What commonalities link Navajos in their vast Arizona reservation and rural whites in upstate New York? More than you'd suspect when both live in complex households that include people other than nuclear kin. This groundbreaking interdisciplinary book on complex households in six U.S. ethnic groups-the other four are the Inupiat of Alaska, urban African Americans, Korean immigrants in New York City, and Latino immigrants in central Virginia-uniquely combines rich ethnographic descriptions with theory-linked overviews and Census 2000 data. It explores interactions of household structure, ethnicity, and gender, while illuminating factors affecting the formation and dissolution of complex households, which are becoming increasingly important as ethnic diversity increases throughout the U.S.

Contributions by: Amy Craver, Patricia L. Goerman, Bernadette J. Holmes, Jennifer Hunter Childs, Tai S. Kang, Laurie Schwede, Nancy E. Tongue