Contrasting the First with the Second Biological Generation

In this chapter, I compare here Generation 1 and Generation 2. Each of the previous two chapters begins with presentations of the life course of each of the six informants, enriched with extensive excerpts from the interview, thus “giving voice” to the categories and narrative emplotments s/he deploys in accounting for, legitimizing, and categorizing various events and inflection points of the past. Every life story can be read as a window onto a set of that age group’s trajectories as well as onto the worldview of the generation units that comprise it. I begin with an overview of the first generation, followed by a summary of my findings on the second generation. I conclude with an attempt to find patterns or frames that biological generation members have in common and which are distinct from the patterns or frames shared by individuals of the same ethnicity, class, or status but belonging to a different generation.