Abstract
In this paper we analyze Latino and American identities as perceived by first and second generation immigrants to the United States. Disposable cameras were handed out to a small set of subjects, who were asked to take pictures of whatever, to them, seemed American and Latino as they went through their daily lives. The resulting set of 115 American images and 134 Latino images suggest that Latin American immigrants see a great contrast in the content of the two identities. Subjects viewed American identity as having to do with bigness and power and they saw Americans as being in constant motion and in a hurry, competitive and commercial, and cold, distant, and impersonal. In contrast, subjects viewed Latino identity as focused on people and composed of intimate social relationships. The building blocks of Latino identity, according to our respondents, appear to be work, home, and Latin American cultural symbols.
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Notes
The project is entitled “Transnational identity and behavior: An ethnographic comparison of first and second generation Latino immigrants.”
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Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is currently President of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences and Past-President of the American Sociological Association and the Population Association of America. His most recent book is Chronicle of a Myth Foretold: The Washington Consensus in Latin America, coedited with Jere Behrman and Magaly Sanchez R and published as a special issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
Magaly Sanchez R has been a Professor of Urban Sociology at the Instituto de Urbanismo at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and at the moment she is Senior Research in the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Her recent research focuses on the expansion of Urban Violence In Latin America, as well as on International Migration, and the formation of Transnational Identities among Latinos in United States.
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Massey, D.S., Sanchez R, M. Latino and American Identities as Perceived by Immigrants. Qual Sociol 30, 81–107 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-006-9052-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-006-9052-7