A Profile of the Family of Origin of Evan Ramirez
I am a second-generation American with both my paternal and maternal sides of my family originating from the Philippines but immigrating to the United States at different times. Synthesizing information from Family Life Now, by Kelly J. Welsh, this paper will attempt to describe my family of origin and analyze how it has influenced my social and moral development to this day.
Family of Origin
A “Family of Origin” is defined as: “the family in which we are born or brought into by adoption… and socialized to adhere to the customs and norms of the culture in which we live” (Welsh, 2012). By this definition, my family of origin is composed of my two siblings, my parents, and my maternal grandparents,…show more content… I first lived in Fremont, CA with only my parents because my siblings were not yet born. I only lived in Fremont for the first two years of my life, so I do not believe it made much of a social impact on me. The book suggests, however, that these two years were essential for my development of trust with my parents (Welsh, 2012). In 1999, my parents and I moved to Columbia, Maryland where my Ryan was soon born. The community in Maryland was predominantly Caucasian and had a relatively small population. Because of this, I was only exposed to a limited number of peers during “Early Childhood” which is where children begin to develop social end emotional skills (Welsh,…show more content… Living in a collectivist, Filipino household, I am one of many Filipinos that are a part of an extended family household. As mentioned earlier, I currently live with my maternal grandparents who have heavily influenced my development. Contrastingly other extended family members such as my paternal grandparents (along with my paternal cousins) live across the country in Virginia. Because of this, they played little to no role in my development when compared to my maternal grandparents. Much of the remainder of my family lives in the Philippines, many of whom I have never met. They may have not played a significant role in my development either. The collectivist culture of the Philippines though has somewhat offset this. Collectivist refers to the emphasis of an entire group over that of the individual (Welsh, 2012) which may attribute to the closeness Filipinos have to other Filipinos whether they are family or not. In our culture, we refer to everyone as uncles, aunties, or cousins, emphasizing the closeness we feel to one another. This closeness is also mentioned within the book as a characteristic of a collectivist culture (Welsh,