Settlement Programs for Immigrant Women and Families

Abstract

Among new immigrant families settling in North America today, wives and mothers comprise a group with problems and needs which differ significantly from those of other members of a migrant population. Many of these women come from background cultures where the adult female role is highly circumscribed when compared with the relative freedom enjoyed by their counterparts in North American society. Despite the greater opportunities for personal development existing in their new environment, immigrant women are often condemned to a restricted life style that is enclosed in a psycho-cultural structure mirroring the society which they have left behind. This life style is particularly prevalent when an immigrant family settles in an ethnic community exhibiting institutional completeness (Breton, 1964). Able to fulfill their psychosocial needs within a community having similarities to the one from which they have left, people may remain within it, participating very little with the majority culture, clinging to traditional values or practices, and perhaps never learning the language of their adopted country. Immigrant men have greater opportunities to escape such a life style because pressures to earn a living usually force the adult male into greater contact with the larger society. However, many immigrant women, and particularly mothers with young children, find themselves with no equivalent opportunities for a different way of life.