The migration experience creates a unique set of challenges for families, which can result in intergenerational conflict and create the conditions for abuse or neglect. Alternatively, families can cope with these challenges in creative and seemingly contradictory ways, thus strengthening family relationships. This article introduces the process of migration as a theoretical framework to use in understanding the complexity of the migration experience as well as the wide range of coping responses within families. The process was developed as a theoretical tool in an ethnographic study of first- and second-generation South Asian women in the United States; the study's findings are used to illustrate the application of the process to South Asian parenting experiences and show how the process of migration - where families adjust to a different set of structural conditions, ideologies, cultural norms, and social systems - shapes parenting and family life. © 2005 Child Welfare League of America.

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social psychology psychological aspect conflict human middle aged Asia Social Conformity Adaptation, Psychological ethnology Intergenerational Relations human relation interview United States Humans family Asian Americans Asian American Southeast Asia female adaptive behavior verbal communication Parenting Narration Article adult migration Interviews Emigration and Immigration Conflict (Psychology) Asia, Southeastern child parent relation