Daniel B. Stuart 

“I Don’t Want Them to Have It Like I Had It”: Intergenerational Crisis Within The Immigrant Experience

Is prosperity a cyclical phenomenon? It certainly seems an observable fact. Within multiculturalism, immigration and society at large, the variance in economics as well as lifestyle tends to abide by a loosely identifiable pattern: lack leads to industry which promotes wealth which necessitates leisure which (often) devolves back into lack. It’s a running theme, not only within popular thought and sociology but in the broader range of literature and immigrant studies. But is it a characteristic solely pertaining to foreign immigrants, or is it merely a condition centered in the social strata of common demographics?

The story is almost a saga: the poor immigrant crossing geographic and cultural barriers to gain access to available prosperity. Having arrived penniless, he or she achieves the American Dream with industrious, enterprising labor, the fruits of which are bequeathed to his or her offspring with the intention shielding them from the hardships associated with “lack” and fully enabling them to enrich their lives at a level formerly unobtainable to the original immigrant progenitor. It was these same resources and lifestyle accoutrements, held on to by the dominant culture, that were off-limits to the individual upon arrival. If indeed he could achieve so much with limited options, there’s no telling what the subsequent generation, the “American” generation, can accomplish. It doesn’t always work out; in many cases, it backfires. When the money’s squandered away, the resources abused, mishandled or simply untended by the second generation, what does the American Dream have to show for itself? The toil of one generation is wasted upon the next; the dream is distorted as dissension emerges among families and within the broader culture.

“I should have never let him go to college,” Senor Martinez says in “El Patron,” referring to his son, Tito, a rebellious, non-assimilating character with his own ideas about the American Dream (Brown, 223). He sounds much the same is James Tyrone Sr.’s beleaguered harping on the situation of his eldest son whom he sees, not without some ambiguity, as a drunken, ungrateful profligate who never even tried to reach his potential. This type of irreverence, perceived on the part of the older generation as insubordination and even insolence, decries not only the shared values of the model minority and assimilated immigrant, but a degeneration of character and even a defective “reaffirmation” of particular ancestral lineage. It doesn’t just cause a rift between parents and children, it reconsiders the immigrant experience and the American experience altogether.

Mary Waters, a sociology professor at Columbia, speaks about second generation black immigrants in New York City actually “de-assimilating.” Many factors are undertaken, but the primary indicators point to a growing identity of second generationers as “black Americans” rather than “American immigrants.” Ethnic factors contribute to the divide but evidence also points to economic and social distinctions. “Children of first generation West Indian immigrants are more likely to find solidarity within the community,” states Waters (Waters, 802). It is indeed a community which may not identify itself with the dominant culture and even makes efforts to rebel from the model minority concept. Darrell Lubotsky of the NCCP (National Center for Children in Poverty) agrees, summarizing that second and even third generation immigrants into the US are more comfortable with their surroundings and more likely to “engender themselves with the American culture” (Lubotsky, 76). Other numerous studies and obvious examples point to a more universal common denominator, one discussed earlier as a simply economic model of transition, but which must be reiterated in more frank terms as general laziness and complacency. The “work-ethic gap” isn’t even a necessarily immigrant or generational phenomenon but a fully Americanized symptom (Miller). Americans, very much often more so than their foreign counterparts, simply lack the drive to learn, to work, to get ahead and to excel.

Of course, “de-assimilating” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “non-achievement” or backward progress. Tito, after all, isn’t without his convictions. He wants his life to make a difference and seems motivated to put his somewhat rebellious ideals into action. Life is more than money and comfort for characters like Tito and Jamie. And while appearing selfish and ungrateful, such “de-assimilation” isn’t necessarily unproductive though it would seemingly be bereft of capitalizing upon “the edge” afforded them by their parents efforts. Jamie, as has been pointed out by Harold Bloom among others, is the “least deluded” and, in his way, the most unafraid and most understanding of the world around him (Bloom, 13). It is he, more than his father, more than his mother and brother, who knows best that money and its accommodating freedoms can never altogether fulfill the “lack” in life which poverty certainly necessitates but cannot eradicate or even elucidate entirely.

Individualist definitions of substance and significance are marginal in America, howver. In our world of success defined by upward mobility and outwardly perceivable merit, any theoretical truths about life’s misgivings, its lack and deficiencies as well as its gifts and treasurables are irrelevant. Abstract principles of existential crisis and political reforms are subjugated to the more practical realities of economic stability. Real success, real achievement involves money, power and respect--likely in that order. Without one or all of these three components, the American experience can be comparable to a failure, tantamount even to betrayal when the former generation--the original pioneer, the paterfamilias--has sacrificed all and risked failure, much of it out of necessity it must be said, to get a piece of the pie and ensure that his descendants are equipped to sustain the effect. Within this very well-observed characteristic of our society and our culture, “I don’t want them to have it like I had it” can almost be deemed a self-defeating concept.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. 1999. Modern Critical Interpretations: Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Bloom’s Critical Editions, 2nd ed: 11-13.

Brown, Wesley, and Amy Ling. 1991. Imagining America: stories from the promised land. New York: Persea Books: 220-228.

Lubotsky, Darren. 2002. Children of Immigrants: A Statistical Profile. National Center for Children in Poverty. Columbia: Mailman School of Public Health: 1-8.

Miller, Karen. 2011. “My Lazy American Students” Boston Globe. Online. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1

Waters, Mary C. 1994. Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second Generation Black Immigrants in New York City. International Migration Review 28, no. 4: 795-820.