Second Generation Migrants

This chapter considers the impact of recessionary conditions on immigrant incorporation and inclusion in Australia, with a special focus on the second generation. The complex question of how to best define the second generation is considered, along with an analysis of how particular historical and political contexts colour and shape interest in, and understandings of, immigrant generations. The bulk of the literature on second generation measures social inclusion through objective indicators of social mobility like education, employment and intermarriage. Indeed, there is little doubt that difficult economic conditions hinder the social and economic incorporation of both migrants and their children, in particular through lower rates of employment and higher costs of living, often leading to increased poverty and segmentation into the lower ends of the job market. This said, a fuller understanding of second-generation incorporation requires an analysis that goes beyond an examination of economic conditions to consider the subjective experiences of immigrant identity and belonging, which are equally relevant, although more difficult to measure and define. Of particular importance to the lived experiences and perceptions of belonging is the role of public sentiment towards immigrant groups. In this chapter I consider the impact of both economic conditions and public attitudes towards migrants on second-generation incorporation through a comparison of an older, long-established community, namely Italians in Australia, and a more recently arrived group—the Lebanese. Italians are thought to be well settled, with high rates of incorporation on all indicators, particularly for the second generation (Baldassar...

A obra descreve as práticas, as memórias e as representações sociais de imigrantes e descendentes de sírios e libaneses na cidade do Rio de Janeiro no que se refere à vida familiar, à trajetória de vida e às suas participações na vida social mais ampla. O foco da pesquisa é centrado no desempenho das atividades econômico-profissionais da chamada segunda geração da diáspora síria e libanesa, estabelecida
na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Ademais, o trabalho busca compreender, a partir dos relatos de vidas selecionados e colhidos entre 2002 e 2003 como fonte para esta pesquisa, as memórias individuais que se entrecruzam na construção de uma memória coletiva do grupo. Fontes documentais, tais como a pesquisa histórica, foram adicionadas às fontes orais, representadas por 27 entrevistas de imigrantes e de seus filhos nascidos no Brasil e que chegaram ao país na primeira metade do século XX. As narrativas estão organizadas em três blocos – profissionais liberais, comerciantes e mulheres. O trabalho destaca como conclusão que as tradições representadas pelo cotidiano da família sírio-libanesa mostram-se, para o grupo, como seu patrimônio mais relevante

The article discusses the second-generation immigrant’s capacity to aspire in Postcolonial Italy, starting from a research which took place in Reggio Calabria. After defining some key concept such as “Postcolonial Italy” and “capacity to aspire”, I present the main hypothesis, which consist in considering the capacity to aspire as a way of resistance to Italian colonial unconsciousness. The qualitative methodology applied to the research involved carrying out some in-depth interviews. Therefore, in the last paragraphs the empirical data are presented by quoting some of the interview extracts. The main issues concern: second-generation immigrants’ approach toward their future as young people; their specific life experiences as people with foreign origins; the role played by the southern context in their future projects. This exploratory research suggests that capacity to aspire is a mode of agency, because who aspires to something is also someone who wants to change his/her current condition. This behaviour seems to be quite common among the people interviewed.

En las ciudades rurales de California los remates  han jugado un papel muy importante para la población de inmigrantes que se han establecido alrededor de los valles agrícolas. Los trabajadores migrantes han encontrado en los remates no sólo un espacio donde comprar mercancías más baratas que las que se venden en las tiendas y un lugar donde pasar su tiempo libre comiendo comida típica mexicana y oyendo mariachis, sino también un espacio donde probar su suerte como pequeños y medianos comerciantes. En la mayoría de los puestos la contribución del trabajo de los hijos durante el verano y los fines de semana es muy importante para su éxito. El presente articulo tiene como objetivo mostrar, desde la perspectiva de los jóvenes, sus experiencias como pequeños comerciantes de origen mexicano. Me centro en aquellas muchachas y muchachos que han decidido permanecer en los remates como vendedores y seguir los pasos de sus padres. Analizo los conflictos y obstáculos  que se les han presentado en sus vidas, las estrategias que utilizan para enfrentarlos y resolverlos y las expectativas que tienen para su futuro.

This Master’s thesis examined identity and belonging in second-generation Bosnians born in the Netherlands. Currently, there is a nativist perspective prevalent in the Netherlands. This nativist perspective considers people who were ‘first there’ a native of a country. This perspective is translated in the binary used to differentiate between natives and non-natives, namely ‘autochthone’ for a person without a migrant background and ‘allochthone’ for a person with a migrant background. While it is never explicitly mentioned, natives are assumed to be white, Christian citizens without a migration background. A striking question that could follow out of this is: where does this place white migrants with a variety of religious beliefs? An example is Bosnians in the Netherlands. Bosnians are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious group, consisting of Muslim Bosniak, Catholic Bosnian Croats, and Orthodox Bosnians Serbs. During the violent war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that lasted from 1992 until 1995, many Bosnians fled the country and ended up staying in the Netherlands. Today, there is a Bosnian community in the Netherlands with a growing second-generation. While they are considered to be a successful group because of high education levels and low unemployment levels, how does this group experience the Netherlands themselves?

This thesis investigated self-reported identity, belonging, and possible factors that influence identity and belonging. This led to three research questions: How are identity and sense of belonging conceptualized in second-generation Bosnian migrants in the Netherlands? What factors influence identity and sense of belonging for second-generation Bosnian migrants? How do identity and belonging differ between the ethno-religious groups in second-generation Bosnian migrants? To answer these questions, 15 Bosnians born in the Netherlands were interviewed. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with five Bosnian Serbs, five Bosniaks, and five Bosnian Croats. Questions asked about identity, home, sense of belonging, and possible transnational relations that impact identity and belonging.

As for sense of belonging, findings showed that all second-generation Bosnians experience a feeling of being ‘in-between borders’ or in ‘no-man’s-land.’ Both countries feel like home, but neither country feels like home at the same time. As for identity, findings showed that Bosnians use different labels to identify themselves. Possibilities are Bosnian Dutch, Dutch Bosnian, (Bosnian) Serb Dutch, (Bosnian) Croat Dutch, (Bosnian) Serb, (Bosnian) Croat, and Dutch. The majority of second-generation Bosnians used a label that was a combination of a Bosnian and Dutch identity. Even the people who used an identity label that contained one country, all of the interviewees expressed being a product of both countries. So, both countries matter inbelonging and identity formation. However, it often is a feeling of being in-between identities and in-between countries. There are differences found between the three ethno-religious groups. Compared to the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, Bosniaks did not use ‘Dutch’ as their identity label. Bosniaks either identified as Bosnian or Bosnian Dutch. Bosniaks also shared that religion is an essential factor to explain feelings of non-belonging in the Netherlands. Thus, while all second-generation Bosnians experience feelings of not belonging in both countries, being Muslim is a crucial factor in this feeling of non-belonging for Bosniaks in the Netherlands. Out of these findings, it can be concluded that the nativist perspective plays a role in the conceptualization of identity and belonging in second-generation Bosnians in the Netherlands. Being a white Christian Dutch citizen with a Bosnian background results in feelings of non-belonging, but this particularly seems the case for white Muslim Dutch citizens with a Bosnian background. The possible explanation for these findings is that the stigmatization and criminalization of Muslims in the Netherlands lead to being treated as a non-native Dutch citizen and therefore to feeling like a non-native Dutch citizen. So, considering Dutch citizens with a migrant background and particularly Muslim Dutch citizens with a migrant background as non-natives result in feelings of being in ‘no-man’s-land.’

The principal originality of this article lies in the analysis on ethnicity and identity in an under-explored geographical/ethnic context, that is the Greek second generation in Italy. Through a field research, the article analyses second generation Greek migrants' process of identity construction, highlighting the emergence of a network of multiple and hybrid belongings as well as a combination of identities and dialectical positions. The field research findings show that hybrid belongings contradict the idea of cultural purity by revealing that all cultures are hybrid all along. In fact, self-representation and self-identification of the Greek second generation challenge traditional paradigms of ethnicity entailing a reworking of pre-existing hybridity rather than any simple combination of Italian and Greek identities. Another key argument that emerged from this fieldwork is the importance of the specific context, positions and conditions in which hybridity operates.

L'articolo affronta gli intrecci tra dimensione di genere e interculturalità con attenzione particolare ai percorsi educativi e scolastici.


The article deals with the intertwining of the gender dimension and interculturality with particular attention to educational and scholastic pathways.

This study explores how different forms of ethnic-specific networks and ties influence realized educational mobility – and subsequently occupational mobility– among a group of highly educated Turkish Belgian women. Analysis of interview data with thirty highly-educated Turkish Belgian women focuses on their experiences of how various forms of ethnic-specific networks developed opportunities and/or barriers for educational and occupational success, and the importance of structural features in which these networks are embedded. The findings suggest that the importance and influence of co-ethnic networks and ties can change over time and in relationship to different (inter-related) forms of social mobility.

The his article examines the mobility aspirations of France’s high-achieving second-generation Maghrebi migrants. Drawing on in-depth, open-ended interviews with students and graduates of grandes ecoles, prestigious higher education institutions, it delves into the career trajectories they intend to embark on beyond the French borders. Three distinct mobility projects are envisioned by the respondents. While some contemplate intensifying their ties with their parents’ homeland, others envisage moving to a ‘third space’ in which they have commonly lived during their studies and established strong connections. Another group of informants seek to set up hyper-mobile careers spanning multiple global-cities. The article suggests that the threat of discrimination and the desire to defy the nation-based assimilationist rhetoric frame the desire to set up transnational pathways. It further disentangles the role of educational resources, social capital in the places envisioned, as well as gender processes in informing these distinctive ways of engaging with the transnational among second-generation migrants. Lastly, the article examines the specific trajectories of respondents who intend to remain in France.

The study investigates the effect that religious social capital has in the political integration of second-generation Ghanaians in Amsterdam. The ethnographic research was carried out in the religious field of some African Initiated Christian churches in Amsterdam. Data were drawn from life history interviews of fifty second generation Ghanaians and in-depth interviews of nine representatives of African Initiated Christian churches as well as participant observation and informal interviews. The research revealed that bonding as well as bridging social capital generated within the religious field enhance voter turnout. We also found that there were traces of ethnic voting pattern as well as religiously induced voting behaviour. Moreover, the manifestation of institutionalised and individualised religiosity in less conventional and conventional forms of political participation among the respondents raised questions about the unidirectional shift in secularisation in mainstream Dutch society.

Since the Archives Act of 1983 Australia's Second World War internees have had access to their wartime files, yet little attention has focused on whether they and their families have consulted these records, or on their responses to them. From the early 2000s historians and archivists began discussing the need for combining private oral testimony with official records as part of a wider discourse on the importance of life stories for deepening knowledge about the past. This article explores the impact of a father's official internment records on his son, through the son's sharing of memories, lived experience and his reactions to official documents, in order to provide a more complete story of his father's internment and life than either the public record or the oral testimony alone can produce. We argue that Sam Ragonesi's oral testimony, especially concerning his encounter with Salvatore Ragonesi's official records, contributes to a greater shared understanding of experiences of war on the home front by integrating social, cultural and family dimensions hidden from Salvatore's public history. In this way intergenerational experiences help both to contest the collective image of internment and create a more complex picture of the War.

Les enfants issus de la mobilité internationale ont acquis
des compétences de médiation et d’empathie par
leur socialisation ; ils ont aussi appris à penser leurs
divers territoires d’appartenance simultanément et
savent qu'il y a diverses solutions à un même problème –
une connaissance de la relativité de la vérité. Ces enfants
sont, sans forcément le savoir, une élite capable
de relier ensemble, dans des projets communs, des
groupes et des personnes qui se distinguent par leur
idéologie, philosophie ou religion. Pour dépasser l'expression
désuète d’orientation assimilatrice de
deuxième génération, nous proposons d’appeler simplement
ces enfants, issus de la mobilité internationale,
la jeunesse globale.

This article suggests an approach to the Eastern Europe young migrants and their life experiences gathered from the stories of their parents, who are the family migration project initiators. On this basis of analysis we gather ethnic information
collected using a qualitative methodology, it follows a series of links to acculturative processes and identity of the second generation. This concludes that young migrants are directed toward an integrated and satisfactory multicultural profile.

The main aim of the Handbook is to provide ‘lessons learned’ and good practices drawn from the experience of Municipalities and associations in all partner countries. The Handbook’s parts are based on the outcomes of eight transnational meeting hosted by project partners and the great work done in each country by the local teams. The first part briefly presents the project and its main activities.  The second part describes the main results of the survey including young people point of view on European citizenship, integration of migrants and ethno-cultural discriminations. In the third part of the handbook there are some significant good practices, as concrete examples from different areas of immigrant integration, that have been collected by local teams and presented during the transnational  meetings.

In response to several special characteristics of the so-called" new immigration" and to the well-known weaknesses of classical assimilation theory, several theoretical suggestions have recently been made and discussed, including, in particular, the" Theory of Segmented Assimilation" and the" New Assimilation Theory." In addition to the (classical) structural outcome of assimilation, these theories assume two other possible outcomes: ethnic stratification as the enduring social descent of following generations and selective ...

Which were the main migration flows that characterized the Greek diaspora in Italy in the twentieth century? Which Hellenic communities have left significant historical footprints in Italian cities? How do Greek second generation members claim an emotional attachment to their ancestral land and define their sense of Greekness? Can the Greek origins and the search for cultural roots or family history prompt the children of Greek immigrants in Italy to consider Greece as a place of a possible “ancestral return”? In this book the two authors attempt to answer these and other questions, starting with the need to provide a contribution to the studies on contemporary Hellenic diaspora in Italy, subject not yet adequately covered by social and historical disciplines. In the first part of the volume, through unpublished documentation from Greek and Italian archives, the authors reconstruct historically the Greek diaspora in Italy focusing on the flows of the second half of the twentieth cen...

Nell’ambito della socio-linguistica del contatto, diversi studi hanno analizzato quali fattori sociali e linguistici sono in grado di favorire la produzione e riproduzione di una varietà etnica della lingua, conosciuta anche come ethnolect o multi-ethnolect [1], ossia quella varietà linguistica parlata da un determinato gruppo culturale e/o etnico. Ad esempio, numerose ricerche sono state condotte sull’African American English, una varietà linguistica dell’inglese parlata da molti afro-americani negli Stati Uniti, rispetto alla quale Lisa Green, nel suo libro African American English: A linguistic introduction, evidenzia come tale varietà sia associata a particolari modelli fonologici, morfologici, sintattici, semantici e lessicali [2]. È per questa ragione che sarebbe dunque erroneo definirlo come una mera versione incorretta dell’inglese mainstream [3].In ambito europeo, simili studi sono stati condotti sulle varianti multi-etniche del tedesco conosciute come Kiezdeutsche parlate da giovani di seconda generazione di origine turca ed araba [4], sviluppate dunque dal contatto tra la lingua del Paese di destinazione e quella di origine. Anche in Paesi di più recente immigrazione, quali l’Italia, sono state isolate varietà etniche della lingua. Così, in un’indagine empirica condotta a Torino con un gruppo di immigrate peruviane, Alessandro Vietti, ha messo in luce la presenza di una varietà peruviana dell’italiano, esito di un apprendimento imperfetto dell’italiano e del contatto tra ambienti culturali e linguistici distinti all’interno di un contesto urbano permeabile a ibridazioni linguistiche [5]. Accanto alle analisi dell’ethnolect, altre ricerche si sono incentrate sulle pratiche di ibridazione del linguaggio conosciute come code-switching (o commutazione del codice), in base alle quali, all’interno di una stessa conversazione, soggetti bi-lingue alternano le lingue usate [6]. Seppur meno strutturate rispetto all’ethnolect o multi-ethnolect menzionati precedentemente, tali pratiche di ibridazione sono spesso connesse; come sostenuto da Ad Backus, infatti, le varianti etniche stabili derivano da precedenti forme meno stabili di ibridazione del linguaggio. Di conseguenza, lo studio di questi casi incipienti di code-switching può fornire importanti indicazioni sulla formazione di varietà etniche della lingua più consolidate [7]. Nel suo studio sull’utilizzo alternato della lingua da parte di migranti bilingue residenti in Portorico, ad esempio, Shana Poplack identifica tre forme di code-switching (commutazione inter-frasale, commutazione intra-frasale e commutazione extra-frasale)[8], alle quali le persone bilingue o multilingue fanno ricorso, più o meno coscientemente, per svariati motivi, come confermato da successive ricerche in differenti contesti sociali: tra questi, per riempire lacune lessicali o per riformulare una frase in una lingua laddove la persona non sia in grado di portarla a termine nell’altra lingua [9]; per indicare l’intenzione di includere una persona nella conversazione o, al contrario, per escluderne altre; per segnalare l’appartenenza identitaria ad un gruppo ibrido di parlanti bilingui o multilingui [10]; o, infine, per generare un effetto umoristico [11].

Per contro, meno attenzione ha ricevuto ad oggi lo studio di queste pratiche di ibridazione del linguaggio adottate all’interno del contesto familiare da parte di membri della stessa generazione e membri di differente generazione. Ciò pare ancora più rilevante nel caso italiano, dove l’analisi di tali pratiche pare particolarmente carente. Presentando le pratiche di ibridazione del linguaggio dei membri delle prime e seconde generazioni e degli individui di generazione 1.5 di origine marocchina residenti in Italia, tale contributo si propone di mettere in luce quali forme di ibridazione del linguaggio inter-generazionale ed intra-generazionale vengono prodotte e ri-prodotte all’interno della comunità marocchina in Italia, tenendo in conto i differenti livelli di competenza linguistica dell’italiano e arabo, e quali funzioni svolgono all’interno del contesto familiare.

Greece has recently seen intense internal debate over “second-generation” migrants and their right to citizenship. The country’s citizenship code, launched in 2010 by the center-left government, introduced citizenship not only as part of
state sovereignty but also as a right for those meeting certain criteria. However, in early 2013, key provisions of the law were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the Greek “national community” should be protected from losing its character. As a result of this ruling, hundreds of
thousands of children of migrant origin do not today have a right to Greek citizenship. The naturalization process will, moreover, remain extremely difficult and expensive for them when they become adults. This article argues for a new
politics of citizenship that promotes citizenship participation, approaching citizenship as a practice of freedom and not only as a legal relation defined by the state.

The concept of international migration has drawn the attention of scholars and researchers for many years. The expansion of the EU and the implications that followed have had a profound impact on the ever increasing understanding of a multifaceted concepts of mobility, transnationalism and labour migration. The post-2004 migration of Polish nationals to Ireland is quite extensively covered by established literature, however, previous researches have focused primarily on periods of Irish economic boom and early years of the economic decline. Polish professionals and their career trajectories during the recession attracted only a handful of academics. This dissertation explores the employment strategies and tactics that have dominated the professional lives of Polish migrants during these times and what effect it had on the development of their career trajectories over the years. Through an in-depth interviewing and thematic analysis of eight personal narratives, this study sought to explore how the economic recession influenced the change in concepts like aspirations, goals and ambitions. The three main, multi-layered and overarching abstractions of ‘chance/opportunity’, ‘drive’ and ‘transition’ have exposed the justifications and reasoning that the participants have adopted to survive the difficult economic times. The findings of this study proved that Polish migrants belong to a group of EU migrants who, despite unfavourable economic conditions and geographical closeness of their home country, decided to remain in Ireland. Effectively, they gradually settled and progressed in their careers, often starting their own families, or in some cases opening their own businesses or buying property in Ireland. It concludes by highlighting a growing number of acculturated and assimilated Polish nationals in Ireland which should be the scope for further research in terms of industrial integration, career trajectories and integration of second generation of EU migrants in Ireland.

This paper attempts to make a contribution to the niche area of roots tourism and the broader nexus of tourism and migration, in particular to the literature on roots tourism among second generation, which has only recently attracted scholarly attention. Despite a gradual increase in scientific contributions on roots tourism, most of the literature has focused on the experiences of the first, second and later generations as a single phenomenon. The principal originality of this work lies in the analysis on roots tourism in an under-explored geographical/ethnic context, that is Greek second generation in Italy. The purpose of this study, which is based on an analysis method that combines structured questionnaire data with life stories collected through in-depth interviews, is to analyse the relationship between second-generation Greek migrants’ attachment to the birth-country of their parents and their homeland travel. Specifically, frequency and reasons for their travelling, self-perception during their stay in Greece and their definition of ‘home’ are investigated. The results of the study show that frequent journeys to Greece are crammed with a much deeper meaning as they are transnational practices aimed at visiting relatives and friends, the desire to find cultural roots and relocating cultural identity.

L’objectif du projet intitulé Displaced Objects (D.O.), paraphrasant la désignation de Displaced Persons (D.P),  est de collecter de courts textes rendant compte d’objets singularisés par une expérience, celle de l'exil.
Le principe est simple et ouvert à tous : choisir un objet (matériel, littéraire, cinématographique, artistique, muséal) et dérouler une expérience de l'exil.