Global Networks 8, 3 (2008) 329–346. ISSN 1470–2266. © 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd & Global Networks Partnership 329 Family divided: the class formation of Honduran transnational families LEAH SCHMALZBAUER Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 2–128 Wilson Hall, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA schmalzb@montana.edu Abstract Although there is a growing literature on transnational families, we know little about the class formation of such families and even less about how transnational migration and generation interact in this process. In this article I draw from ethnographic research with Honduran immigrant parents in the USA and transnational youths in Honduras to theorize the class formation of transnational families. Based on Bryceson and Vuorela’s concepts of frontiering and relativizing, I show how economic remittances bolster the expectations and improve the lifestyles of transnational youths to the detriment of their parents’ welfare in the USA. That parents often relativize their communication, choosing not to tell children about their struggles, can contribute to increased inequalities within families. Finally, my data suggest that it will be difficult for transnational youths to meet their newfound expectations and maintain their lifestyles without a permanent flow of remittances and thus the ongoing separation of family. Keywords TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES, TRANSNATIONAL YOUTHS, HONDURAS, CLASS FORMATION, REMITTANCES Marcos is a poor and undocumented immigrant from Tela, a bustling town on Honduras’s northern coast. Since migrating to the USA in 1999, Marcos has worked in a meat packing plant on the outskirts of Boston. His work hours are long, the labour strenuous, and his wages low. He is barely scraping by. Still, Marcos manages to send $250 a month to his wife and sons who remain in Honduras. In Tela, Marcos’s wife is raising their children. It is a struggle to be apart, yet the family is sustained by weekly phone calls and the economic boost that migration has provided. For the past three years Marcos’s children have attended private schools, played soccer in a private league, and their lives have grown more comfortable with the purchase of new household appliances, a computer, fashionable clothes and the construction of a small addition on their house. Marcos’s children are ambitious and serious students who exude optimism. They