“A Home in the Homeland: Understanding Country-of-Origin Property Ownership among U.S. Latino Immigrants and the Second Generation”
Discussant: Dr. René Flores, Department of Sociology

Abstract

For immigrant families in the United States, owning property is not only an achievement of the “American Dream,” but is also long-term economic stability. However, this property ownership may also take place in the homeland. Using novel nationally representative survey data, this work investigates patterns of country-of-origin property ownership of Latino immigrants and the second generation. I find that U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants are more likely to own property in their familial countries of origin compared to the migrant generation. This property may be inherited or purchased and may occur for many reasons, each of which may shed light on the changing social and economic position of Latinos in the United States, including the importance of family care obligations and economic investment in homeland property ownership. Finally, this paper also models homeland property purchases by the Latino first and second generation, finding evidence for the importance of income, acculturation and identity in homeland property purchases—with different patterns for the first and second-generation.