“Para Que Sean Mejor Que Yo”: Immigrant Parents Reimagining Status Through their Children’s College Journeys

• In Event: Investment, Inputs and Hoarding: The Role of Parents and Families on Status and Achievement

Abstract

This paper explores how Latinx immigrant parents negotiate and leverage their perceived low social status to support their children’s college transition. Drawing from a two-year qualitative study with 18 working-class, immigrant parents in California, I highlight how parents paradoxically used negative self-portrayals to motivate their children toward higher education. These depictions, often gendered and rooted in labor-based or linguistic disadvantages, were not simply self-deprecating but strategic and relational, reflecting a deep commitment to intergenerational mobility. I argue that intra-familial status differentials were embraced rather than resisted, and were a part of a broader understanding of how immigrant descendants’ college journeys ‘fit into’ familial histories of immigration. This study demonstrates how status, sacrifice, and parental self-concept intersect in shaping educational aspirations.

Author

• Leslie Patricia Luqueño, Stanford University