Love and Marriage: Made in America Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Made in America, entitled Love and Marriage, was such a moving chapter both in itself and as a complement to the book. Conventions on dating, love, and marriage is of huge importance in many different cultures, and it is often a source of great conflict as well. It was amazing to read about the observations that Olsen made in her studying relating relationship customs to the students' academic lives.

I found it interesting that many of the interviews and observations of the students regarding their love lives directly related to their success in America. Many girls mentioned that they wanted to continue their education and get a job before getting married, but they were often unable to due to their cultural conventions of marriage: they were required or desired to marry at a young age and focus their attention on their new family. It must be so hard for an immigrant woman to come to the United States to first of all get up the courage and strength to continue her education, find a job, and hold down that job. But to have those hopes shattered because her family wants her to essentially throw it all away and get married? I cannot even imagine. It's somewhat of a backwards cycle: they work hard at school in order to get a better grasp of the language and perhaps become 'American', they get involved in American culture in order to fit into their new society, then move backwards once they marry a man of the same ethnicity and go back to their old culture, stopping their schooling and work to work in the home. It's quite sad. I myself cannot imagine a life without education or work.