Closeness to relatives ?

[palaver]

My family is organized into branches with key members serving as a nexus to the other branch--they pass along the gossip.

The branches are mostly organized by nationality. When my grandmother died, my family in South America and the U.S. lost an important pillar and drifted apart. In Canada, England, and the U.S., I have Chinese and English/Portuguese branches in the same country who know nothing of each other because I do such a poor job at being their link. I'm kind of the one that they have to constantly reel in...

When these key people fight, it's like an information blackout. Then all of a sudden the news comes back on and you're not particularly interested anymore.

[jaz]

Jul 7, 2009 15:31:43 GMT -5 Groink said:

General question to everyone:

Has your parents' interracial marriages caused any rifts on either side of the family? I don't know of any overt indignation on either of my sides of the family, but I get the feeling it was kind of there.

My mum was disowned by her father when she married my father. It was a combination of my father not being Chinese and not having a university education. I don't want to disparage my late-grandfather too much, since he was a clever guy and a good man in many ways. However, he was a bit stuck up about his family background and education. He had mostly quietened down and was talking to my mother again by the time I was born, about 8 years later. Years later, when my grandfather died, my mother was the one who was in hospital with him holding his hand on the night he died.

My grandmother and my mum's eldest brother always welcomed my mum though, even while she was being shunned by my grandfather.

[Emily]

The only extended family I have here is my mom's sister and her family. Unfortunately, most of my mom's family is in the Philippines or in Cali/Vegas and all of my dad's family is in France.

We get to see my aunt pretty regularly, and I'm always glad to see them, especially my adorable baby cousin. They've also embraced my father. At the end of the day, when it comes to knocking back some beers or going fishing, my uncle and dad couldn't care less about color.

Same for my French family. When we visited them, it didn't seem like it even registered that my mom was Asian. She was just family.

I can't say I'm really close to my cousins since I rarely see them/saw them only once. Both sides are always happy/excited to see me, even if we don't know each other much. Many of my Filipino cousins do like to catch up on Facebook. It's nice knowing they're easily accessible, even if we don't have much to share.

[Szymon Von Zalyn]

I am closer to my Mother now as my Father died earlier this year. It is getting used to her that is difficult as we were not close in the past.

[dreamer]

My extended families mostly all live in the same city so we see them fairly often. (Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays etc) When we've had family friends staying with us in the holiday season they always find it a bit of a novelty to go from a really traditional white Christmas dinner to a fairly Asian one the next day.

[betahat]

That's nice. I haven't seen my Singapore/Burma family in a decade. Although many of the whities now live in North America, none of them live in the same area so they only get together once every couple of years. I think EAs on average are used to the far flung family, but it would be quite different (and probably fun) to live in an area where all of your family and extended family lived closeby and you had massive family shindigs frequently - my wife's family in Israel has that, as nothing is too far and they have so many different family events where the whole ~300+ clan attends.

[dreamer]

It can be quite fun. You're lucky to have so many relatives living over such a range of countries though! Do you travel around much?

[betahat]

Haven't seen the Burmese relatives for a decade (except for one cousin who works for Yahoo here in the Bay Area). Haven't seen the Singapore ones for about 6 years (we mostly had contact through my grandmother anyway, and the oldies are all beginning to die). But on my mom's side we get together all the time, every few years, and every time I'm in England or Malaysia I see them.

[candicemarlon11]

I can say that were not close to our relatives in our father's side because there is a problem. Until now it's the issue.

[quiapo]

I speak all the languages of all the relatives, but the children in the next generation are monolingual, and I doubt that the cohesion will be maintained, particularly as we are spread so widely from Nepal to Spain.

[seventeen]

My dad (caucasian) is a horrible person, even though i live with him i talk to him as little as possible. His family were fine with him marrying an asian, in fact not one of his brothers sisters married another english person. so all my cousins are half english and half something else.

my mum (asian)
So my asian side has ALL kinds of rifts. It wasnt accepted by her family to marry a white guy. she got SOO much grief. then after it clamed down and she was settled with kids, her younger sister married an english man. and of course aftter that didnt get any grief. she got it easy!