http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/family/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Sat, 14 Feb 2009 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4176/cross_cultural_in_connecticut/ New Haven, Conn.--in early October, Lorenza Rodriguez Mendoza arrived in New Haven, Conn., to visit her daughter, whom she hadn't seen in 10 years. She and nine other women made the trip from Tlaxcala, Mexico, with a three-month travel visa to visit family members who had come to the United States to work. The women's journey began seven years ago, when they formed a community organization in Tlaxcala, the smallest state in Mexico. Many of New Haven's Mexican immigrants come from this region. Marco Castillo, an anthropologist from Tlaxcala, had passed through New Haven a couple of years earlier and met John Jairo Lugo, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Acci--n, a local grassroots group that supports undocumented immigrants. Lugo… immigration family culture Rachel Jefferson Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4246/not_all_happy_families_are_nuclear/ In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote "all happy families are alike." He was wrong. In One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love (Riverhead, February), we meet 18 families that could not be more different from one another, each demonstrating that healthy families come in a variety of configurations. Rebecca Walker, the book's editor, describes in the introduction her process in choosing these extraordinary pieces, writing, "I was looking for stability, complexity, longevity and overall happiness. When I saw those four elements in a family, no matter what it looked like, I paid closer attention." Walker is no stranger to nontraditional families. Her own childhood was… books gender family Rachel Jefferson