Family Stability in Hispanic Culture Janiece Cantu University of Our Lady of the LakeFor centuries, the term family has been specifically used to refer to a group of people consisting of two parents and their children. The word originally comes from the Latin word Familia, meaning home or family. Although this word is known all over the world, it can have a different context for each person. In the United States only, family can refer to two adults and their children, a single-parent family, extended relatives, and a structure consisting of more than two parents. Despite how family structure may appear within a family, it plays an important role in life, directly or indirectly. Family stability is a term that is defined in various ways, but it has been found to play a vital role in society. Global stability within a family refers to the occurrence of changes in family structure, such as divorce, remarriage, or death of parents, as well as changes in family life, such as changes in residence, nonnormative changes in schools, or changes in family composition. family unit. . Molecular family stability, on the other hand, is defined as daily family activities and routines (Israel & Roderick, 2001; Israel, Roderick, & Ivanova, 2002). These family activities and routines may vary from family to family. Defining the construct of molecular family stability in this way embraces the idea that each family can achieve stability in multiple ways, and one family's method may differ from that of another (Israel et al., 2002) (as cited in Malatras and Israel, 2013). When focusing on Hispanic culture in America, family instability in a global and molecular context is seen in divorce, which… halfway through the article… suggests the continued erosion of family support for children across generations in the United States ( Landale, Oropesa, Noah, 2014). Although this study only shows the effects on preschoolers, it is important to realize that this is a vital part of a child's life that will influence their adulthood. Immigration impacts the stability of the family as a whole because of the transition they face. These immigrant families begin to face the challenges that non-immigrant families in America face in a similar divorce. Results from the binational longitudinal study showed that children of immigrants were less likely to live with married parents (59% vs. 53%) and more likely to live with cohabiting parents (29% vs. 20%) than children in the United States ( Landale, Oropesa, Noè, 2014). Due to immigration, family stability is non-existent.