Amidst Rising Inequality, Second-Generation Latinos in the Inner City Sustain the American Dream
Amidst rising inequality—flattened wages for most Americans, withering of social support programs, a growing housing crisis, and rising costs of higher education—many are losing faith in the American Dream.
Yet, in inner city, immigrant communities, where many second-generation Latinx millennials were born and raised, faith in the American Dream is ever present.
A number of issues threaten the dreams and future prospects of children of Latino immigrants. In today’s political context, anti-immigrant sentiments and policy decisions at the federal level have swirled fear among immigrants as some face deportation or losing a protected status, such as DACA.
There are other threats to the community, especially to the second-generation, the children of immigrants, most born in the United States. Many immigrants are raising their children in some of America’s most segregated and disadvantaged neighborhoods at a time of high income and wealth inequality. These are communities long neglected, where some of the most underperforming schools concentrate and where heavy policing feeds high incarceration rates.
In the face of these conditions, it might seem odd that the second generation is hopeful. As I write in my book, Stagnant Dreamers, it is in America’s inner cities where one finds optimism and determination despite persistent structural barriers that threaten upward mobility. I followed the lives of 42 second-generation Latino young adults from two neighborhoods in East and South Los Angeles, as they entered the work force and institutions of higher education. I investigate how growing up in these neighborhoods shaped their social mobility trajectories.
As second-generation Latinos transition to adulthood, they make their way into college classrooms and take up jobs with the intent to do justice for their immigrant parent’s sacrifices. It is not simply their immigrant story that shapes their orientation. For quite some time, we have known that America’s urban context is a place of paradox: it denies opportunities for advancement, while sustaining the American Dream.
I document how their immigrant parents settled in Los Angeles during a turbulent time, at the peak of violence in the 1980s and mid-1990s, and how they pushed back against these conditions, setting roots and making claims to the city. I show how strong kin and community ties buffered most young men from the urban context and how the isolation of some derailed them. As immigrants claimed their neighborhoods as ‘working class’ or ‘working poor,’ they shaped the outlooks and behaviors of the second-generation who see opportunities denied to their parents—and those without documents—but who believe that the American Dream of a good paying job, especially with a college education, is available to them.
With this understanding, second-generation Latinos are enrolling in college in unprecedented rates. For several years now, Latino high school graduates have outpaced white high school graduates in college enrollment. As college enrollments have declined across the nation, Latinos have seen an increase.
Aspiration and goals thrive in these communities.
The problem is Latinos are having difficulty breaking into the highly coveted American middle class because few graduate from college and often those who obtain the college diploma do not expand their social networks in the process. These students do the work in the classroom but navigate institutions of higher education on their own, disconnected from its vast resources. They are the students without mentors who do not participate in college-affiliated programs—internships, fellowships or other enrichment activities—that reinforce their learning and open opportunities.
In my study, I found that most second-generation Latinos relied heavily on their Latino networks to navigate the labor market; like their immigrant parents, they rely on kin and community ties to access jobs. Latino young men from the most segregated neighborhoods, struggle to find community and a support system in our colleges and universities. It is there, where many confront racial stereotypes and their criminalization as young men of color. Feeling culturally distant from the broader social and cultural context of institutions that cater to a middle class or affluent student population, many focus on just getting through. Only rarely do they come across institutional agents who invest in them, empower and provide access to opportunities that result in mobility gains.
Having survived some of America’s toughest neighborhoods and urban schools, many inner city Latinos are getting lost in institutions of higher education unprepared to serve these first-generation college students.
Some are like Gerardo who spent most of his twenties in community college without clear guidance to help him transfer to a university or earn a certificate or diploma.
Others are like Carlos, who was only short a few classes from receiving his engineering degree. Disconnected from others and faculty at his university, he struggled to get through.
When these students get social support from institutions—in the form mentorship and guidance—they thrive, make their communities proud and contribute to American society as they hoped to do so. Latinos who gain footing into the middle class do so via different routes. Some are like Pedro who made his way into in a pharmaceutical company as an electrician once he established racially diverse networks who helped him broker access into the company.
Upon receiving his electrician license, Pedro initially turned to his immigrant ties for work in the construction industry but the crumbling housing market during the Great Recession pushed him back to school. A white college teacher with close ties to hiring personnel in a food processing company brokered his first job. This put him in contact with white and Asian co-workers that expanded his network beyond kin and his immigrant community and linked him to better paying job opportunities. Pedro grew up in the housing projects of South LA, but is now one of the lucky millennials in the city who owns a home.
Others are like Raul, who is making his climb up the steps of the federal government working for the Social Security office. His stable, middle class job came after a Latino college friend recommended him, having struggled three years underemployed working in Target and call centers. Raul’s family, who remains undocumented, had placed all their hopes and dreams on his success. Having landed a good job with benefits brought him great relief but Raul wished he had been warned “there would be problems” upon graduation.
For most of his college years, Raul was “just going with the flow,” struggling to get through and graduate. Raul “didn’t have a support system” but was lucky to be part of the Latino Business Association where information on internships and jobs flowed and where he met his middle-class friend who ultimately linked him to the government job.
Institutions of higher education—and the networks developed there—have the capacity to transform the lives of these young people and their immigrant families who came to this country to work hard, contribute and reap the benefits of the opportunities that exist here. In this time of high inequality—including deeply entrenched spatial inequality—our institutions of higher education remain the most promising route for this new generation.
Children of immigrants are knocking on America’s door—not just at the border—but also within its neighborhoods and institutions. Will we deny them the opportunity to realize their American Dream and fully integrate into American society or are we comfortable they remain at its margins? Class and racial residential segregation structure social networks in profound ways that constrain opportunities for these first-generation college students.
Our institutions of higher education can correct for gross inequalities by ensuring these youth find a supportive environment that links them to programs and institutional agents—not gatekeepers—with knowledge and connections to various occupational opportunities and career paths. Latino’s upward mobility will remain limited so opportunities come about in a haphazard way. Successfully integrating children of immigrants into American society, particularly from our most disadvantaged neighborhoods, will require institutions of higher education to harness existing resources and direct them to this group.