“Put It In Your Back Pocket”: Identity And Belonging Among Second Generation Racialized Canadians

Through interviews with four second generation Canadians, this Major Research Paper explores identity and belonging among second generation children (aged 18-30) of racialized immigrants in Toronto, Canada. Primary research questions include: (i) How do these individuals describe their identity? (ii) Do they have a sense of belonging in Canada; why or why not? (iii) Do they experience discrimination based on their ethno-racial identity? (iv) How does this impact their self-identification as Canadian and sense of belonging? The findings show that second generation racialized Canadians appear to hold multiple identities, forming a hyphenated or hybridized identity in which racialized identity and language/accent figure prominently. They also appear to have situational identities, with their identities shifting depending on the following various situational factors: (i) their location (including the country, city, and environment they are in), (ii) the individuals they are surrounded by including who they are speaking to, and (iii) the goal(s) of the situation.

“Put It In Your Back Pocket”: Identity And Belonging Among Second Generation Racialized Canadians

Through interviews with four second generation Canadians, this Major Research Paper explores identity and belonging among second generation children (aged 18-30) of racialized immigrants in Toronto, Canada. Primary research questions include: (i) How do these individuals describe their identity? (ii) Do they have a sense of belonging in Canada; why or why not? (iii) Do they experience discrimination based on their ethno-racial identity? (iv) How does this impact their self-identification as Canadian and sense of belonging? The findings show that second generation racialized Canadians appear to hold multiple identities, forming a hyphenated or hybridized identity in which racialized identity and language/accent figure prominently. They also appear to have situational identities, with their identities shifting depending on the following various situational factors: (i) their location (including the country, city, and environment they are in), (ii) the individuals they are surrounded by including who they are speaking to, and (iii) the goal(s) of the situation.

“My parents did everything for us but nothing with us”: Parenting and mothering in Vietnamese immigrant families in the Czech Republic

This article investigates the impact of migration on parent-child ties. It draws upon in-depth interviews with 15 Vietnamese mothers and 20 children (ages 16–25) who either migrated to or were born in the Czech Republic. It asks: How do first-generation mothers and second-generation children make sense of their parents’ migration in terms of their relationships with each other? What is the meaning of migration for mothers’ and children’s comprehension of parenthood and motherhood? The analysis of the interviews illuminates the tensions and ambivalences in narratives about migration and post-migratory situations. The article benefits from the inclusion of two perspectives—mothers’ and children’s—and contributes to scholarship on family migration, migrant childhood and migrant parenthood.

Hidden histories and second generation struggles in David Chariandy’s Soucouyant

David Chariandy’s lauded 2007 debut novel Soucouyant explores the way that immigrants transmit lessons, beliefs, and ways of being to their children both intentionally and unintentionally, and the ways that these transmissions can contradict one another. This article argues that while much of the critical writing about Soucouyant has foregrounded the relationship between the unnamed narrator and his dementia-suffering mother, the text is just as concerned with exploring intragenerational relationships as it is with intergenerational ones. Indeed, the text demonstrates the interweaving of both intergenerational and intragenerational relationships in a unique and compelling way. The lessons that get passed on between the generations shape the lives and interactions of second generation subjects between themselves. In particular, the relationship between the narrator and Meera, the mysterious woman who has moved in with and is taking care of his mother when he returns to her home after deserting her for several years, poses the question of how these two second generation subjects of differing class backgrounds might reconcile themselves with both their parents’ Caribbean pasts, their own Canadian presents, and uncertain futures. The novel’s subtitle, “a novel of forgetting,” signals the central role of memory and forgetting play in the novel. The immigrant parents’ desire and attempts to forget the past are not wholly successful and their second generation children are forced to first remember before they can move forward without being haunted by the traumas, silences, and anxieties of their parents. The complex racial and class politics of Trinidad and Canada lead to the narrator and Meera receiving very different legacies from their parents. However, their eventual coming together, in all its difficulty, suggests that there is hope for second generation subjects who wish to choose a different path than the one set for them by either their parents or the nation-state.

The New Third Generation: Post‐1965 Immigration and the Next Chapter in the Long Story of Assimilation

Now is the time for social scientists to focus an analytical lens on the new third generation to see what their experiences reveal about post‐1965 assimilation. This paper is a first step. We compare the household characteristics of post‐1965, second‐generation Latino and Asian children in 1980 to a “new third generation” in 2010. Today's new third generation is growing up in households headed by parents who have higher socioeconomic attainment; that are more likely to be headed by intermarried parents; that are less likely to contain extended family; and that, when living with intermarried parents, are more likely to have children identified with a Hispanic or Asian label compared to second‐generation children growing in 1980. We use these findings to inform a larger research agenda for studying the new third generation.

New Second-Generation Youth Culture in the Twilight of Italian American Ethnicity

This chapter views the Italian American youth culture known as “Guido” as a collective ethnic adaptation by young people whose immigrant parents settled in New York City, most notably Bensonhurst, after 1945. The ethnogenesis of second-generation youth blended thick Italian ethnicity with styles referenced to popular American culture like disco. New second-generation youth identity constitutes an ethnic agency according to a constructionist model of ethnicity that cannot be subsumed within the narrative of assimilation keyed to the older, mass immigration. Instead, a pronounced turn to consumption style invites a comparison to the new second generation children of post-1965 immigration from outside Europe featured in segmented assimilation theory which recognizes variable patterns as ethnic groups assimilate into different segments of a highly stratified society.

Gendered Consequences: Multigenerational Schooling Effects of IRCA

Prior research has examined the incorporation outcomes among unauthorized migrants after implementation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). However, few studies have evaluated how legalization opportunities produce gendered outcomes among the second-generation children of unauthorized immigrants. We examine the association of legalization opportunities provided through IRCA with the years of schooling attained by the sons and daughters of Mexican American immigrants. By distinguishing likely eligibility for one of two programs implemented under IRCA—the Legally Authorized Workers and Special Agricultural Workers programs—we consider whether type of legalization program matters by assessing gender differences in schooling among children of Mexican immigrants. Although legalization provides a substantial educational premium for the children of Mexican immigrants regardless of gender, the size of the legalization premium is smaller, on average, for sons than daughters. The advantage to daughters is especially notable among those with parents eligible for the Special Agricultural Workers program. We consider these findings in the context of theories of immigrant incorporation and intergenerational mobility.