Redefining Wealth: How Second-Generation Immigrants Create Wealth Narratives about Education, Financial Stability, and Family

• In Event: 40860 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9. Wealth and stratification

Abstract

How do second-generation immigrants understand and define wealth? Wealth shapes the opportunity structure and outcomes of many families in the U.S. - across education, work and income, homeownership, health and well-being, etc. Yet how people understand wealth goes beyond its technical definition and economic function; indeed, wealth captures not only the material resources but also the cultural and social capital and its various meanings. Immigrants often arrive in the United States in search of better economic opportunities; as they settle in, immigrants encounter different understandings of wealth and must renegotiate their own perceptions. Drawing on 40 in-depth interviews with second-generation Mexican immigrants, this paper addresses this gap by examining and creating a typology of second-generation adults’ wealth narratives. I argue that second-generation adults draw on their parents’ immigrant struggle and economic precarity as well as their own upbringing when defining wealth. In the typology of wealth narratives, three main themes arose: (1) education as a path to wealth; (2) wealth as financial stability and freedom; and (3) wealth beyond material meaning. These narratives can broaden our understanding of financial behavior among young Latinx adults, such as their willingness or desire to buy a home, take on student debt, and invest in new financial products.

Author

• Nallely Mejia, New York University