Generational Precarity Ripples: Legal Status, Economic Mobility, and Well-being Within and Across Generations

The question of Latino families’ social and economic inclusion within and across generations is pressing given the group’s status as the nation’s largest minoritized segment of the US population. Today, Latinos make up three quarters of the approximately 11.2 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Many Latinos live in families where legal status differs within and across generations and within what we refer to as a system of “long-term illegality.” This chapter argues that long-term illegality is a mechanism that shapes family relationships and dynamics and affects immigrants’ prospects of economic mobility and well-being not just within the immigrant generation but also across generations. In this chapter, we argue that the precarity of unauthorized status among first-generation immigrants ripples across generations to impact the lives of the second and even third generation, including those who have attained middle-class status. We refer to these inherited hardships as “generational precarity ripples.” We spotlight two cases—middle-class Latinos and unaccompanied migrant youth workers—to advance the concept of generational precarity ripples by exploring how long-settled illegality and precarity affect immigrant families’ prospects of economic mobility and well-being across generations. We argue that granting legal status is one policy intervention that can stabilize immigrant families, with profound effects across generations.