews, I described my research interests and this project to potential informants, and I explained to them that I was focusing my studies on Latino families and how they related to youth. I reassured the informants that I was not out to depict their families or their situations in a negative way. Of course, anonymity was assured. However, given my role in these communities, confidentiality was also a concern.  Like Wellman, I used very unstructured and open-ended interviews that gave a very broad, but detailed, account of the informantslife histories and their family interactions. In most cases, I never explicitly made an appointment for an initial interview. Instead, I made it my business to frequent the targeted youth programs in order to build rapport with the clientele through volunteering as a tutor, mentor, and/or advocate. Subsequent interviews occurred in settings that were convenient to the informants (i.e. family functions, bars, schools). I did probe considerably during subsequent discussions in order to direct our conversations toward subjects that would shed light on the major issues I wished to explore.  21  In order to promote the type of looseness and spontaneity that Wellman sought to create, whenever possible, I conducted subsequent interviews during activities that would allow me to interact with the informants in ways that were non-threatening and that would downplay my position as a researcher. I exploited chances, whenever presented, to participate in functions, occasions or simple activities that would allow me to relate with the informants on their terms. For instance, I assisted one of my informants in changing a bad engine in his car. I accompanied another on a trip to visit his older brother in prison. I also assisted an informant in repairing a broken water heater at  (Wellman, 1993: 72). This technique proved very useful in educing information that put the socio-economic setting.  Throughout the interviews, I was careful not to mention words, like Latino, Chicano, Raza, macho, etc. in reference to fatherhood or manhood. I felt that these words might trigger a conditioned response that would lead me into stereotypic responses. Instead, I opened my discussion by pointing out anecdotal information provided by agency workers about the barrio life for young men, this proved to be the single most important part of my interviews, as it seemed to elicit very richly detailed and unabashed accounts of their family lives. These interviews did, nonetheless, take on cultural tones. Aside from the volume of interviews, one of the major reasons why Wellman did not conduct his own interviews is that he thought it best to 22  pair the racial background of the interviewer with the informant in order to decrease the possibility of ethnocentric bias in his research and to discomfort. Of course, my racial background helped me to establish myself as a social inside, but I became acutely aware of the fact that my persona, at times, represented culturally contradictory terms (i.e., work on cars, talk boxing, etc. is not consistent with the perceptions that most of my informants had of higher education) for most of my informants, so their accounts only came to life after my authenticity as an insider was tested in several ways. For instance, after my family line and/or barrio affiliation was comfortably established, my knowledge and experience with barrio slang and landmarks were constantly being tested throughout these interviews. Most of the informants easily slipped between Spanish and English during our discussions as if to test whether or not I could competently follow the ebb and flow of bilingual conversations. I felt that they sometimes switched languages because they struggled to articulate their thoughts in the language that they were speaking, so I took their cues on when to switch languages because I did not want for any meaning to be lost.  create portraits, socio-histories, of only five informants whose ideas, experiences and lives were tructure of masculinity within structural and cultural contexts, how family dynamics and masculinity intertwine, and how young men construct meaning from this, rather than just plain fatherhood; and in the end, how this translates into fatherwork. Wellman used the insight that he gained from analyzing all 107 one-shot interviews to bring the five portraits to life. Because I spent considerably more time 23  getting to know my informants through conversations and interactions, and because I wanted to let my infoof several interviews that I had with the same person into one short, detailed passage. These short  what they thought was important about their perceptions of fatherhood, reflected what I thought they wanted me to know about their lives and convey the emotion and passion with which they articulated their feelings. I arranged the dialogues around four themes that emerged during interviews: 1) masculinity and fathering in spite of bad example; 2) fathering through familism; 3) competing self-interests between families and children; and 4) creative strategies of exploiting local resources to provide for fam SAMPLE The sample that I used was not randomly selected. I used purposive sampling techniques to seek out Chicano teen fathers, or Chicanos who had fathered children while in their teens, who were known to be actively involved with their children. I felt comfortable with the validity of this technique for a number of reasons: 1) the use of symbolic interactionism as a conceptual framework is not meant to produce predictive research, therefore it is assumed not to have generalizable qualities, or at least generalizing is always offered with a caveat; 2) access to this sample required extensive contact with agencies that could identify suitable informants; 3) in most cases, extended contact with potential informants was also mediated through agencies and professionals who could identified informants; 4) the nature of issues in this study are personally sensitive, which would not lend themselves easily to random sampling techniques (Wellman, 1993). 24  In all, I interviewed thirteen informants (see Appendix A). Of the 13, seven were young fathers, two were young mothers, three were former single teen mothers-turned young grandmothers and four were youth advocates. All the informants, except for one youth advocate, had positions within a family where a teen birth had occurred. To avoid minor/consent issues, the targeted fathers were not minors at the time of the interviews, but all were teenagers when their first child was born. Although one young mother was only 17 when I interviewed her, she was ecompensated by the state for supplying room and board. I knew all 13 informants prior to the interviews, although in two cases not very well. Except for one of the youth advocates, all of the informants were Latina/o. One informant/advocate was a middle class Anglo woman who has worked for more than 15 years as an advocate in Southwest Detroit and whose insights and access have proven to be considerably useful. A second youth advocate/ informant was a Cuban American woman who has worked for more than three decades with Chicano youth  also middle class, but the mother of a single father and whose insight was also invaluable. The third youth advocate/informant was a Chicana who was born and raised in the neighborhood where she works, also was a single teen mother and the mother of three single mothers. The fourth advocate was a Chicana and a single teen mother, young grandmother and who had done extensive work creating programs for Chicana teen mother in California and Michigan. Aside from the first two mentioned women, all subjects were urban and working class from Lansing, Detroit and Adrian. All spoke English, but in varied forms and fluency. The interviews were conducted primarily in English, but Spanish was also used intermittently, in which cases I preserved the words and phrases so as not to lose meaning.    25  ANALYSIS  Major Theme: Masculinity and Fatherhood Although all the young men in this study expressed desire to participate in their they made to do so varied widely. Interestingly though, except for one young father, all these young men presented a very bad image of their own father due either to bad experiences or absenteeism. Nonetheless, these young men seemed to present the relationship with their own father, whether bad or good, as the strongest motivating factor in their wanting to do fatherwork. The following three portraits are of young men who describe  they had of their own responsibilities with respect to fatherhood.  Jesús Jesús is 24 years old. He has two daughters. The oldest is six years old and the youngest is two years old. His girlfriend, who is the mother of his two children, is now pregnant with their third child. Although Jesus and his girlfriend have no immediate plans to get married, they do consider themselves to be an exclusive and committed couple. The age of this couple betrays their level of maturity. That is, they take their obligations very seriously and carve out a modest, but respectable, living. Although I know his family fairly well, coordinating an in-depth interview with him had been rather difficult since he has no phone and lives about 70 miles away. It was my luck that I was agave me a real good opportunity to speak to him.  RGH: Jesús, what exactly motivates you to be so committed to providing for your family?  Jesús been with my mother and my familia.  26  RGH: Remind me.   Jesús: was or when he was coming back. Me and Rudy [older brother] were forced to hustle pa They told me he had a voften he was with this vieja [old lady]. It took me a little while before I found out exactly where she livedmost was that the man would come back home and expect to be chingon [boss] of the house, like he never left. One time when he was gone, my girl got pregnant with my first porque se habia idobecause he had taken off    Jesús was infuriated at his father because he felt the pressure of having to take care of  sister. So, he called his older brother who was living away at the time and they went together to  their siblings. As it turns out, his father took about two years to really get it together. And, for a short period of time, the child with whom his mother was pregnant during this episode (who is at home and his parents appear to be happy. Jesús and his girlfriend have since had another child. She is one month old. However, the relationship between Jesús and his father is a little strained.  the fact that Jesús person.  27  RGH  Jesús possessive. See, [very impassioned] I love my vieja  kill for them and die for them all in the same day  that, he do   RGH  Jesús: Look, I got movida [girlfriends] and my vieja [old lady] knows  I think  but I never bring it home and I do take care of my business; I take care of my family  feed my children, help my mom and little brothers and sisters    Junior Junior had been a fairly good student through ninth and tenth grade. Through those two years, he was a fairly normal kid. He hung around with a tightly-knit group of (Chicano) guys because they were fairly certain that his father was beating him up pretty regularly. The relationship between Junior and his father totally disintegrated when Junior was in eleventh grade and his girlfriend became pregnant  this was shortly after his parents divorced, which by ily and that  I interviewed him after a meeting of a Latino male mentoring group in which I was involved. At the time, he appeared to be much older than the last time I saw him, which was when he was in the midst of dealing with his newfound fatherhood  he looked very tired. He had on khaki pants, a button-down shirt and a tie slung around his neck, untied. He had no books. 28  He nodded to me and took a seat at the front of the room. He drifted off to sleep a few times while I was speaking.  Afterwards, I spoke with him alone. RGH  Junior: a minute to move wares [sell marijuana] on the job.  RGH  Junior: st Chance College [slang for   RGH: I thought your baby is in Mexico? What, did your ex move back to Michigan? work in 20 minutes.   RGH: You need a ride?  Junior got it together  got a car.  RGH: So, you have a kid with her, too?   Junior: Simón [yes], she also got three kids of her own.  RGH: Four kids all together?  Junior: Simó  RGH: Wow, -old. You got solid plans for your future?  Junior   At this point in the discussion, I asked Junior if he would be interested in sharing some of about 30 seconds. After staring at me with his jaws clenched, he said yes. 29  RGH: Tell me about fatherhood.  Junior: [very impassioned] You want fatherhood? Okay, being a father is having [it] up ppen obs making minimum wage    RGH   Junior: I need to figure out something bettcan help me figure some of this out.   A few months later I ran into him at the grocery store. He introduced me to  Beto I first met Beto when he was a freshman in high school. Both he and his twin brother were avid wrestlers. Despite the fact that these boys were twins, Beto seemed to be much more mature. Quite often he took on the role of being the older brother. He was always the one talking for both boys and it appeared that his family also put more responsibility on his shoulders.  When Beto was in tenth grade and still 15 years old, he would drive the family station wagon to and from school with his twin and his little brothers and sisters. That year, he also quit wrestling so that he could get a job and help his single mother out with the bills. He also went to great lengths to make sure that his twin and his siblings were doing good in school. He was very proud of the academic and athletic success that his twin was enjoying and he seemed to go out of 30  his way to ensure it. Once, his twin was involved in a fight at school and was surely to be  By the time Beto was in eleventh grade, he was pretty much working full time, going to school and making sure his siblings were making it to school. This is when his girlfriend became pregnant for the first time. He quit school and moved his girlfriend into hithe baby was born, he had an elaborate wedding. His twin was his best man. He is now 20 years old. I called him to ask him if he would talk to me about his experiences with fatherhood. He suggested that we meet for a beer after work, which was 11 p.m. for him. So we did.  RGH: So what about fatherhood?  Betowe were gonna get married. So I figured, why not sooner? I was pretty worried about my little brother after I quit going to school because you know he has a bright future and I used to have my hands full just trying to keep those otro pendejos [other idiots] away ity college. He wants to be an architect  of course, he helps me and my older carnal   RGH: What about you?  Betove a little jale [selling marijuana and cocaine] on the side. So, my vieja [old lady] and my babies have everything they need. The hard part is trying to keep my little brothers and sisters in  All they want to do is   RGH: What about your dad?   Beto: Do you know my dad? If you know him you better tell me where he is. The guy went to Texas about six years ago to find work and never came back. News came up from one of her comadres [best friends] told her that she saw him in Sananto [San Antonio] with a girl and a baby. I do left and   31  RGH: What about school?  Beto: What about it?  RGH: Do you feel that you want to go back?  Beto think that if I went to adult ed people are going to line up to give me $100,000 a year job? Adult ed is they give me work.   RGH: Does your vieja [old lady] work?  Beto[mother] out with my carnalitos [little siblings]. Hopefully, though, sometime in the vieja good. As you can see, I have been eating pretty regularly. Sometimes, they take orders y, but   RGH: If you already had so much responsibility for your little brothers and sisters,   Betolaughter over the comment.) Several of the surrounding men who were paying attention to our conversation also laugh. At thcompletely honest with his statements or he was going to perform for the audience. But    RGH: Let me rephrase the question. A lot of guys your age have babies, but not too many of them take responsibility and since you already had so much responsibility,   Betool, but getting into ft. Number two, when mijo [my 32  as bad as my dad. That really pissed me off so I got two jobs and brought my girlfriend, hard at first because there were so many of us, but after I started really working and not having to go to school, we were able to get a keep a regular job or anything, so I told him to get out and quit dragging us down. He   RGH  Betogonna typover there sometimes for dinner on Sundays. Still, though, she pushes us to finish school. ke care of herself just in case something happens to me. I know what she means though is  y kids too much. Even if something  splitting, I tell her to leave, but six is a good number.   RGH: Six Kids! Thatsupport six kids?  Betoworking at the warehouse, maybe I move up to supervisor or something. I know one vato -lo. Now those vatos [dudes] make money. The only thing is though that they give those jobs to bolillos there, at least a vato [dude] got a chance.  RGH: Go to Texas like your dad went?  Betoleave first and then send for everybody. That stupid stuff gots to go. I got familia there off. I need to figure out a way so that all of us can go. But I know we got to go. And 33  some things to keep the peace.   Latino children. They accept and fulfill many familial obligations that truncate their childhood. In fact, at least two of these three young men had accepted responsibilities normally associated with parenthood long before they became actual parents. They also place high importance on family. All three live with their partner and strive to construct their meaning of fatherhood based on what they perceive to be a traditional and cultural mode, parents who live together and raise children. Perhaps this situation is circumstantial or temporary, related to the fact that the particular point in time at which I interviewed them, they were getting along with their partner. alluded to sexual prowess, domination or the biological act of fathering a child to having been strongly associated with their sense of masculinity. Rather, manhood (masculinity), for them, is very much a cultural ideal to which they aspire and it is tempered by whether they can support their children and be available to them; do fatherwork. Interestingly, they all chastise their fathers for having been unfaithful to their mothers, but they seem to tolerate infidelity for affect their ability to keep the peace in their household.  This issue is informed by Elaine Bell Kaplan (1997: 121-125), who presents evidence that young black females perceive a qualitative difference between male and female love, and most sociologists use in describing fathers who are not available emotionally or financially for 34  in their life. Where Jesús, Beto and Junior are concerned, they lament the absence of their father and are quick to point out passionately the profundity of their love for their children. They imply what they have to do, whether legal or otherwise, to make sure their children have access to a first time the fatherly love without which they perceive they were raised. Ironically, although they perceive their fatherly love as a source of stability for their children and as a source of self-respect for themselves, they also understand that the stability that they are providing is precariously balanced due to their limited opportunities for gainful responsibilities, it did not come at the expense of opportunities. These young men had enormous familial responsibilities and access to few legitimate opportunities regardless the birth of their first child. As Beto (a high school dropout) points out, his older brother who is a high school graduate and who has no children works alongside with him at a warehouse for minimum wage. And his little brother who is a high school graduate, attends junior college and who has no children, works alongside both of them selling drugs.  Not all the Latino teenage fathers in this study were victims of poverty or products of what they perceived to be deficient fathering. For the following young man in particular, the offered stability for his family, he had access to a middle class, suburban environment. 35  Consequently, his opportunities for legitimate success were much greater. However, what remained constant was the pursuit of a cultural ideal of masculinity  if at first misguided. Andrés I first met Andrés when he had just been admitted to college. He pretty much seemed to be a middle class kid with a lot of ambition. He had fairly strong aspirations of going to law school and knew that he had to perform well as an undergrad in order to realize his dreams. He was a very bright student and I had no doubt about his academic success. However, he was very timid and seemed to be a bit intimidated by other students who were from urban areas. Also, when I first met him he had no real sense of ethnic identity.  Over the course of his first year in college, he became involved in an activist Chicano student group and went through an ethnic transformation. Although, I have witnessed this ethnic birth among middle class suburban kids quite often, he seemed to grasp at stereotypical images and adopt them as his own. This, too, I have seen, but not quite to the extent that this young man had gone. Perhaps it seemed a bit extreme to me because when I met him at the beginning of his first semesteDocker pants and boat shoes. A year later, he was invited to speak to a group of local high school  from inner like a cholo. He was boasting of his past escapades as a gang member and said that he had fathered a child, but he had never seen it. Of course, I knew he was from a middle class suburb and probably the closest he ever got fterwards, 36  however, I did ask him about his child. He told me that some girl had claimed that he was the rls] and any one of them could make the claim, but  Throughout the course of his college career, he has maintained a fairly high profile as a student leader and I would see him regularly either in passing or at cultural programs. The past year, I noticed that his involvement in student activities began to wane, and when I did see him, he had a little boy with him. About a year ago, he introduced me to the little boy as his son. He told me that he started to get really serious about finishing school because his responsibilities had increased immensely. When this interview took place, his appearance and demeanor had gone full circle since I first met him. Although his hair was still quite short, it was nowhere near the shaved head that he had previously sported. He no longer dressed like a cholo. Although he r, he appeared to be a lot less preoccupied with his image. Andrés: You know, a lot has changed since we last talked. My kid is living with me, -about getting married my life.  RGH: Why the big change?  Andrés I had been listening to the wrong people. I got influenced by what I saw on TV and at the movies  somewhere along the line I got the impression that I had a past. I doknow, he kept telling me how he came to Michigan to pick sugar beets and that he refused to get married  let alone father any children  until he was on his feet. He -payment of child 37  support. I was some cash. I tried to be stupid and so I denied that the kid was mine. Well, a paternity test was done, and it ended up that the kid was mine. I knew all along that the kid was mine. the time, it got out at school, too. And, mostly all those vatos that I was running with ey started have started listening to them because they started razzing me about it, too.  RGH: So it was peer pressure?  Andrés: Some, but not all. It was really one dude tan older guy who really called me out on the way I was behaving. He told me that I was was to step up and take responsibility. My older brother is in prison. He started messing up pretty badly and before he knew it he was a junky. He got put inside because he was this side of the wall. But what lawyer. My brother really hurt my old man. My old man keeps blaming himself. Then, when I went to court, it was the first time I had actually seen my old man cry.   RGH  Andrés: Because he said he failed to raise a man. He asked me what kind of man would trying to ruin my chances of going to school. He told me that he had seen the baby and tworked double shifts so that we could live in Rochester Hills. He worked in Ypsilanti and Seriously, I very seldom saw the man, when I was growing up, except on the weekends.  disadvantaged in any way. He wanted us to be aggressive like the gavachos. He wanted us to go after what we wanted. He said that that was his mistake because somehow we ose that he was ashamed of me and not to come and speak with him until I was ready to accept my responsibility.  RGH: So you had a kid, did that make you a man?  Andrés: It father cry  not even when my older brother went to prison. I wanted him to be proud of school. And, I had already made a name and life for myself over at college  and it 38  quit school. I know that he wanted me to claim my child. But, I needed to figure out a way to claim my child and not quit school.  RGH: Did you? How?  Andrésask me to explain loan to make good on my past child support and then they moved to college with me. Sure, I had to seriously adjust my life, but I love my son and he has made me grow up a  second biggest inspiration is my father. I have proven to him that I can be a father. Now, n I got to something that you have to live.   ture is distinguished by his more privileged situation  he had access to legitimate opportunity. Although his father was an immigrant, Andrés perceived him to have put off having a family until he could provide a stable environment, or perhaps more importantly, until he could provide his children with access to good education and opportunity. What Andrés should pursue success through education, and that success would define his manhood. He was also strongly infthrough meaningful social interactions with other Chicanos.  In a misguided effort, largely influenced by the media, to be perceived as Chicano, he  irresponsibly fathering a there is one, he had a good reason to deny his parental responsibility; he did not want it to 39  hamper his chances for attaining academic success. Interestingly, similar to the situations of Jesús, Beto and Junior who were influenced by what they felt was thsource of fatherly love and appbecause of their social positions, regardless of their parental responsibilities, Andrés had more access because of his relatively privileged situation and doing fatherwork did little to change his  Major Theme: Responsibility   A recurrent obligations, but its meaning took on several cultural and gendered dimensions. Sometimes it was repeated in Spanish (atender a sus asuntos) after it was said in English, as if the informant speaking wanted to accentuate it or make sure I understood that it had special cultural meaning. In most cases it was used in the context of men attending to t doing fatherwork. In other cases, young men used it to describe the work that the women in their lives did to keep their families together.  neighborhood youth,  retaliate  now tha40   Miguel Angel recounted this story when he was describing the obligations that he felt he instances like this is that the presence of men who can protect families is important. However, he also recognized and praised, as did most other young men who had little or no contact with their fathers, his mother for the work she did single-and his siblings. what informants perceived to be associated obligations. The informants in this study who had taking care of their pressed for a definition of the term when it was used in this context. Invariably, the informants would attach the meaning to providing financial help to meet the immediate physical needs of their children  as a responsibility or obligation. However, it was also very clear that the include nurturance of their children; for example, spending qualitative time with their children, teaching them things, attending doctor appointments, meeting with teachers, etc. What was also very obvious about the various meanings of this phrase was that it was flexiholding themselves to the same standards with which they measured their own fathers. Oftentimes the same young men who disparaged their own fathers for infidelity or n taking care of business 41   for themselves, did not necessarily mean that they were expected to be involved with or  Major Theme: Fathering through Familism While the lives of the following two young men, Chava and Miguel Angel, are marked by poverty, violence and reckless or absent fathers, their stories give a rich description of the influence and power that Latinas wield to maintain a family. They also render a view into the complex and changing nature of gender relations in Latino families. Both these young men attribute their sense of masculinity, whether culturally based or not, to strong women. Chava Although I have known his dacquainted with Chava when I worked at a local community agency, about 10 years ago. At the time, Chava was a member of the **** [local gang]. This gang is one of the oldest, most highly organized, most feared and most brutal Latino gangs that operate in this city. Although this community agency targets gang members, and at any given time inside its walls there may be four or five area cliques represented by youth and/or adults, it has long been considered to be neutral territory. Agency workers say that this is good for gang members. The neutrality makes them feel comfortable enough to venture outside their niche to receive services, which is not typical behavior. However, this center is also a hub of activities geared toward non-affiliated neighborhood youth. And, this is bad for them since, oftentimes, the center is considered to be a primary recruitment area for gangs. However, recruitment is not tolerated and most youths respect the rule. The youths who do not respect it, are often reprimanded by their peers. The  kids are often placed at further risk by well-meaning agencies. Since the 42  opportunity to do a multiple interview. The following is a discussion with both Chava and the grandmother, Lala. RGH: Tell me about when Dulce got pregnant.  LalaRight after mija [my daughter] had the baby, Chava was having some real trouble mija [my daughter] was pregnant, but I could tell he was torn between la vida loca [the crazy life] and having a child. His mother was no help either. I mean, Chava was 15 and his mother was barely 30 years old. She was depending on him to bring home money so that she could suppmay have even shared the same probation officer once or twice. He would come around every now and then with a bag of pampers, but he would make sure that they were hidden in a shopping bag or a duffel bag. Boy, was he in love with that child. I could tell. There her. I had a hard time figuring out whether or not to let him come around because he was so deep into the gang movida [movement]. We had our house shot up a couple times scared mhis child, so I really encouraged him to come by. In the end, I think he may have been coming by because of me, too. I mean, after I really got to know the idiot, I came to like him. And his own mother was such a mess.  Chava: All the craziness broke loose when mija [my daughter] was about a year old. See, this is about when I got picked up by the chota [police] because they said I killed a leader of the ***** [local gang]. When threputation in the neighborhood. And my camaradas [friends] were really starting to get pissed off because I was slowly trying to find an out. As it came down, the cops planted the drugs and the gun. I still think the cops killed the guy and then wanted to get me off gonna believe them?  Lala: Anyway, I rallied a lot of support from the community and we hired a lawyer. As it  the rocks [crack cocaine], though. So, mijo [my son  referring to Chava] got off with probation [dude] to Chicago. Since Chava was still a minor and he was on probation, his grandmother and I agreed to watch out for him. For the first month he stayed with me. Meanwhile, Dulce started going through problems of her own, so she moved in with some guy she was seeing at the time. She may as well have left the baby because Roni, 43  Rocky, Luisa [her other daughters] and I were ones taking care of her. But it gave Chava a chance to really bond with the baby. Afterwards when Chava went to stay with his grandma, I would drop the baby off to them and they would take care of her. It was crazy, but it worked out well for the baby because she really got a sense of who her family was.  Chavakeep my probation officer off my back, but little by little I started to really move away really started to become a real vato  hecho y derecho [a real dude  straight].   Lala he was accused of killing one of hiHis know I said this already, but he is such a nice man  he lives with his grandma and takes  Can you believe it? Chava? Tattoos por donde quiera [all over the place]. I would have bet a   Chava  Lala  Miguel Angel I have known this young man since he was a freshman in high school. He is the oldest of four children whose father was killed in a drug raid about 10 years prior to this study. Even though his parents were not together when his father was killed, he had a fairly close relationship with him. Early in his high school years, Miguel Angel became involved with the drug trade and was pretty heavily involved in a neighborhood gang. When he was in tenth grade he was arrested for kidnapping and attempted murder. He was eventually cleared of those charges, but he did get probation for two years. 44  Currently, he is a sophomore in college. He is studying graphic arts and is quite active in student groups. I ran into him on campus in September and we talked about his academic progress. He said that studies. During the course of our conversation, I noticed that he had a picture of a child on his key ring and I asked him about it. He told me that it was a picture of his son. Upon hearing the for my project. He agreed. RGH  M-A    RGHyou were embarrassed.  M-Athat ever happened to me.   RGH: So, tell me about it.  M-A: Bueno [well], things were going great for me as a student, sabes [you know]. I mean, I got jale [work] doing some artwork over in the city, then over here everybody wants me to do artwork too. Business is so good that I even had cards made up. See, quebradita [school and hanging out and studying with a group of people, then having to back into the I have to look out for my jefita [mother] and my carnalitos [younger siblings]. As much as help. The good thing, though, is that my little brother is graduating this y he never took no  But now that mijo [my son] was born, I had to get my  me coming around. tough, too. I had a few run-to stay out of la vida [the life], but 45  those vatos [dudes] were leaving me little choice. Acouple of times I had to call some mismo [I was almost headed in the direction of msaw me going back to the old ways and she got really pissed off that it was over a girl. She kept telling me that the girl was no good and she was just gonna get me into trouble or dead. After mi ruca [mi girlfriend] gontion and other stuff, like leche y pañales [formula money for us to eat and play. Sometimes, though, it gets hard to study, so I just come to campus and go to the library. Mi ru  RGH  M-A: I feel real bad about that. I tried to explain to her that I had to take care of my own. But, she went off on me and told me that and that I turned my back on mi familia and mi gente [my family and my people]. All I can do now is try and make sure that my carnalito [younger brother] is doing his part. And he is. I have already talked to him about next year. You know, he was admitted to  start next year. But I already explained to him that he better not get any stupid ideas about moving on to campus. I also talked to him about the no kids. So, I told him that I would smoke his ass if he got to do what he got to do in order to help la jefita [mother] out.  Both of stereotype of urban, Latino youth that the media perpetuates. They were products of poor single-mother households, involved in sex, violence, drugs and gangs. These two young men were  the moral guidance of a father, they will eventually end up dead or in prison. However, fatherlessness arguments critically underestimate the power and influence that women have over creating and maintaining families alongside the power that poverty has to seriously limit 46  legitimate opportunity. In this case, women were not only responsible for the well-being of their  Of course the stories of Chava and Miguel Angel chronicle their early trajectory toward death or prison. And, of course, their fathers were absent, very much like the stories of Junior, Beto and Jesús. However, these two young men represent perhaps the poorest families in my study and they were not on the periphery of the informal economy trying to supplement their legitimate livelihood, they were right in the center. The gang literature would interpret their even provide an opportunity for them to remove themselves from the throes of poverty. But when you look closer, these young men were involved in illegal activity so that they could perform duties normally associated with parenthood long before they became fathers. Both young men, in their early teens, were helping to provide their mothers with support and stability for their families. Their sense of fatherhood is like the neighborhood in which it was developed  (Furstenburg, et. al., 1999: 18). network disintegrated. It came at a time when he was facing a particularly difficult situation related to his gang activity. But, Lala marshaled her resources and extended the bounds of her family to him in order to help stabilize his life so that her grandchild would benefit from gaining that the same worked for Chava, as he later extended his sense of family to include his her to place more importance on family networks than fatherhood ensured that her other 47  grandchildren would benefit from the fruits of her labor. And that Chava, this new member of her family, would define his role as a father based on his membership in this family network. The strong women, who forge an existence out of informal work and social networks, and to whom these young men attribute their sense of fatherhood, manhood, masculinity or machismo went to herculean lengths to instill a sense of familism. Whether a heightened sense of familism is a response to structural pressures or a function of culture, and I suspect it is a combination of both, is inconsequential. What is important here is that we see that culturally deterministic arguments about the intrinsic nature of masculinity for Latino men, and its importance to Latino families, are not valid.  Major Theme: Competing Self-Interests The following portrait was originally intended to give a rich description of the interactions between a young couple and their child. However, the young father played such a  in this interview was a fierce competition between mothers who were both concerned for the well-being of their children. José and Maria During the course of volunteering at a neighborhood youth agency, I met both Maria and  realized that they might be a couple, or at least connected by a common child. This intrigued me the most because they, I had assumed, were from different neighborhoods and had very different backgrounds. I first gravitated toward Maria because she brings her very young child (eight months) to the center with her when she comes in for her GED instruction.  48  I sometimes tutor Maria in the subjects on which she will be tested. She hopes to take the GED test in November. She is a very bright child and I believe she will do well on the exam. However, her tutoring sessions are usually cut short if there is no available staff member to distract or care for her child so that she can study uninterrupted. When this happens, she usually resigns herself to the fact that her visit will be unproductive, so she either hangs around playing with her child to see if its father will show up, or she leaves to take care of other business. A few times, I have also witnessed her exploit in other ways the fact that someone at the center will watch her child. For example, one day she showed up with her child promptly at 1 p.m. (when the center opens. I happened to be there that day, so she asked me if I would help her with fractions, something she finds particularly hard. She told me that it would be good because she helped her. I agreed. Then she asked if she could go to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes and a pop before we got started. Well, she ended up taking off for more than an hour-and-a-half. I became increasingly worried because the neighborhood is kind of rough. But then, I was assured by Teresa that she sometimes does stuff like that because she has no time away from the baby. Although she gets reprimanded, she continues to do it because some of the staff members will tolerate it to a point. The next time I was at the center, Maria asked me again if I would help her with studies. I agreed. She was apologetic about what happened the last time, but she told me that she just had pointed questions about her situation. Specifically, I told her that I know how demanding the responsibilities of having a child are, which lead me to ask whether or not she had much support 49  almost in a way that I felt she may have feared that I judge her harshly for her situation. When I has a child. I also assured her that I admired her for her tenacity in pursuing her GED, given the extra obstacles that she faces. Consequently, to my relief, she changed considerably the tone of more on the obstacles. Here she describes her life, what has lead up to her immediate situation and what she perceives to be her options for the future, even if in the very immediate future. She is clearly distressed and frustrated by how she is stuck in a difficult situation, but she still feels optimistic about her future. Interestingly, even as she clearly vents her frustration, she never once mentioned the possibility of quitting, nor did I get the feeling that she felt sorry for herself.  RGH: Tell me about being a mom while in the foster system.  Maria: I used to be at the Academy for Teen Mothers, bthat had men coming in and out all the time. Besides, it was too dirty in that house for me to be trying to raise my baby. Then one day, a man came in through my window and started going through my stuff while I was asleep on the bed with my baby. That was it. I wanted to take away my baby. I was real scared. The good thing was that my caseworker knew how hard I try to be a good mom. So, she found me another home provider, but the to get up and out of the house. The only thing is though, my home provider lives way up there on the west side, so I gotta t  RGH: Does your home provider help with caring for your child or does she help you out by taking you places instead of your having to ride the bus all over the place.  Maria: Basically, my home provider just provides a home. Right now, me and her are having some problems. See, I got to get out to the bus stop to c be here by 1 p.m.. try to explain to her that it takes so long to ride the busses, but does she listen? No. She just keeps 14year-50  to drop off the baby. I stayed for a little while and I fell asleep. I woke up about 10 p.m., e. I to stay with her years old and I gotta get out to have some fun, too. What does long as I have my baby?   RGH: How about José? Does he help you?  Mariamight be coming around here so much because of that Dominican. You know her. Slisten to someone for too long and end up pregnant, just like me. Then me or my child.  RGH: Does he help you, though?  Maria got no ride, so I gotta take the baby on the bus to his house and drop him off, then go pick him up. You know, his family loves the baby, but they hate me. His mom told him to get  me and him because when I do drop him off, then I got time to myself.  RGH: You k  Mariaby November. I figurjob and daycare. Maybe I can buy a car. These busses are killing me. If I can get a car, then I can get a job and maybe me and my baby can have a better life.   51  I set a subsequent appointment to interview both Maria and José. Maria was 20 minutes late and seemed a bit embarrassed that she had totally forgotten about our appointment. She told me that she was sorry that she had forgotten about it because if she had remembered, she was  Mariaover there. Took three bumom told me just to leave the baby and I could come back to get him on Sunday at house would hurt him, but I came all the way to drop yself with his whereabouts. Well, that did it. I told her that she was crazy if she thought I was gonna leave the baby there, now. When I said that, all of a sudden she got real nice and started telling me that she had a hard night and that she had been wosomewhere, so I decided that if she wanted to be friendly, I would take advantage of it. t always real friendly with me, you know? So we sat down and she made me a   RGH: What did she say?  Maria: I just sat and listened. She started tellibelieving none of it. I know she hates me. Yeah, she told me how they had such high hopes for José. They scrimped and saved all the time just to be able to send him to schools. Then she told me how disappointed she was that I got pregnant because she thought that Jose would put off going to college like everybody wanted him to. Even though José wanted to stay around on that Saturday to be with the baby, that old witch convinced him to go to a college day with the rest of the kids on his track team. Yeah, she told me how she thought it would be the best thing for the baby if I just left him [José] alone so that he could go to college and become somebody. You know, for a second there I started to really believe all 52  thbaby so that he can take care of his business. Yeah, I ended up not leaving the baby and I after I take   RGH: Would you creasonable terms?  Mariaed with the But as soon as I can afford to leave the baby some place way on e to fail so that they can take the baby.  Even in the poorest neighborhoods, what little opportunities and privilege that are available to people are unevenly distributed (Furstenburg, et. al., 1999; Newman, 1999). Families nancially and circumstantially are also perceived to be ferocious protectors of their resources (Anderson, 1999. Sometimes, as families and children interact, it pits the interest of families against those of others. José and Maria represent a couple that clearly occupies different substrata within the same neighborhood. Maria did not enjoy the same benefits afforded José through his family network. She never met her father. She says that she believes ended up incarcerated when she (Maria) was about 10 years old. Immediately after that, she between foster homes since she was 11 years old. she had been in constant trouble for truancy and delinquency, she had few options. So, her 53  clear from this story is that Maria had few legitimate opportunities in life before her pregnancy were good before the birth of his child and they had hardly changed, either.  hardly be considered privileged. However, his mother brandished considerable power because she controlled membership in her family network, which constituted a fair amount of access to resources  one of which was fatherhood. Although she was clearly accepting of her grandchild, she would not extend her daughters, many grandchildren and no men to help out. What she received in return was not only Chava, but also his grandmother and her resources. But, for all practical purposes, Maria is alone   with no real return on her investment. She discourages José from making good on his parental responsibilities for fear that it will hamper his future and what her family has invested in it. Instead she offers to José gets on with the b  really far out of my way so that José can be involved with the can spend time with José, José is not the one with whom she is negotiating for a bit of fatherhood 54  extending it to Maria. not give her up. She is her family. And, while she has not yet been able to negotiate successfully r terms, she is protective, nonetheless, of the potential resources for her child that José represents. She says it best when confronted by the possibility of mean the other mothers, twice and three times her age and represented in these family stories, Maria shows superhuman resolve and strength in her pursuit of providing a stable and loving  le counterparts in this study, she has aspirations for a future that include an education, without compromising her role as a parent. In fact, also similar to some of her male counterparts, she is thing, I suppose Mirandé would call ) would call fatherwork. Major Theme: Strategies of Exploiting Local Resources All of these young men (and women) had aspirations that included education, better jobs, meaningful relationships and stability for their families, but those aspirations were tempered by the reality of the obstacles that they faced on a daily basis. The obstacles included their 55  responsibilities to contribute to extended families, to their children and strained relations between their families and the families of their children. These obstacles were complicated by the increasingly fewer legitimate ways to earn a living. Although the odds seem against it, all of my informants saw their situations to be temporary. They were very motivated by what they  taking care of business  to find ways that would allow them to  In the Midwest, urban Chicano youth, whose grandfathers were lured to settle from agrarian economies by stable employment in the auto industry (Baba & Abonyi, 1979), around which they built and maintained families, and reinvented masculinity and fatherhood, watch as their fathers struggle to cope with the changing structure of our economy, and not be able to meet the standards that their own fathers set for maintaining families. Chicano teen fathers, with few ssertion that we are experiencing a e the notion that it is because fatherhood opportunities do not simply mschool by inviting him to participate in college night (pardon my cynicism).  In urban barrios, there not the specific domain of violent and depraved street criminals. Even after Chava and Miguel Angel needs demanded. While one cannot condone their involvement in selling illegal drugs for 56  n simple juvenile by which these youths may strive to achieve the moral standards set by family values stalwarts, a stable family.  In an important sense, the underground economy (hustling) is what is providing these suggestion that familism, for Latinos, is more a response to structural forces than a cultural relic, and I suspect she is right, then as poor families struggle to maintain stability, they will be drawn on is far from dependent on the role of a traditional father. Rather, the maintenance, management and stability of family and gender is not only the responsibility of everyone involved, it is vitally dependent on their collective efforts  even supporting and thereby helping to construct the meaning and roles of young fathers. As the structure of legitimate opportunity continues to crumble in these reinventing the meaning of fatherhood  plugging that institutional gap. Perhaps this is a  here is increasingly less respect in barrios for young men who disregard their parental responsibilities, they hardly show that fatherhood causes young men drastically to change their lifestyles.  SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Using structural analysis to inform the generative fathering conceptual framework as an approach for exploring Chicano teen fatherhood within the context of family systems, from an 57  families stretch and strain themselves to adapt to changing conditions. The assumptions that generative fathering brings to the field of family studies have proven to be an extremely valuable concept from which to approach young fatherhood within Chicano communities. It revealed the complicated process that young men undertake to translate their desires to be good fathers into effective fatherwork. It also showed that despite the non-traditional ways that these young men do fatherwork, it is important to their children and families, and it is a culturally unique response to the conditions of their social environment.  It also shed light on the ambiguous and changing nature of manhood and fatherhood; extremely convoluted power/gender relations; how indistinct the boundaries between different positions may be within families. And, it allowed for the collection of very rich data pertinent to those boundaries.  Four implications that this analysis produced are salient. First, not all teen fathers are a negligible quantity in the lives of their children. Some do contribute meaningfully and dutifully overlooked when fatherhood is narrowly defined as a role that exists within the context of a heterosexual marriage. However, by slightly changing our perspective from one that overlooks or demoralizes these contributions to one that validates the fact that young men can, and do, do work associated with fatherhood, these contributions summarily come to light. It seems obvious that new frameworks are needed that demarginalizes the ways in which nonWhite, poor and teenage fathers fit into the paradigm of family studies.  Second, fatherhood for these young men is not merely a biological occurrence. Rather, it perceptions of fatherhood that they construct through social interactions with their families, 58  children, peers and institutions, which in turn helps to shape and to determine how, and how much, fatherwork they do. And, the fatherwork that they do is related to the structure of legitimate opportunity and family networks. Despite witnessing the disintegration of a means by which their fathers and grandfathers created a sense of manhood around the support and maintenance of families, all the young fathers in this study expressed desire to participate circumstantial barriers, these fathers went to great lengths to recreate a sense of manhood and fatherhood  take care of business  whose foundation rested on their ability to exploit the informal market  fatherhood in that their obligation to their sanguineal family networks demanded that they help to , these powerful family networks most often were the single most important resource in determining whether the barriers to their ability to create a sense of fatherhood could be successfully negotiated. However, the social exchange between families was not an easy process given that the competition was stiff for limited resources, and resources were not easily surrendered once attained. Third, in the face of much emphasis given to assumptions about patriarchy and traditional gender roles that supposedly distinguish Latino families, the mothers in this study played pivotal roles in determining and facilitating father participation in many important ways. They helped to  new roles as fathers, especially in cases where their sons had no meaningful and/or positive relationships with their own fathers. They created powerful social networks that facilitated, discouraged, or substituted the involvement of their 59  sons in the lives of their own children. In all cases here, mothers had the ultimate power to restrict or grant their ex-boyfriend, ex-husband or ex-son access to their children.  However, to describe them as irresponsible, incorrigible, highly oversexed, sometimes depraved, boys or men who derive their self-worth from irresponsibly fathering as many children as   is also wrong. These young men all had a desire to be involved with their children in meaningful ways; they made many important and valuable contributions to the lives of their children and families; and those contributions are best understood within cultural and structural contexts. In spite of infidelity, living away from their children, having limited access to educational and employment opportunities, the opposite of characteristics that critics use to distinguish good fathers, these fathers engage in fatherwork that is a productive, cultural response to structural forces.  In conclusion, some of these stories represent extreme circumstances, marked by poverty, crime, violence, drug abuse and lack of educational, health and employment resources. These conditions are not endemic to Chicano or Latino communities. They are, however, increasingly part of the landscape of urban centers that have been hardest hit by a restructuring economy in the industrial Midwest. These urban centers are the environment with which most Chicano and Latino teen parents have to learn to cope in order to carve out their own existence, let alone one for their children. To be sure, these immediate lives and futures, regardless of premature parenthood. The teenage fathers in this study all had varying conceptions of what their obligations were to their children. However, considering the substantial barriers present in their environment, that they had any sense of 60  obligation at all, is admirable. And, the extent to which some of these young men and their families went to establish and maintain family relations, is downright remarkable.  Finally, while my data set is small, it is very rich. Unfortunately, these stories had to be that their situations, actions and reactions would be understood froexperiences. I am sure others would interpret these data differently; please do. However, these data are not meant to be generalized, nor are they to represent all, or even all Chicano, teen fathers. These stories represent the struggles of urban Mexican American families in the Midwest, where neighborhoods built on industry are approaching a century of precarious existence but are still growing through reproduction and immigration as I write.              61             APPENDICES             62  Appendix A Portraits in Brief  Chava Age: 25 Age at 1st childbirth:  15 Number of children:  1 Home:  Detroit Education:  HS dropout/GED grad Employment:  Junkyard partsman/hustle Relationship with mother of child:  None Involved with child:  Yes  Andrés Age;  22 Age at 1st childbirth:  18 Number of children:  1 Home:  Rochester Hills Education:  Graduating with BS in May Employment:  None/student Relationship with mother of child:  Cohabiting Involved with child:  Yes  Junior Age:  18 Age at 1st Childbirth:  16 Age at 2nd Childbirth:  18 Number of children:  2 (plus 3 step-children) Home:  Lansing Education:  HS dropout Employment:  Warehouse worker/hustle Relationship with mother of 1st child:  None Relationship with mother of 2nd child:  Married  Jesús Age:  24 Age at 1st childbirth:  17 Age at 2nd childbirth:  22 Age at 3rd childbirth:  24 Home:  Adrian Education:  HS dropout Employment:  Warehouse worker/hustle Relationship with mother of children:  Cohabiting Miguel Angel Age:  21 Age at 1st childbirth:  18 Home:  Lansing Number of Children: 1 Education:  College Sophomore Employment:  Self-employed artist/hustle Relationship to mother:  Cohabiting Involved with children:  Yes  Beto Age:  20 Age at 1st childbirth:  17 Age at 2nd childbirth:  18 Number of children: 2 Home:  Lansing Education:  HS dropout Employment:  warehouse worker/hustle Relationship to mother of children:  Married Involved with children:  Yes  Maria Age:  17 Age at 1st childbirth:  16 Number of children: 1 Home:  Detroit Education:  HS Dropout/GED in progress Employment:  none/hustle Relationship with father of child:  strained     Lala Age:  45 Age at 1st childbirth:  15 Age at 2nd childbirth:  17 Age at 3rd childbirth:  19 Age at 4th childbirth:  21 Home:  Detroit Education:  HS dropout Employment:  At-risk Counselor/youth advocate   63  Appendix B Other Informants             their stories, insight, and time were extremely valuable to the analysis of this study.   Max Age:  22 Age at 1st childbirth:  17 Home:  Lansing Education:  HS dropout Employment:  Warehouse worker Relationship to mother of child:  None Involved with child:  Yes    Carmen Age:  19 Age at 1st childbirth:  19 Home:  Lansing Education:  College sophomore Employment:  D.O.C. Relationship to father of child:  None Is father involved with child:  No  Benzie Age:  55 counseling Employment:  Special needs counselor/youth advocate Home:  Lansing   Maruca  Age:  39 Age at 1st childbirth:  17 Age at 2nd childbirth:  20 Age at 3rd childbirth:  20 Education: Former HS dropout now MSW Employment:  At-risk Counselor/youth advocate Home:   Lansing  Special K Age:  43 Education:   Employment:  Director, youth program/youth advocate Home:  Detroit 64  Appendix C Biodata  The following is a rough outline that was used to direct path of unstructured interviews.     Date    Name   Town/City of residence    Age at birth of child(ren)   Age now    Number of children    Relationship to child(ren) (involved in this study)        Relationship to father of child(ren) (involved in this study)        Relationship to mother of child(ren) (involved in this study)       Employment      Family Background  Mother  Father  Siblings                              65                          BIBLIOGRAPHY                      66  Allen, William D. and William J. Doherty. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services. V. 77. Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. The People of Michigan Series: Ethnic Studies. Michigan: Wayne State University Press. -44. Understanding Latino Families. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Baca Zinn, Maxine and D. Stanley Eitzen. 1999. Diversity in families. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 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