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need to educate nurses to deliver culturally competent care for an increasingly diverse patient population, regardless of geographic location. (3)(4) This need served as the primary impetus for this work. Cultural standards exist within political, economic, and social systems, and that many health organizations throughout the world have defined care for their specific populations from the perspective of these systems. The variation among standards and the context within which standards are practiced may preclude a single set that fits all cultures.

Literature specifically focused on women as immigrants and on the nature and quality of the immigrant experience is limited. Similarly, in spite of early Arab immigration to the different regions of the world, there is a limited knowledge base regarding the dynamics and problems involved in their integration into their new society. In this article we describe the lived experiences of Jordanian women who immigrated to the United States and the focus is on providing an in-depth account of their perceived stressors as related to their immigration experience. Thirty Jordanian American women, all wives and mothers with a mean age of 45, were interviewed. Three major themes of the sources and contexts of stress emerged from the narrative and qualitative data analyses of their responses. Women experienced many challenges and stressors surrounding their work in the daily living of settling in, in their quest for ethnic continuity, and in their attempts to re-create familiarity. Social and health support resources cannot be created without careful attention to these themes.

Having their children enter adolescence presents new demands on the role functions of Jordanian immigrant women in the United States. Such demands require modifications in traditional parenting approaches. The authors attempted to uncover and describe the experiences of Jordanian immigrant mothers (N = 30) in parenting their adolescents in the United States. Content and narrative analysis revealed the dynamic processes that the mothers used in raising their children. They continuously attempted to balance the need for their teens to maintain a Jordanian ethnic identity and the need for them to become integrated into the new community. Their parenting was driven by an attempt to avoid loss of honor and bad reputation. Four aspects of the maternal role emerged from the analysis: mothering through nurturing the adolescents and promoting cultural identity, disciplining for cultural adherence, advocacy and mediation, and vigilant parenting. The findings support a dynamic interplay between cultural and structural conditions in shaping the experiences of Jordanian immigrant women.