Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tzmfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T20:49:52.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Children of War Resisters: Intergenerational Transmission of Activism, Political Orientation, Injustice Frames, and Law Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2023

Wenona Rymond-Richmond
Wenona Rymond-Richmond*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, United States Email: wenona@umass.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

American Vietnam War resisters participated in one of the largest politically motivated emigrations in US history. John Hagan provided the most comprehensive study of American war resisters living in Canada in his award-winning book Northern Passage. Hagan documented how law resistance intersected with social movement participation and sustained activism. In this article, I extend Hagan’s life course analysis of law resistance by interviewing fifty-one adult children of the war resisters originally in Hagan’s sample, supplemented with eighteen surveys completed by the parents about their child, producing eighty-two distinct parent-child relationship pairs. This unique intergenerational study finds that American war resister parents radically influenced their offspring’s activism. The adult children of war resisters highly resemble their parents’ political views and activism. Further, I elaborate on the concept of a participation identity to suggest four fundamental mechanisms that facilitate activism of the offspring of war resisters: (1) resonates with their identities and life histories; (2) inspired by their parents’ activism; (3) adoption of an injustice frame; and (4) optimism that social movements are effective vehicles of social change. This research demonstrates that American war resister children in Canada are both attitudinally disposed to, and structurally available for, activism.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , November 2023 , pp. 1261 - 1280
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Bar Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

This work was supported by a Canadian Studies Grant Program, Canadian Embassy with John Hagan.

References

REFERENCES

Beck, Paul Allen, and Jennings, Kent. 1975. “Parents as ‘Middlepersons’ in Political Socialization.” Journal of Politics 37, no. 1: 83–107.10.2307/2128892CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Paul Allen, and Jennings, Kent. 1991. “Family Traditions, Political Periods, and the Development of Partisan Orientations.” Journal of Politics 53, no. 3: 742–63.10.2307/2131578CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1964. Human Capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beyerlein, Kraig, and Hipp, John. 2006. “A Two-Stage Model for a Two-Stage Process: How Biographical Availability Matters for Social Movement Mobilization.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 11, no. 3: 299–320.10.17813/maiq.11.3.8p1758741377684uCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloemraad, Irene, and Trost, Christine. 2008. “It’s a Family Affair: Intergenerational Mobilization in the Spring 2006 Protests.” American Behavioral Scientist 52, no. 4: 507–32.10.1177/0002764208324604CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Nice, Richard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, James S. 1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology 94, no. S1: 95–120.10.1086/228943CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, James Allan, Smith, Tom W., and Marsden, Peter V.. 2002. General Social Survey 2002. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.Google Scholar
Demerath, III, Jay, Nicholas, Marwell, Gerald, and Aiken, Michael T.. 1971. Dynamics of Idealism. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Fendrich, James Max, and Lovoy, Kenneth L.. 1988. “Back to the Future: Adult Political Behavior of Former Student Activists.” American Sociological Review 53, no. 5: 780–84.10.2307/2095823CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fendrich, James Max, and Tarleau, Alison T.. 1973. “Marching to a Different Drummer: Occupational and Political Correlates of Former Student Activists.” Social Forces 52, no. 2: 245–53.10.2307/2576378CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, Holly, and Hagan, John. 2007. “Incarceration and Intergenerational Social Exclusion.” Social Problems 54, no. 4: 399–433.10.1525/sp.2007.54.4.399CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, Holly, and Hagan, John. 2009. “The Mass Incarceration of Parents in America: Issues of Race/Ethnicity, Collateral Damage to Children, and Prisoner Reentry.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 623, no. 1: 179–94.10.1177/0002716208331123CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, Holly, and Hagan, John. 2013. “Maternal and Paternal Imprisonment in the Stress Process.” Social Science Research 42 no. 3: 650–69.10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.01.008CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foster, Holly, and Hagan, John. 2015. “Maternal and Paternal Imprisonment and Children’s Social Exclusion in Young Adulthood.” Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 105: 387–430.Google Scholar
Gamson, William. 1992. Talking Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gamson, William A., Fireman, Bruce, and Rytina, Steven. 1982. Encounters with Unjust Authority. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hagan, John. 2001a. “Cause and Country: The Politics of Ambivalence and the American Vietnam War Resistance in Canada.” Social Problems 48, no. 2: 168–84.10.1525/sp.2001.48.2.168CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, John. 2001b. Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hagan, John, and Dinovitzer, Ronit. 1999. “Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children, Communities, and Prisoners.” Crime and Justice 26: 121–62.10.1086/449296CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, John, and Foster, Holly. 2012. “Intergenerational Educational Effects of Mass Imprisonment in America.” Sociology of Education 85, no. 3: 259–86.10.1177/0038040711431587CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, Kent, and Niemi, Richard. 1981. Generations and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400854264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Judy, and Shapiro, Linn. eds, 1998. Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Klandermans, Bert. 1997. The Social Psychology of Protest. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Klandermans, Bert, and Oegema, Dirk. 1987. “Potentials, Networks, Motivations, and Barriers: Steps toward Participation in Social Movements.” American Sociological Review 52, no. 5: 19–31.10.2307/2095297CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review 67, no. 5: 747–76.10.1177/000312240206700507CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Marwell, Gerald, Aiken, Michael T., and Jay Demerath, N. III. 1987. “The Persistence of Political Attitudes among 1960s Civil Rights Activists.” Public Opinion Quarterly 51, no. 3: 359–75.10.1086/269041CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masclet, Camille. 2016. “Examining the Intergenerational Outcomes of Social Movements: The Case of Feminists Activists and Their Children.” In The Consequences of Social Movements, edited by Bosi, Lorenzo, Giugni, Marco, and Uba, Katrin, 106–29. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 1986. “Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer.” American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 1: 64–90.10.1086/228463CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 1988. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 1989. “The Biographical Consequences of Activism.” American Sociological Review 54: 744–60.10.2307/2117751CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 2003. “Beyond Structural Analysis: Toward a More Dynamic Understanding of Social Movements.” In Social Movement Analysis: The Network Perspective, edited by Diani, Mario and McAdam, Doug, 281–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199251789.003.0012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, Doug, and Paulsen, Ronnelle. 1993. “Specifying the Relationship between Social Ties and Activism.” American Journal of Sociology 99: 640–67.10.1086/230319CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishler, Paul C. 1999. Raising Reds: The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Oegema, Dirk, and Klandermans, Bert. 1994. “Why Social Movement Sympathizers Don’t Participate: Erosion and Nonconversion of Support.” American Sociological Review 59: 703–20.10.2307/2096444CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pagis, Julie. 2014. Mai 68, un pavé dans leur histoire: événements et socialisation politique. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.10.3917/scpo.pagis.2014.01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagis, Julie. 2018. May ‘68: Shaping Political Generations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Quéniart, Anne, Charpentier, Michèle, and Chanez, Amélie. 2008. “La transmission des valeurs d’engagement des aînées à leur descendance: une étude de cas de deux lignées familiales.” Recherches Féministes 21, no. 2: 143–68.10.7202/029445arCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Settle, Jaime E., Dawes, Christopher T., and Fowler, James H.. 2009. “The Heritability of Partisan Attachment.” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 3: 601–13.10.1177/1065912908327607CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharkey, Patrick. 2008. “The Intergenerational Transmission of Context.” American Journal of Sociology 113, no. 4: 931–69.10.1086/522804CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, David A., and Benford, Robert D.. 1992. “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest.” In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, edited by Morris, A. D. and Mueller, C. M., 133–55. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stryker, Sheldon. 1968. “Identity Salience and Role Performance; The Relevance of Symbolic Interaction Theory for Family Research.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 30: 558–64.10.2307/349494CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Edward J., and Warland, Rex H.. 1983. “Social Movement Involvement in the Wake of a Nuclear Accident: Activists and Free Riders in the TMI Area.” American Sociological Review 48: 764–80.10.2307/2095324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittier, Nancy. 2010. Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar