Immigrant Generations
The term first-generation, as it pertains to a person's nationality or residency in a country, can imply two possible meanings, depending on context:
- A foreign born citizen or resident who has immigrated and been naturalized in a new country of residence.
- A naturally born citizen or resident of a country whose parents obey the previous definition, or
This ambiguity is captured and corroborated in The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "generation":
- ...designating a member of the first (or second, etc.) generation of a family to do something or live somewhere; spec. designating a naturalized immigrant or a descendant of immigrant parents, esp. in the United States.... (OED definition of "generation," section 6b., emphasis added)b
In the United States, among demographers and other social scientists, the term "first generation" is used to refer to foreign-born residents (excluding those born abroad of U.S. parents).
There is not a universal consensus on which of these meanings is always implied.
Read more about Immigrant Generations: 1.5 Generation, Second-generation Immigrant, 2.5 Generation, In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words immigrant and/or generations:
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
—Anonymous.
An axiom from economics popular in the 1960s, the words have no known source, though have been dated to the 1840s, when they were used in saloons where snacks were offered to customers. Ascribed to an Italian immigrant outside Grand Central Station, New York, in Alistair Cooke’s America (epilogue, 1973)
“The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,—a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,—to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)