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119 Chapter 5 Dreams and Disappointments A lthough the specific motivations for migration may vary from person to person, most Latin American immigrants have one broad goal in common in coming to the United States: one way or another, they are seeking to improve their lives. It is the details that differ. Whether they are pushed out by poverty and violence or pulled in by economic opportunity and family ties north of the border, migrating to the United States usually involves some dream of self or family improvement. Indeed, our respondents often referred to their “dreams” in talking about their decision to migrate to the United States, and one person explicitly referred to the “American Dream.” The dream metaphor implies some kind of cognitive comparison of conditions at home and abroad. In the interviews we therefore directly asked respondents to describe their perception of opportunities in the United States versus their country of origin; this question yielded a rich body of qualitative data on what immigrants expected to achieve by migrating to the United States. Dreams are always tempered by reality, however, and in chapter 4 we found that most immigrants reported being mired in a succession of low-wage jobs that offered little stability, few benefits, and limited prospects for advancement. Thus, after discussing opportunities in the United States, we also asked respondents to reflect on the inequalities they perceived in the United States versus their origin country. By asking this question, we sought to learn about the constraints on social mobility they perceived before and after migration; delving further into possible gaps between their dreams and realities, we also asked respondents whether they had experienced discrimination in the United States. Answers to these three questions enable us to assess both the dreams and disappointments faced by immigrants in the United States. 120 Brokered Boundaries dreams of opportunity One section of the interview guide leads off with the question: “In terms of opportunities, do you see more here or there?” In the context of the interview, “here” clearly referred to the United States and “there” to the country of origin. We deliberately left the term “opportunities” undefined in order to let respondents tell us which opportunities were most salient to them. Given the salience of economic motivations, as noted in the last chapter, it is not surprising that the vast majority of respondents defined opportunities in economic terms: 85 percent cited earnings opportunities , and 2 percent mentioned work or career opportunities, in comparison with 6 percent who mentioned personal growth or fulfillment and 1 percent each who referred to educational opportunities and political issues. Roughly 6 percent did not offer a usable answer to the question. Whatever the specific definition of opportunities, respondents generally saw more of them in the United States than at home. Table 5.1 shows the distribution of answers to our query about where opportunities were seen to be greatest. Overall, 81 percent said that opportunities were greater in the United States, compared with just 4 percent who judged them to be more abundant at home and 9 percent who indicated that they were the same in both places. A key component of the immigrant dream, therefore, is the conceptual framing of the United States as a land of opportunity. Although the perception of greater opportunity in the United States was slightly more common among documented migrants (88 percent) than among undocumented migrants (80 percent), it was nonetheless very high in both cases. In describing the greater economic opportunities here, one prominent theme was the drawing power of the dollar, which we take to refer to the comparative value of dollar-denominated earnings. A Brazilian man, for example, was adamant in his perception that there is more opportunity “here . . . because here the dollar, the dollar commands capitalism throughout the world. Only for this reason.” A young Brazilian woman was more ambivalent; she noted that in the United States there are only “a few more opportunities” for work, and that although economic conditions in Latin America are “very difficult and things are very bad . . . it’s not always so great here either.” She concluded, however, that “always there are the dollars.” Although a male respondent from Argentina did not mention dollars explicitly, he nonetheless concluded that “there are many, many, many more possibilities to earn more money here.” A Venezuelan man similarly noted that “here at least, even if you work in a small shop, you earn something,” though he also underscored the key importance of...

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