Sun, Ken Chin-Yan. 2014. Reconfigured Reciprocity: How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Transform Cultural Logics of Elder Care. Journal of Marriage and Family 76:875-889.
This article draws upon 55 interviews with old Taiwanese immigrants who relocated to the United States at an earlier life stage to delineate their opinions of elder care. The author argues that the changing contextual features of life that they observe in their own social worlds will transform their cultural ideals of aging and family as a response. It is a complicated process more than simply acceptance of Americanization or Westernization.The author coins the concept of reconfigured reciprocity to demonstrate how aging Taiwanese migrants reshape cultural logics of intergenerational responsibility, obligation, and entitlement to reconcile the tension between ethnic tradition and modernity. First, the author presents that how aging immigrants who themselves are not able to offer enough caring to their parents articulate the reciprocity they are entitled to claim from their children. Second, he highlights how the structural squeeze among work, family, and caregiving with which the younger generation struggles further discourages the respondents from relying on their children. Finally, the author underscores how aging immigrants evoke the concept of Americanization or Westernization as an “emotional shield”to reconstruct their exceptions of how they should be taken care of in-between two societal cultures.
文章通过55个深度访谈介绍了早期移民到美国的台湾老年人是如何思考和转变养老观念的。作者提出一个周围生活环境的变化会促使他/她重新构建对于家庭和老年生活的想法和计划。这个过程不是简单地用美国化或者西方化概念可以完全解释的。作者提出“重构互惠理念”来说明在美国的台湾老年人不断地协调传统和现代性之间的根本性矛盾，并在此之内思考代际之间的责任和义务。首先，绝大多数被访者会提到自己年轻时并没有机会去照顾留在台湾的父母，这个会降低他们对于自己子女的期待；再者，由于被访者的子女生活和工作在美国社会，他们自己的工作与生活也非常忙碌，这些也会让被访者意识到他们根本没有时间和精力来照顾自己；最后，被访者通常会用“美国化”或者“西方化”的概念来给自己心里的失落和不满找个纾解的渠道，同时也借鉴美国式的养老文化来安排自己晚年生活。