Overview Ethnicity and Family Therapy

The future of our earth may depend on the ability of all [of us] to identify and develop new... patterns of relating across difference. —LORDE (1992, p. 502) What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others? —BATESON (1995, p. 53) Cultural identity has a profound impact on our sense of well-being within our society and on our mental and physical health. Our cultural background refers to our ethnicity, but it is also profoundly influenced by social class, religion, migration, geography, gender oppression, racism, and sexual orientation, as well as by family dynamics. All these fac-tors influence people’s social location in our society—their access to resources, their inclusion in dominant definitions of “belonging, ” and the extent to which they will be privileged or oppressed within the larger society. These factors also influence how family members relate to their cultural heritage, to others of their cultural group, and to preserv-ing cultural traditions. Furthermore, we live in a society in which our high rates of cul-tural intermarriage mean that citizens of the United States increasingly reflect multiple cultural backgrounds. Nevertheless, because of our society’s political, economic, and racial dynamics, our country is still highly segregated; we tend to live in communities seg-regated communities by race, culture, and class, which also have a profound influence on our sense of ethnic identity. It is now more than two decades since the first edition of Ethnicity and Family Ther-apy was published; in these decades our awareness of cultural diversity in our society and