FAMILY DYNAMICS AND THE TEENAGE IMMIGRANT - CREATING THE SELF THROUGHTHE PARENTS IMAGE

This study assesses the role played by the Soviet Jewish emigre family in exacerbating the dual disjunctures of immigration and adolescence. The results of this study, based on life history interviews with wome n who came from the USSR to the U.S. as teenagers in the 1970s, challe nge the bipolar model of adolescent immigrants and raise questions abo ut previous findings on the dysfunctional, detrimental effects of the enmeshed Soviet-Jewish family.