For many first-generation Mexican American college graduates, the definition of success includes paying their parents’ bills or even buying them a home.
Lifting the social or financial status of their elders is a goal that often defines upward mobility for Latinx millennials, especially the children of immigrants, according to a study by UC Merced sociology professor Daisy Verduzco Reyes.
Reyes, a researcher in the Latina Futures 2050 Lab at UCLA, spent 14 years developing the study, which tracked the life paths of 61 millennials (a demographic defined as people born between 1981 and 1995) who identify as Latinx, attended college in California and reside primarily in the state.
“As researchers, we do not have much documented data and analysis to help us see and understand the lives of this population,” Reyes said. Reyes’s interviews supported earlier studies that millennials are more likely to have paid for college themselves. She added that 85 percent of respondents were the first in their family to attend and graduate from college and 96% were of Mexican origin.
The study, published in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, will provide data and narratives for a follow-up book to “Learning to Be Latino,” Reyes’ 2018 investigation into how undergraduate institutions shape the culture of Latino student life on campus.
Reyes said the study showed young Latinos define the path of personal achievement differently from what sociologists call the five-stage Standard North American Adulthood: leave home, finish college, enter the workforce, get married and have children.
Responsibility to family is important to immigrant, second- and third-generation Latinx people, the study said, and giving back can be an expression of gratitude, Reyes said. The cultural and socio-structural conditions in which Latino millennials live contribute to their need to fulfill financial, emotional, legal and cultural labor roles in their families of origin. The study calls this the “Latinx mobility bargain” or the “immigrant bargain.”
The study processed responses from 40 women and 21 men. Questions included “Do you think you have achieved mobility relative to your parents?” and “Do you provide financially for anyone?”
Respondents ranged from those with six-figure earnings that allowed them to buy a home for their parents to those who see themselves in a stagnant situation primarily due to low-paying jobs.
“The one idea that none of the respondents questioned was the cultural imperative of the immigrant bargain, the idea of taking care of your parents. Some might expect this ‘burden’ to feed resentment, but none of my respondents expressed any such feelings,” Reyes said.
“For many Latinx millennials, providing for parents has constrained their mobility trajectories. Yet this constraint is perceived as an accomplishment.”
The Great Recession had a significant financial impact. Between 2007 and 2016, middle-income Latinx families faced a 55 percent loss in wealth, compared to a 31 percent loss for white middle-income families.
“Millennials are worse off economically than previous generations in terms of income, wealth, homeownership and debt,” Reyes said.
Sandra Baltazar Martínez is the senior communications manager at Latina Futures 2050 Lab.
