Some thoughts about Latino immigrants and class, By Miriam (Feministing)

Jack has a great post up at AngryBrownButch (and Feministe) about a new Demos report on the instability of the Black and Latino middle class. Jack shares some really interesting insights from childhood, and it inspired me to share some of my own thoughts.

From the report:

African-American and Latino families have more difficulty moving into the middle class, and families that do enter the middle class are less secure and at higher risk than the middle class as a whole. Overall, more African-American and Latino middle-class families are at risk of falling out of the middle class than are secure. This is in sharp contrast to the overall middle class, in which 31 percent are secure and 21 percent are at risk.
My parents are Cuban exiles, who immigrated here in the 60s shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. The reason why class has such different implications for immigrant families in the US is because they bring their class histories with them from their countries of origin.

Some immigrants come to the US to flee poverty, others are forced to leave behind relative wealth in their home countries seeking safety in the US. My family left because of communism, and their inability to maintain ownership over their respective businesses. While my paternal grandfather was a wealthy businessowner in Cuba, my maternal grandfather owned a small modest cornerstore. Neither side was able to regain similar class positions after coming to the US. Money was really tight when they first came over (people were not allowed to bring any of their things, including money, with them when they left) and my paternal grandfather (who had been relatively wealthy in Cuba) never rose above lower middle class status (my best estimation, it's hard to really know) in the United States. This was partially because he held onto the dream of returning to Cuba (as so many Cuban exiles did). For most of his life in the US he sold used cars for a living, and my grandmother (who had never worked before) worked as a secretary in a local school in Miami.

My parents and their siblings have all dealt with class in different ways. My mother's sisters became really wealthy, by marriage and entrepreneurship. Business and wealth are really important to them, and as someone who works in non-profits it's a struggle to relate to my cousins on that side. My parents took the education route, and are both college professors. They each have very different financial situations (now divorced) but we never had to deal with the fear of real poverty because of the security and stability that tenure and academia afford. They have always had trouble relating to their parents and siblings, who don't understand what they do and look down on them as simply "teachers."

It still remains to be seen how these things will affect my generation in my family, the first generation US citizens. We are all learning really different lessons about class from our parents and society in general.

**Artcile Link