An American Family

Before 1973, the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California, lived in the privacy of their own home. With the airing of the documentary An American Family, that "privacy" extended to every American home with a television. This book is the first to offer a close look at An American Family -- the documentary that blurred conventions, stirred passions, revised impressions of family life and definitions of private and public, and began the breakdown of distinctions between reality and spectacle that culminated in cultural phenomena from The Oprah Winfrey Show to Survivor.

This inspiring memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father and captivating DNC speaker is the story of one family’s pursuit of the American dream. NAMED ONE OF THE FIVE BEST MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST “Moving . . . a story about family and faith, told with a poet’s sensibility . . . Khizr Khan’s book can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like.” —The New York Times Book Review In fewer than three hundred words, Khizr Khan electrified viewers around the world when he took the stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. And when he offered to lend Donald Trump his own much-read and dog-eared pocket Constitution, his gesture perfectly encapsulated the feelings of millions. But who was that man, standing beside his wife, extolling the promises and virtues of the U.S. Constitution? In this urgent and timeless immigrant story, we learn that Khizr Khan has been many things. He was the oldest of ten children born to farmers in Pakistan, and a curious and thoughtful boy who listened rapt as his grandfather recited Rumi beneath the moonlight. He was a university student who read the Declaration of Independence and was awestruck by what might be possible in life. He was a hopeful suitor, awkwardly but earnestly trying to win the heart of a woman far out of his league. He was a brilliant and diligent young family man who worked two jobs to save enough money to put himself through Harvard Law School. He was a loving father who, having instilled in his children the ideals that brought him and his wife to America—the sense of shared dignity and mutual responsibility—tragically lost his son, an Army captain killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq. He was and is a patriot, and a fierce advocate for the rights, dignities, and values enshrined in the American system. An American Family shows us who Khizr Khan and millions of other American immigrants are, and why—especially in these tumultuous times—we must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most. Praise for An American Family “An American Family is a small but lovely immigrant’s journey, full of carefully observed details from the order in which Ghazala served tea at a university event, to the schedule of the police patrols in the Boston Public Garden where Khan briefly slept while he was in between apartments, to the description of Humayun’s headstone as a ‘slab of white marble with soft streaks the color of wood smoke.’”—Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post

This second edition of a trend-setting volume provides an updated examination of the interaction between families and the most pervasive mass medium: television. Charting the dynamic developments of the American family and television over the past decade, this volume provides a comprehensive representation of programmatic research into family and television and examines extensively the uses families make of television, how extensions of television affect usage, families' evolving attitudes toward television, the ways families have been and are portrayed on television, the effects television has on families, and the ways in which families can mediate its impact on their lives. The volume is an invaluable resource for scholars and students in the areas of media and society, children and media, and family studies.

Written by one of his children, this book offers an unprecedented insider's view of oilman Will Buckley and his wife, and chronicles how the Buckley family have become the mainstays of American conservatism in politics and culture. b&w photos.

What makes a family? Love makes a family. An American Family is the story of Jon and Michael Galluccio, two gay men who become foster parents to Adam, a premature baby, born with the AIDS virus and addicted to crack, heroin, marijuana, and alcohol. While nursing Adam through the many medical emergencies of his first year and surviving the daily dramas that all new parents go through, they realize that this child, their son, could be taken back from them at any time by the state, and they decide to try to legally adopt him together. Refused by the state-even as it asks them to care for another at-risk infant-they decide to fight for the adoption of their son in the courts, and win, setting a precedent for all unmarried couples in New Jersey. This book is dramatic proof that the American family is vibrantly alive and extending itself in remarkable new directions.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author and “one of our most talented biographers and historians” (The New York Times) David Maraniss delivers a “thoughtful, poignant, and historically valuable story of the Red Scare of the 1950s” (The Wall Street Journal) through the chilling yet affirming story of his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, David’s father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact. In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father’s story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital 20th-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. “Remarkably balanced, forthright, and unwavering in its search for the truth” (The New York Times), A Good American Family evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is “clear-eyed and empathetic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.

Richard and Michael, both three years sober, have just decided to celebrate their love by moving in together when Richard—driven by the desire to do the right thing for his ten-year-old-daughter, Brady, whom he has never met—impulsively calls his former father-in-law to connect with her. With that phone call, he jeopardizes the one good thing he has—his relationship with Michael—and also threatens the world of the fundamentalist Christian grandparents who love Brady and see her as payback from God for the alcohol-related death of her mother. Unable to reach an agreement, the two parties hire lawyers who have agendas far beyond the interests of the families—and Brady is initially trusted into Richard and Michael’s care. But when the judge learns that the young girl was present when a questionable act took place while in their custody, she returns Brady to her grandparents. Ultimately, it’s not until further tragedy strikes that both families are finally motivated to actually act in the “best interests of the child.”

"I find the book extremely attractive. The dialectical perspective provides a consistent avenue from which to address the diversity (structural, cultural, developmental, and functional) in Contemporary American Families. Whereas this perspective does not claim to solve the tensions in families, it offers marvelous insights into the nature and changing diversities in families. I believe this text is particularly well suited for reasonable discussion of serious issues and provides valuable insights into the nature of families and their functioning." --Vince Bloom, California State University, Fresno "Teresa Chandler Sabourin invites students to appreciate the mystery, complexity, and diversity of the contemporary American family. Resisting simplistic descriptions and normative descriptions, Sabourin challenges us to open our minds and hearts to the rich, humane variety of family connections as we search for ways to accommodate the competing demands and conflicting pressures experienced in our most cherished relationships. Starting from the source of her own experience, Sabourin addresses both the darker, abusive side of family relationships, as well as the lighter, spiritual side of intimacy and love. The Contemporary American Family successfully addresses the need for an accessible and teachable treatment of the dialectical perspective on close relationships. This is a book that will encourage students of family communication to respect diversity, question taken-for-granted assumptions, and share the pain and joy and of their own family experiences." --Art Bochner, University of South Florida Increasingly diverse in structure and culture, contemporary families defy explanation by many traditional, linear methods. In order to understand the enormous impact that diversity has on the behaviors and relationships within the family, scholars and students need a means to embrace, rather than solve, relational contradictions. The Contemporary American Family: A Dialectical Perspective on Communication and Relationships recognizes that families are both close and distant, stable and changing, amenable and uncontrollable. Teresa Chandler Sabourin employs a dialectical approach, acknowledging that a family′s contradictions and relational tensions may be the determining factor in its interaction. Writing in a direct and simple style, Sabourin uses this innovative theoretical position to address four types of family diversity: structural, cultural, developmental, and functional. Sure to stimulate discussion and further research, this provocative volume examines The dialectic process in the context of family communication and relationships The redefined, more inclusive American family Contemporary family structures Cultural diversity in the family Issues such as alcoholism, domestic violence, and divorce Spirituality within the family Designed as a supplemental text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in Family Communication, The Contemporary American Family is also an invaluable resource for students in Family Studies and Women′s Studies courses.