Mobility Trajectories and Family Dynamics: History and Generation in the New York Immigrant Experience

This article provides a comparative historical analysis that looks at two dynamic aspects of the immigration process linked to generation—the socioeconomic mobility paths of the children of immigrants and relations between immigrant parents and their children. The focus is on New York City and on two historical eras: the last great wave of immigration from roughly 1880 to the early 1920s and the contemporary wave from the late 1960s to the present. The historical comparative perspective illuminates how, and to what extent, changing receiving contexts affect aspects of the immigrant experience as they relate to a range of generational dynamics. The comparison of second-generation socioeconomic trajectories in the past and present reveals the various constraints and opportunities in different historical periods, while also bringing out similarities and differences in the two eras. It also makes clear the need to consider the distinctive experiences of age cohorts among the second generation in analyzing socioeconomic mobility. With regard to intergenerational relations, the past–present comparison helps to specify the factors shaping relations between immigrant parents and their US-born children that are distinctive to the present era, and those that seem to be a constant. The concluding section offers additional reflections on generational issues, including the prospect that age cohort differences will be increasingly relevant among immigrants and the second generation in the years to come.