This award-winning text treats family diversity as the norm, while highlighting how race, class, gender, and sexuality produce varieties of familial relationships. Diversity in Families looks at families not as "building blocks of societies" but rather, as products of social forces within society. The authors undertake a critical examination of society, asking questions such as, "How do families really work?" and "Who benefits under the existing arrangements, and who does not?" Their goal is to demystify and demythologize the family by exposing existing myths, stereotypes, and dogmas.

My story begins about 4 years ago when my grandson, Brandon, was restricted to a diet free of gluten, wheat, eggs, dairy, and peanuts. I was totally bewildered. How could I possibly cook properly for him and his family? I only remember once that I wept in my kitchen pantry out of frustration, but many times I felt that inadequate. Brandon's mom gave me a couple of recipes, which I prepared on every visit. I also had a house rule that no one was allowed to eat forbidden foods in his presence. I felt that I was doing all that I could until one innocent remark changed my life. We were in a grocery store and Brandon took my hand, led me to a display, and said longingly, "Look, Nana, those are called muffins." It brought tears to my eyes, and I vowed to myself that I would learn to cook delicious foods - gluten, wheat, dairy, egg, and peanut free. It has been a journey of trial and error. I cannot tell you that I have successes every time, but imagination and persistence has paid off. I have felt led to write this book, and it is my wish that it will help your family as much as it has helped mine. Barbara Wells

In Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers, Barbara Wells examines the work and family lives of Mexican American women in a community near the U.S.-Mexican border in California's Imperial County. Decades earlier, their Mexican parents and grandparents had made the momentous decision to migrate to the United States as farmworkers. This book explores how that decision has worked out for these second- and third-generation Mexican Americans. Wells provides stories of the struggles, triumphs, and everyday experiences of these women. She analyzes their narratives on a broad canvas that includes the social structures that create the barriers, constraints, and opportunities that have shaped their lives. The women have constructed far more settled lives than the immigrant generation that followed the crops, but many struggle to provide adequately for their families. These women aspire to achieve the middle-class lives of the American Dream. But upward mobility is an elusive goal. The realities of life in a rural, agricultural border community strictly limit social mobility for these descendants of immigrant farm laborers. Reliance on family networks is a vital strategy for meeting the economic challenges they encounter. Wells illustrates clearly the ways in which the "long shadow" of farm work continues to permeate the lives and prospects of these women and their families.

My story begins about 4 years ago when my grandson, Brandon, was restricted to a diet free of gluten, wheat, eggs, dairy, and peanuts. I was totally bewildered. How could I possibly cook properly for him and his family? I only remember once that I wept in my kitchen pantry out of frustration, but many times I felt that inadequate. Brandon's mom gave me a couple of recipes, which I prepared on every visit. I also had a house rule that no one was allowed to eat forbidden foods in his presence. I felt that I was doing all that I could until one innocent remark changed my life. We were in a grocery store and Brandon took my hand, led me to a display, and said longingly, "Look, Nana, those are called muffins." It brought tears to my eyes, and I vowed to myself that I would learn to cook delicious foods - gluten, wheat, dairy, egg, and peanut free. It has been a journey of trial and error. I cannot tell you that I have successes every time, but imagination and persistence has paid off. I have felt led to write this book, and it is my wish that it will help your family as much as it has helped mine. Barbara Wells