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

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.