“The Homecomer” as a phenomenological interpretation of the “Second Generation” in Immigrant Assimilation/Integration Studies

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 8. Migration and Assimilation

Abstract

This article employs the phenomenological metaphor of “the homecomer” as a lens to understand the experiences of “second generation immigrants” as parents. Second generation immigrant parents are a sandwiched generation, American citizens raised by immigrants, and who embark on the journey of raising children (the third generation). While there has been ample scholarship in assimilation/integration theory literature regarding the dynamic between the immigrant generation and the second generation in processes of assimilation, there has been relatively less examination on how the presence of a third generation affects the second generation’s experience. Hence, this project strengthens our understanding by interpreting the homecomer as a metaphor for second generation parenting. Schutz’s ideal type homecomer was a veteran, returning home from war, who finds that reintegrating into their community is an uncanny process. Like Odysseus, who does not even recognize his homeland upon sailing back to Ithaca, the process of “starting a family,” homemaking, raising children forces second generationers to reckon with aspects of their migrant background. The interview data in this study, takes what we often think of as “transmission” of cultural practices, and reveals them to be complex, generative, and interactive processes in people’s everyday experiences with ethnic identity, migrant legacy, and the raising of the third generation in a fluid US social context.

Author

• Bonnie Ip, CUNY-Graduate Center