On the occasion of the Turin Welcome Day for the AY 2025/26, the NASP PhD program in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research (SOMET) is glad to announce the

SEMINAR
 

Dreams Achieved and Denied:
Mexican Intergenerational Mobility

Keynote speaker

Robert Courtney Smith
Graduate Center - Central University of New York

Chair
Giovanni Semi
University of Turin

21 January 2026, h. 10:00
Room 3D2 33 | Dept. of Cultures, Politics and Society
Campus Luigi Einaudi
University of Turin
Lungo Dora Siena, 100 - Turin

Abstract

U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City have experienced one of the largest single-generation mobility gains in U.S. immigration history, with college graduation rates far exceeding national averages for the second generation. This study investigates how this exceptional upward mobility occurred. Drawing on more than twenty years of longitudinal ethnographic research with nearly one hundred children of Mexican immigrants, it shows how legal status, public policies, and family strategies shaped their trajectories from adolescence into adulthood. Overall, it reveals how U.S.-born Mexicans in New York achieved historic upward mobility and demonstrates the powerful role inclusive public policy can play in improving the lives of immigrant youth and families.