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:
“Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“If the accumulated wealth of the past generations is thus tainted,—no matter how much of it is offered to us,—we must begin to consider if it were not the nobler part to renounce it, and to put ourselves in primary relations with the soil and nature, and abstaining from whatever is dishonest and unclean, to take each of us bravely his part, with his own hands, in the manual labor of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)