Immigrant mothers and American-born daughters who learn to share their heritage and struggles through family stories can avoid losing a central familial bond, according to a UC Davis scholar who studies the stories passed through generations. In California, where 26 percent of the population is immigrant and some 45 percent of the state's births are to immigrant mothers, a dislocation of culture and familial relationships can likely to occur. Familial relationships can be painful sites of discovery and compromise, but they can also be dynamic sites for resistance and transformation for women, their families and communities, says Wendy Ho, an associate professor of Asian American studies and women and gender studies. She uses stories by California novelists Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and Fae Myenne Ng to analyze how immigrant mothers' experiences are forged in the social-economic and historical dislocations in China and in the United States. "Sadly, many of the daughters do not understand the value of this legacy: They have lost or devalued the meanings of their mothers' stories in their Anglo-American translations," Ho writes in her book, "In Her Mother's House: The Politics of Asian American Mother-Daughter Writing." Without romanticizing these mother-daughter stories, Ho points out that mothers and daughters can work through their social and emotional dilemmas by using a dialogue that includes telling their often silenced or marginalized stories to each other. "Such practices of talk-story can enable women and men to fruitfully negotiate alliances and create opportunities for the development of strong, supportive interactive communities," Ho says.