Introduction
The socio-political and economic plights of the immigrants have been a subject of social research for a long time; the immigrants are considered the “lowest” cadre in the social stratum in the United States. Their living conditions reveal an unprecedented poverty.
This paper seeks to explore the plight of second generation immigrants as compared to the first generation, and to highlight some of the factors that are contributing to the difference in the social well being between the first generation immigrants and the second generation immigrants, in other words, between parents and their children, who seem to be enjoying a relatively “higher” position in the society.
Such a tendency has been attributed to several factors. According to the US Census Bureau Data (2009), it was realised that the second generation immigrants enjoy more privileges in terms of education and health. They earn more and are better educated as compared to their foreign-born counterparts, which highlights the fact that life conditions have increased from the first to the second order of immigrants.
Immigration policy
American Immigration Policy, which sets laws and guidelines used for regulatory purposes, in my opinion, is the strongest factor explaining the socio-economic difference of the second generation immigrants.
The level of achievement of the second generation immigrants can be attributed to the immigration policies. The American immigration policy stresses out the fact that anyone who is born on the American territory automatically becomes a citizen of the US; the US citizenship comes with numerous other benefits from the government as opposed to non citizens. This scenario would obviously work for the benefit of the child since he would be entitled to a lot of privileges as opposed to the parents who are not original citizens of the US.
Social research shows that the Latino second class citizens have the highest enrolment rates in colleges and high school, which affirms the fact that the set policies play a key role. In the acquisition of their citizenship, the Latinos have continued to excel in their undertaking. According to statistics, it is projected that by 2017, there would have been plenty of multiracial Latinos in every key government position as compared to their present occupation of government positions.
Cultural assimilation
A conflict of cultures is predominant in the lives of the second generation population. The rate at which they adapt and stabilize themselves within the two different cultures attributes immensely to their relatively high level of success. Those who are able to freely blend and adapt to both cultures are more settled and are considered to be more successful as compared to those who take a lot of time to balance between the two cultures. Most second generation children are multilingual.
Nonetheless, they are subjected to humongous racism and segregation in the society as well, which means that these children become much more sensitive to various social phenomena; this sensitivity leads to an increased self motivation and awareness amongst the second generation, which in turn inflames their desire to achieve success against all odds confronting them.
Conclusion
The paper has exclusively explored some of the core reasons for a relatively high success of the second generation immigrants in comparison with their parents; it has established why the two mentioned factors have led to high achievement rates in the second generation immigrants and the social issues defining their achievements.