Roots and Routes: Understanding the Lives of the Second Generation Transnationally

Abstract While using a transnational optic to study first-generation immigrants is now widely accepted, most scholars assume that the same approach is not necessary when studying migrants’ children. They claim that, while immigrants might be involved in the economic, political and religious life of their homelands, their children are unlikely to follow suit. In this paper I argue against summarily dismissing the power of being raised in a transnational social field. When children are brought up in households that are regularly influenced by people, objects, practices and know-how from their ancestral homes, they are socialised into its norms and values and they learn how to negotiate its institutions. They also form part of strong social networks. While not all members of the second generation will access these resources, they have the social skills and competencies to do so, if and when they choose. Capturing these dynamics, and tracking how they change over time, requires long-term ethnographic research in the source and destination countries. Keywords: ImmigrationTransnationalismSecond GenerationValuesGlobalisation Notes 1. For a more in-depth discussion of the study methodology, see Levitt (2007). 2. For a review of transnational migration scholarship to date, see Levitt and Jaworsky (Citation2007). 3. One notable exception is Haller and Landolt (Citation2005), who use the third wave of The Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) to explore the relationship between segmented assimilation, nationality, and identities and practices associated with transnationalism. They find that selective acculturation is associated with greater transnational involvement, and some evidence that downward assimilation is associated with higher rates of sending remittances among some nationalities. They argue that these findings are not contradictory; rather they are indicative of differences in transnational activism according to class, ethnicity and nationality. 4. There is a widespread perception among migration scholars that migration is a sacralising experience (Hirschmann Citation2004), but the context of reception also plays a significant role in how religious, or not, migrants become. The same Italians, for example, who became devout Catholics when they moved to the United States, became anarchists when they moved to Argentina (Casanova 2003). 5. One reason why this heightened religiosity is such a frequent topic of conversation is the widespread belief that non-resident Indians are politically and financially behind the recent rise in Hindu nationalism in India (see, for example, Blom Hansen Citation1991; Kurien Citation2001). 6. A traditional immigrant-receiving neighbourhood in Boston. Additional informationNotes on contributorsPeggy Levitt Peggy Levitt is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wellesley College and Research Fellow at Harvard University