Qual Sociol (2007) 30:81107

DOI 10.1007/s11133-006-9052-7
ORIGINAL PAPER

Latino and American Identities as Perceived

by Immigrants
Douglas S. Massey Magaly Sanchez R.

Published online: 26 November 2006

C Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Abstract In this paper we analyze Latino and American identities as perceived by first and
second generation immigrants to the United States. Disposable cameras were handed out
to a small set of subjects, who were asked to take pictures of whatever, to them, seemed
American and Latino as they went through their daily lives. The resulting set of 115 American
images and 134 Latino images suggest that Latin American immigrants see a great contrast
in the content of the two identities. Subjects viewed American identity as having to do with
bigness and power and they saw Americans as being in constant motion and in a hurry,
competitive and commercial, and cold, distant, and impersonal. In contrast, subjects viewed
Latino identity as focused on people and composed of intimate social relationships. The
building blocks of Latino identity, according to our respondents, appear to be work, home,
and Latin American cultural symbols.
Keywords Latino . American . Identity perception . Immigrant . Youth

Much has been written by social scientists about ethnic identity. From a theoretical point of
view, Castells (1997) has argued that changes in social structure stemming from economic
globalization have reinforced the power of local identities among some classes of people, even
as these changes have created new composite global identities among others. Other scholars
have argued that the resurgence of international migration in the context of globalization
has created a new set of transnational identities that span two or more settings (GlickSchiller, Basch, & Blanc-Szanton, 1992), thus weakening the monopoly of the nation state
on cultural maintenance and identity formation (Basch, Glick-Schiller, & Blanc-Szanton,
1994; Sassen, 1996). Others argue that the consolidation of transnational solidarity influences
states from the outside. Even as transnational networks contribute to the formation of spatially
D. S. Massey (
) M. Sanchez R.
Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
e-mail: dmassey@princeton.edu
M. Sanchez R.
e-mail: magalys@princeton.edu
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dispersed communities, identity appears to be indispensable for negotiating with nation states
(Kastoriano, 2002). Whereas some celebrate this new hybridization of identities and cultures
(Ong, 1999), others find it threatening and alarming (Huntington, 2004).
Particular attention has focused on immigration as an agent of change in national identity (Fitzgerald, 1996; Akhtar, 1999; Kostakopoulou, 2001). Researchers argue about the
prevalence of transnational identities in an age of widespread immigration, and whether such
identities, if they indeed exist, will prove long-lasting or simply a transient stage in a broader
process of adaptation and incorporation. Whether transient or long-lasting, ethnic identities
are always constructed actively through an ongoing interaction between individuals and the
social structures they encounter. For our purposes, they are not primordial, but situational
and linked to specific historical and structural conditions negotiated by the immigrant.
Following Barth (1969), we view ethnic identity as a product of both ascription and selfdefinition. Immigrants bring to a receiving society their own expectations about what that
society is like and over time they learn about that societys preconceptions and stereotypes
about themselves. Though this two-way encounter, immigrants actively construct identity and
define for themselves the content of their new ethnicity, embracing some elements ascribed
to them by the host society and rejecting others, all while experiencing the constraints
and opportunities associated with their status as outsiders. At the same time, through their
daily interactions with native people and institutions, they construct an understanding of
host country identity, gradually piecing together a mental construct of meaning and content
(Barth, 1981).
Given this conceptualization, the realization of a full understanding of identity requires
not a listing of what outsiders, including social scientists, consider to be salient markers of
group identity, but a knowledge of the symbols that the immigrants themselves use to define
ethnic identity and the markers they use to draw boundaries between themselves and the
society they inhabit. For this reason, we developed a novel photographic methodology to
study the perceptions of Latino immigrants to the United States themselves. Specifically, we
gave disposable cameras to respondents and asked them to take pictures of people, things,
and objects in their daily environment that, to them, seemed American and Latino. We
then developed the film and examined the resulting images to discern the content of the two
sets of identities. Although this qualitative approach offers just one small window on the
construction of identity among Latinos in the United States, it nonetheless offers important
clues about how Latino migrants perceive American society and their place within it.

Theoretical perspectives
The issue of immigrant identity has been approached from three major theoretical viewpoints.
The oldest and best-known is the assimilation perspective, most recently expressed by Alba
and Nee (2005). They returned to assimilation theorys original formulation in the 1920s
by theorists of the Chicago School to strip away the functionalist baggage that the model
acquired in the 1940s and 1950s. According to them, assimilation occurs as immigrants
adopt the language, values, and beliefs of the host society and integrate within it socially,
economically, and residentially. The main variable of interest is not the fact of assimilation,
but the pace at which it occurs and a groups position with respect to mainstream society
at point in time. Rather than viewing assimilation as a one-way street, however, Alba and
Nee see immigrants as gradually changing U.S. society even as they themselves acquire an
American identity. Thus the American identity they construct partly reflects the influences
of current and past immigration itself.
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A second theoretical perspective stresses the resilience of ethnicity and the resistance of
immigrants to assimilation pressures. Although this line of theorizing has a long history
(cf. Glazer & Moynihan, 1970; Greeley, 1971; Novak, 1972), its most recent and
systematic formalization is by Portes and Zhou (1993), who argue that assimilation is not
linear and limited to variations in the rate of change over time, but is segmented by structural
features of the host society. Key factors structuring the reception of immigrants include:
government policies (whether favorable, neutral, or hostile), the societal response (whether
prejudiced or not), regional distribution (whether concentrated or dispersed), and the class
composition of the co-ethnic community (whether poor, working class, entrepreneurial, or
professional).
As elaborated by Portes and Rumbaut (1996, 2001), these structural factors act to determine the nature inter-generational acculturation: consonant (where immigrants and their
children simultaneously acquire the host language and culture), dissonant (where children
acquire language and culture much more rapidly than parents), and selective (where children maintain an immigrant culture while adopting certain aspects of the host culture). These
patterns of inter-generational acculturation, in turn, yield three potential paths of assimilation:
upward (associated with selective acculturation), mixed but mostly upward (derived from
consonant acculturation), and downward (associated with dissonant acculturation). Identity
is thus structurally contingent and not reducible to a simple dichotomy of assimilation versus
persistence.
The most recent perspective on immigrant identity argues that globalization offers a third
possibility for identity formation: the combination of elements from host and sending societies to create a new transnational identity (Glick-Schiller, Basch, & Blanc-Szanton, 1992;
Smith & Guarnizo, 1998; Levitt, 2001; Smith, 2005). According to this model, the circulation
of people, ideas, and objects back and forth through transnational networks changes social
structures and cultural forms in both origin and destination. Among immigrants doing the
circulating, meanwhile, it produces a hybrid identity incorporates elements of both settings
while standing apart from each one.
These three theoretical approaches yield different expectations about the content of Latino
and American identities among immigrants. Both classical assimilation theory and its segmented version predict separate and distinct identities, each with its own clearly discernable
symbols and content. Transnational theory, in contrast, predicts a blending of content and a
blurring of boundaries between immigrant and native and the creation of a new hybrid. Classical assimilation theory, for its part, predicts unidirectional assimilation and the construction
of an undifferentiated American identity built from symbolic and material elements taken
from mainstream U.S. society. In contrast, segmented assimilation allows for the possibility
of downward assimilation into oppositional identities that challenge mainstream precepts
(Suarez-Orozco & Paez, 2002).

Sample and data

The current analysis grows out of a larger study of immigrant identity that is, in turn, a subproject of an even larger multinational data collection effort. The Latin American Migration
Project and the Mexican Migration Project are funded by the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development to compile and disseminate detailed quantitative data on
documented and undocumented migration to the United States (see Durand & Massey, 2004;
Massey & Sana, 2004). In order to study identity formation as part of this larger project,
the Russell Sage Foundation provided supplemental funding for a subset of qualitative
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Table 1

Characteristics of sample for study of visual representations of Latino and American identity

Characteristics
Generation
First
Second
National origin
Mexican
Caribbean
Central/South America
Gender
Male
Female
Place
New York
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Total number

Photographer sample

Total ethnographic sample

40.0%
60.0

69.4
30.6

60.0
0.0
40.0

34.4
24.4
41.3

50.0
50.0

41.9
58.1

20.0
40.0
40.0

29.4
36.3
34.4

10

160

interviews, which yielded in-depth narratives gathered from 160 first and second generation
immigrant youths located in New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. These interviews
were transcribed and are now being analyzed to study the construction and reconstruction of
identities among Latino immigrants to the United States.1
In order access immigrant perceptions more directly, we also organized a small pilot
study to allow a sub-sample of these qualitative interviewees to show us themselves what
the concepts Latino and American mean to them. After the 160 interviews had been
completed, we selected a 10% systematic sub-sample of respondents, giving two disposable
cameras to every tenth person on the subject list. A total of 16 people were given the cameras,
each of which contained 27 exposures. One of the cameras had Latino written on it, and
the other was labeled American. Subjects were asked to take pictures of whatever they
saw in their daily lives that, to them, seemed to be Latino or American. They were told
to take as many pictures as they wished up to the maximum number of exposures on the
camera. No further instructions were issued.
Of the 16 respondents selected to participate in the photographic study, ten returned
cameras to us for a response rate of 62.5%. Table 1 shows selected characteristics of the final
sample of ten photographers compared with the full ethnographic sample of 160 respondents.
Compared with subjects on the sampling frame, those in the photographic sub-sample were
disproportionately of the second generation (60% versus 31%) and Caribbean respondents
are entirely absent, with their share being made up by Mexicans. Females are slightly
over-represented (58% compared with 40% on the sampling frame) but the distribution of
photographers by place roughly parallels that on the frame (allowing for small departures
owing to small numbers). What the resulting photographs yield, therefore, are the perceptions
of a non-random sample of first and second generation Mexicans and Central-South American
living in the New York-to-Philadelphia urban corridor.

1 The project is entitled Transnational identity and behavior: An ethnographic comparison of first and second
generation Latino immigrants.

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Whereas ten respondents returned the Latino cameras, however, only seven turned in
American cameras, suggesting that subjects found it more difficult to conceptualize an
American than a Latino identity. The three people who did not return American cameras
included a second generation Colombian from New York, a second generation Mexican from
New Jersey, and a first generation Ecuadorian from New Jersey. Only one respondent used all
of the exposures available, and even this person wasted several shots that could not be used
because of over- or under-exposure or blurriness. In total, the ten Latino cameras provided
134 usable, unique images and the seven American cameras provided 115 such images.
The photographs were scanned, digitized, and shrunk to a size where each subjects
American or Latino photographs fit on a single page for easy viewing and comparison (the
photos of the one person who shot out both rolls were contained on two pages). Looking over
the pictures, it quickly became apparent that a salient feature of their composition was the
extent to which they focused on people versus things. We went through the images and coded
them according to whether, in our judgment, the primary subject was a person or people.
Thus a street scene that contained people but did not focus on any particular person or
identifiable individuals was coded as focusing on the place rather than the people. However,
we also noted which images contained any versus no human beings whatsoever.
We then carefully examined the Latino and American images separately to discern key
themes and salient motifs. Prominent among the Latino images were pictures of Latin
American businesses, places of work, homes, and cars, with some references to gang symbols,
Latin cultural products, and schools. The leading categories of content that emerged from the
American images were marriage to an American, monumental architecture, street scenes,
cars, and American icons, with less frequent references to schools, American products,
commercial displays, and waste or abandonment.
In response to helpful suggestions from anonymous reviewers, as a last step we sought
to return to the original photographers and interview them about the content of the pictures
they had taken, and to explain why they picked specific images, locations, or themes.
Given the time that had elapsed between when the cameras were turned in and when we
sought the re-interviews (some 1011 months, from January to October-November of 2005),
some of the photographers had returned to their countries of origin and others had moved
away without leaving any contact information. In the end, we successfully re-interviewed
five of the ten original photographers: a second generation Mexican female and a second
generation Peruvian female from Philadelphia; a first generation Ecuadorian male and a
second generation Mexican male from New Jersey; and a second generation Colombian
male from New York.

The content of Latino identity

Table 2 presents a content analysis of Latino identity discerned from our repeated inspection
of the 134 Latino images in the data set. The top panel shows the breakdown of images
by whether the subject of the photo was a person or people versus places or objects. In
conceptualizing Latino identity, our subjects were clearly more people-focused: 62% of the
images had human beings as their primary subject matter. Latino identity thus appears to be
viewed something that is constructed through interrelationships with people. The fact that
7.5% of the images consist of a facial close-up suggests that the interpersonal construction of
identity is often personal and intimate. Only 38% of the images focused on places or objects,
most of which (a total of 31%) contained no discernable person anywhere in the photo.
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Table 2 Components of Latino identity coded from Latino pictures taken by 10 respondents to a larger
survey of 160 first and second generation Latino migrants in New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey
Content categories
Primary subject
People
Facial close-up
Places or objects
No people at all
Prominent themes
Interior of latin business
Places of work
People at work
Latin store front
Interior of home
Display of gang symbols
Latin products
Contains Cars
Taken from Cars
School settings
Total images

Number

Percentage

83
10
51
41

61.9
7.5
38.1
30.6

35
31
8
19
10
8
6
27
5
7

26.1
23.1
6.0
14.2
7.5
6.0
4.5
20.1
3.7
5.2

134

100.0

To gain additional insight into the importance of social elements in the perception of Latino
identity, we asked photographers to explain why people, faces, and close-ups appeared
so frequently in their pictures. In response, one of the photographers (second generation
Peruvian) said:
That. . .well I think it is because its our identity, our. . .as we see ourselves, we Hispanics
have our differences from the Americanswe are of different colors, of different faces,
different this and that. . . .but this is how we see ourselves.
Another of the photographers, a second generation Mexican from New Jersey also had
strong opinions on the subject. When asked why there were so many people in his pictures,
he said:
Respondent: Oh, one could think of many reasons. Perhaps because Hispanics or Latinos
are there to see. Wherever you look there are Hispanics, I would say. In other
words, the photo reflects the Latino community a lot. Americans. . . .are busy
in offices, here or there, and the photo very much. . . .
Interviewer: Maybe for Latinos its just easier to take photographs of each other. . .
Respondent: Yes, because they [the Americans] are also going places, whereas
Latinos. . .wherever you go there they are. Wherever you go to take a photo
there is one, two, or three Latinos. . . .. Or wherever you see something written
in Spanish, you always encounter some Latinos. Yes, because, well, Latinos
like being where other Latinos are. Photo or no photo. . . . whatever, whenever
you see one, you see another. . . . Latinos here are very open. If you say I want
to take your picture, they say okay. . .
Interviewer: Right away. . .
Respondent: But Americans ask what for? And they make questions: What is this? Am
I going to be in a book? They ask questions because they watch themselves a
lottheir identitiesthey watch themselves.
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Interviewer: Yes.
Respondent: But Hispanics what do they do? They say, okay, taking the photo is fine.
Without giving it a thought, because that how Latinos are. They are. . . they
give. . . they offer, well, whatever they have.
When asked specifically about close-ups, this is what another photographer, a first generation Ecuadorian from New Jersey, had to say:
Well, in reality all the photos are of faces. What happens is that Hispanics have a
spark of happiness, no? A smile, right? This is the difference between Hispanics and
Americans. For example, if you take a photo of a Latino, he smiles, but he doesnt smile
with a feigned smile, or a passing smile. . .its different. I imagine its because of. . .
their way of life. I dont know. Because we have different lives. They live one way; we
live another.
When we posed the question about the prevalence of people in pictures to the Mexican
photographer from Philadelphia, we got a similar response:
Okay, for sure life here in the United States is very different from what we experienced
in Mexico and, I imagine, other Latin American countries. There, family relations
are very strong from infancy until old age, one could say. The family is very united
and experiences a lot of closeness. Families at times have many members, um, and
live in rather close quarters for a family of eight or nine members. And this has a
psychological effect that makes us more sociable, more spontaneous, and more open to
communication. Perhaps for this reason, therefore, we wish to take pictures of people
to demonstrate Latin American identity.
In addition to the common presence of people in photos, another frequent image, comprising 26% of the total, was of the interior of some business oriented toward Latin American
consumers or products, such as a store specializing in Latin music, a supermarket selling
Latin American food products, or a Mexican restaurant. Indeed, one subject took all of his
Latino pictures in the Ecuadorian restaurant where he worked and another shot many within
a Latin music store where he was employed.
Two examples of this genre are shown in Fig. 1. In the top photo, a group of high school
cheerleaders, all apparently Latina, pose in an Ecuadorian restaurant while waiting for their
food (their drinks have already been served, notably all Coca Colas). In the bottom photo,
four Latinos pose inside of a Camden store specializing in Mexican cultural products (note
the sombreros, cowboy boots, and pinata in the background). These images suggest that food
constitutes a salient characteristic of Latino identity, an emphasis that was indeed highlighted
by our interviewees.
As one second generation Mexican from New York (not one of the photographers) said
when we asked what made him feel Latino:
Hmmm . . . my family, and the food I eat everyday.
And this is how a second generation Colombian from New York (another nonphotographer) put it:
Yes, traditions, music, food. All that is what makes me identified, so, as Latino.
Another, somewhat overlapping category focused on places of work in the United States,
which included a parking garage, a market, and various stores and restaurants. This content
category comprised 23% of the images, with 6% focusing on a specific person working or
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Fig. 1 Two images from Latino photos of businesses oriented toward Latin American consumers

posing at their job. The top photo in Fig. 2, for example, shows the interior of a parking
garage in Manhattan where one subject worked as a valet, and the bottom shows a Latin
American female migrant working as a dishwasher in a New Jersey restaurant.
Work-related images emerged as one of the most important and significant themes in
our ethnographic interviews as well. As a principal attraction for Latin American migrants,
workand getting ahead economicallythus appear to constitute a core feature of identity
in the United States. When we asked a first generation Colombian migrant in Philadelphia
(a non-photographer) what his ideals and dreams were in coming to the United States, he
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Fig. 2 Two Latino images of places of work in the United States

replied:
To work. [At home] I was working as a manager of a regional enterprise that started
to have economic problems. Cell phone companies began to lower salaries and to cut
personnel.
Likewise, a first generation Mexican migrant from New Jersey (non-photographer) said:
Well, I wanted to do a lot of things but it was not possible! (Interviewer: Like what?)
Like having a job for myself that would give me enough work so that I wouldnt have
to leave here. But no, that never happens.
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When the interviewer went on to ask, so you said your motivation for coming here was
basically to work? he elaborated:
Yes. For the opportunity. Also I came here for the adventure because, well, you never
know if you will be able to get back. You only live once. I told him [the boss at home]
that there was not enough work that paid well and that I had to leave to get ahead, to see
whether I could get ahead in the United Status because there were neither opportunities
nor resources [at home].
These sentiments were echoed by the photographers themselves when asked to comment on the salience of work sites in their pictures. According to a young male Mexican
photographer from New Jersey:
Respondent: Yes, its true the Latino community is closely associated with work.
Interviewer: And the photos that you took, what do you think of them. What is it that the
photos, for you, show about Latino identity?
Respondent: Will, the first thing that occurs to me is that we like to work hard. It doesnt
matter if you wash glassware or if its a task where you hardly use English.
Um, in this photo, which is one of the ones I like best because the woman in
the photo, who I know very well, has worked at this place since it opened, from
when the bread counter was first opened, and now shes been here four, five
years and . . . .
Interviewer: And she still washes glassware?
Respondent: Shes still washing glassware. She is very, the woman is . . . I tell you there
arent many opportunities for those who dont speak much English. Then the
have to do . . . . this, like Ill tell you.
Interviewer: The problem . . . .
Respondent: No, the problem is the English. By they value their work. It doesnt matter what
work because here without work one does not get ahead. Theres no money. And
if theres no money, theres nothing for rent or for bills. Therefore, here, in these
photos, it clearly shows that its not important if they dont know Englishbut
never, never do they stop working . . . .
Interviewer: Working.
Respondent: . . . because this country is pure work. It goes on and on here. Until this very
moment it goes on and on.
This sentiment was consistent with the views of another photographer, a second generation
Colombian male from New York, who when asked about the prevalence of work in his
pictures, said:
Well, you know, like, more than anything, as you yourself said, it is way people are,
especially in this place. You know, like Latinos, you know, we are seeking ways of, of
moving forward. More than anything through work. Here [in work] is much, you know,
that is Latino or at least something Latino that tries to accommodate, you understand,
as best one can . . . and more than anything in work. Understand?
A related category, making up 14% of the total images, is Latin American storefronts:
pictures taken from the street or sidewalk of businesses that advertise Latin American
products or contain signs marketing to Spanish-speakers. Nearly all of the Latino photos
taken by one respondent were of this type. A good example is shown in the top of Fig. 3. It
depicts a store recently opened in South Philadelphias Italian Market called La Tienda
Mexicana Lupita (Lupitas Mexican Market), which features a replica of the Mexican
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Fig. 3 Two Latino images of Latin American business storefronts

flag in the above right corner. The bottom image shows the offices of an income tax office
where all of the signs are in English (suggesting a predominantly Anglo clientele) but which
has a prominent yellow sign on the front reading Hispanic Yellow Pages (which suggests
some effort at marketing to Latinos).
Cars frequently appear in the Latino pictures (some 20% of cases), though mostly they
are in the background of posed shots or are incidental objects (parked or moving) within
larger landscapes. With one exception (where a subject took a photo of his own car), they
do not appear to be the primary focus of attention. Very few pictures (just 4%) were taken
from the window of a car, a shot that, as we shall see, was common among the American
photos. A relatively small number of photos were taken in school settings; and just a few
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pictures showed Latin American cultural objects or products, such as Goya-brand canned
goods lined up on a market shelf, plantains sitting in a bin, a Peruvian embroidery depicting
a llama, or a man playing a Spanish guitar.
In addition to these affirmative images of Latino identity in terms of family, work, and
cultural icons, the photographs also contain references to youth gangs. For example, eight of
the Latino photos taken (6% of the total) contained gang images either, in the form of hand
signals or graffiti. Thus, the top image of Fig. 4 shows the younger brother of one respondent
flashing gang signs to the photographer, a person who himself was a former member of a
gang known as the Latin Kings. The bottom panel shows gang tags sprayed onto the side of
a building as graffiti.
Although they may comprise a small minority of the images our respondents perceived
as Latino, the mere presence of gang symbols suggests that an oppositional identity is
within the realm of possible selves for the children of immigrants seeking to make sense of
the United States. Significantly, all the images of gang symbols were taken by members of
the second generation. Nonetheless, respondents who referred to gang imagery in pictures or
interviews were usually full-time students or workers, not delinquents, suggesting that gangs
may function less as an oppositional identity than as a source of social support and identity.
Consider, for example, the following interview conducted with a member of the Latin
Kings, a second generation Colombian from New York (not a photographer):

Interviewer: Do you want to tell me a little about the Latin Kings?

Respondent: Yes, for example, it is a gang that here, only in Queens, has around 6,000
members.
Interviewer: And they are of all ages?
Respondent: Of all ages, of all ages. There are little kids of 11 or 12 years. Ten years old, but
you see ten year-olds with people who, you know, dont look like kids, who look
older and like life on the street. Well, there are at least 6,000 or 7,000 members
in Queens, without counting the Bronx and Manhattan, who get together every
two, like I told you, every two months on the 14th to see, you know, about
problems with different gangs and all that.
Interviewer: Hmmm.
Respondent: Nowadays, for example, to be a Latin King you need to be working or studying.
Interviewer: Aha!
Respondent: And when they are minors they have to be studying, you know. But not only
that. Always if you go to an older gang leader, the leader always ask you with
the psychology of an older boss why you want to join the Latin Kings, what
attracts you and if you say you want to join to meet more women and know more
people, you wont be admitted. There has to be a reason like to feel protected,
to feel backed up, to help ourselves as Latinos. Well, this is the only option for
us, that we help and support one another to be all we are.
Intetviewer: And now tell me something, is there a way or a sign, you might say, that for
example helps you find jobs for one another? Is there such a thing?
Respondent: Yes, thats it. We help each other, yes, yes, to look for work and more than
anything to make contacts to get ahead, you understand me. Not, as I tell you,
not everyone is like this, but the majority we help each other though there are a
few who are into drugs or doing bad things. But as I already said, that depends
on you. If you want to progress and advance you go to your contacts or friends
and you get ahead.
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Fig. 4 Two Latino images of gang symbols

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This view of gangs as a social support system and a source of identity within the United
States was consistent with the views of the photographers themselves. When asked to explain
the pose of the gangster or rapper shown in Fig. 4, the photographer put it this way:
Respondent: Like I told you before, you know, um, I like it that Latinos understand whats
going on here, you know, with the friendships and everything.
Interviewer: Hmmm . . .
Respondent: With my brother . . .
Interviewer: Hmmm . . .
Respondent: Respondent: . . . it might be that we just dress ourselves like that, you understand? You know, we make up ourselves, not really to demonstrate that, you
know, we are gansta or anything that, but in the sense that, you know, that we
like the music more than anything else. Because apart from this . . .
Interviewer: Hmmm . . .
Respondent: . . . that my brother, you know the one in the photo you selected . . .
Interviewer: Aha.
Respondent: More than that, he is my brother. He is, you know, he wants to be a musician,
understand.
Interviewer: Ah, okay.
Respondent: For this reason, I took this photo to, you know, inspire him, you know, to come
out like posing with his hairdo and all. Understand?
Nonetheless, other respondents in the broader qualitative sample recognized the downside
and dangers of gangs and the gansta lifesytle. As a second generation Mexican from New
York reported (not a photographer):
One year I stayed in the street. I was 15. Started out at 13. Finished. Got out of gangs
by the age of 16. Yes. I dont how it is, I think that each child, each young person passes
through a phase where he wants to know that it is to be popular, what is it to be around
a bunch of people, you know, not knowing their intentions until you actually go with
them. And now I realize, you know, I think I exceeded the statistics for my age, and for
my. . . for my kind. For my kind, specifically speaking, and those statistics for another
state, the state of California in Los Angeles primarily, kids my age, most likely have
been arrested, are fathers, have kids, have bad influences . . . or are dead.
In terms of language, the use of slang also appears also to be an important element of
self-identification for second generation Latinos youths. According to one second generation
Mexican from New Jersey (a non-photographer) who has relatives on west coast:
Yeah a lot of it is different languages, not different languages but different slang. Like
we have a difference like este. I have a cousin and hell be coming over here and
wed be fighting cause este not fighting, but like hablando asi we talk different.
We talk different like saying cool to them is like saying bad for us is like, Yeah,
lets. . .lets go ganging.
In addition to slang, second generation Latinos also like to cultivate a certain look. As
one of the photographers from New York, put it:
Respondent: Um, you know, the posturing, like I told you, is a form of expressing yourself,
understand? You know, um. . . here, in my neighborhood, um, the truth is that,
as they say, we Latinos have a look. And more than this, a way of thinking and
everything. . .
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Interviewer: Yeah.
Respondent: . . .a way of expressing oneself with signs and hand signals, understand?
Interviewer: Hmmm. Or like its a style that predominates among young people,
basically?
Respondent: Yes, more than anything, yeah, young people it might be.
Interviewer: Okay, and in the way you placed your fingers, does this have a precise meaning
or is it simply a style like any other?
Respondent: Um, more than anything, for example, when one has a group, a group of, of,
like I said, the group in which we are members, which is the Latin Kings.
Interviewer: Ah, you told me about the Latin Kings . . . .
Respondent: Uh-huh.
Interviewer: and that maybe the hand signals is a little of this, a code of the Latin
Kings.
Respondent: Uh-huh, yeah. Its the Crown of Kings. When the fingers are positioned in
that way, it is, more than anything, to identify oneself to everyone else as a
member of the group.

The content of American identity

Table 3 presents a content analysis of the American photos. In contrast to the Latino
images, most of the American photos focus primarily on places or objects. Whereas 62%
of the Latino images had people as the primary subject, only half as many (30%) of the
American images did so. More than two-thirds (70%) of the American photos were focused
on places or objects. Moreover, whereas ten of the Latino images consisted of a facial closeup, none of the American images involved a close-up shot of a face. Thus, compared to the
intimate and rather personalized basis for the construction of Latino identity, immigrants
seemingly perceive American identity as rather impersonal and distant. Indeed, almost half
of the American images (48%) were bereft of any human being whatsoever, and around 9%
consisted of anonymous, empty street scenes.mmmmmmmm
The impersonal nature of American society emerged in the ethnographic interviews as
well. Here is what one first generation Colombian in Philadelphia had to say when asked
whether he identified with Americans:
Respondent:
Respondent:
Interviewer:
Respondent:
Interviewer:
Respondent:

Interviewer:
Respondent:

Do you identify with Americans?

No.
Why?
Well, one thing is that they are cold, eh? People in Colombia are warmer, more
real. Friendships are more real there.
Any others things in terms of culture?
Well, we have a lot of similar things, but all cultures are different. Or maybe,
I dont know, they are, or perhaps we could share similarities but we are also
different in many ways, in was of thinking and in forms of expression.
In what sense?
In expressing feelings we are different, you see? We are more emotional in
Colombia than they are here.

The same sentiment was expressed by the photographers who shot the pictures. As a
second generation male photographer from New Jersey said, when asked why his scenes all
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Table 3 Components of American identity coded from American pictures taken by 8 respondents to a
larger survey of 160 first and second generation Latino migrants in New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey
Content categories
Primary subject
People
Facial close-up
Places or objects
No people at all
Prominent themes
Marriage to American
Monumental architecture
Anonymous street scenes
Contains Cars
Taken from Car
City or highway traffic
American symbol or icon
Commercial displays
Waste or abandonment
School settings
American products
Total images

Number

Percentage

35
0
80
55

30.4
0.0
69.6
47.8

23
19
10
37
14
12
14
10
8
2
1

20.0
16.5
8.7
32.2
12.2
10.4
12.2
8.7
7.8
1.7
0.9

115

100.0

basically included objects:

Those objects are something, for example, you see something American say, and fix on
a skyscraper, a building, a sports car . . . . because that is what identifies an American.
He has goods; he has money.
Two examples of the impersonal nature of the imagery submitted as emblematic of
American identity are shown in Fig. 5. The top image shows a collection of newspaper boxes
on an empty street corner in the center of Philadelphia, and the bottom one shows an empty
walkway near a high-rise apartment complex within an affluent neighborhood of the city.
The image of these newspaper boxes sitting together symbolizes technology and the
individualized, impersonal way news is delivered in the United States, in contrast to the
plethora of newsboys or kiosks on the streets in Latin American cities. As Castells (2003)
has pointed out, a characteristic of the information age is the rise of individualism in all its
manifestations, a trend that is not so much cultural as associated with the material conditions
of work in a post-industrial economy (Castells, 2003).
When we asked the photographera second generation Mexicanto explain his choice
of the newspaper boxes as subject matter, this is what he said:
Interviewer: What do you have to say about this image in which there appear all these
newspaper boxes? You know this is supposed to be a perception of American
identity.
Respondent: For this very reason. Like I said, the place looked very American to me. More
than the building is that by whatever building there is always news. Americans
keep themselves informed in this way.
Interviewer: How would it be in your country?
Respondent: You would have to go to a kioskif you could find one nearby. People are in
the streets selling, but in Mexico, only older people, those that have a business
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Fig. 5 Two American images of emptiness in public space

or who work in an office are the ones who buy a newspaper to read. For those
who ply the streets, for example, as a bricklayer or something, it does matter
if something is happening elsewhere. Their lives never change except at home
and at work. Nothing more.
The most common theme among the American images was the marriage of a Mexican
woman to an American man, but this frequency is deceptive since one of the seven respondents
chose to shoot all of his American pictures at this particular wedding. He basically followed
the Mexican bride from home, through the ceremony, into the reception and celebration, and
finished with the cutting of cake and toasts. Should we repeat this experiment in the future,
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we will probably instruct our subjects not to take more than two photos in any setting so as
to build more diversity into the resulting visual data.
Although a relatively large number of the Latino images contained cars, we have already
noted that vehicles did not seem to be a particular focus of most of the shots. In contrast,
not only was the relative frequency of images containing cars larger among the American
photos (32%), but the cars themselves played a more prominent role. A significant number
of shots (12%) were taken from the window of a car, typically while it was in motion. Also
relatively common (at 10%) were pictures of traffic in busy intersections or on highways.
The top of Fig. 6 shows an example of a within-car shot of traffic on a freeway, and the
bottom shows a stationary shot of traffic crowded into a busy intersection. The prevailing
sense one takes from these and the other automobile-related shots is of movement and
motion. For Latin American immigrants, a prevailing impression of the United States seems
to be that it is a society on the move, with people rushing to and from crowded streets or
busy highways, with much of life being seen through the window of a moving automobile.
For our subjects, a key feature of American identity thus appears to be motion and speed,
rather than time or living.
Whereas motion suggests spatial impermanencewith Americans never staying too long
in one place and life a constant bluranother impression gleaned from the American photos
is sheer size and scale: bigness. Some 17% of the American images focused on some example
of monumental architecture, such as skyscrapers, urban canyons formed by tall buildings, a
center city skyline, or a large neoclassical public building. Four examples of monumental
American architecture are shown in Fig. 7. In these images, clearly, the individual is reduced
to insignificance in comparison to the object under scrutiny, a minimal human scale in contrast
with the monumental scale of the constructed environment. The photographers appear not
to see themselves as users of the space. The huge edifices are monuments to observe, not
buildings with functions to be utilized.
Around 12% of the images took as their subject a distinctly American symbol or icon,
such as the American flag, a jack-o-lantern, a jar of peanut butter, or an image of a famous
celebrity. Figure 8 presents two images from this category. The top one shows a private
porch in front of a Philadelphia row house containing a display of Uncle Sam holding the
American flag. The bottom picture is of a sidewalk display of mannequins in front of a store,
featuring the young Elvis Presley. It is hard to conceive of two more American icons than
the flag and Elvis.
As the photographer of the icon pictures said:
The people of the United States have heroes. They like to have heroes; they like to
adore them and to have symbols, up to the point where they are manipulated by the
media using these heroes. Many or most times, these heroes are part of the economy,
part of the social system and through them a large number of people can be controlled
or managed, as with Elvis.
The last two themes that emerged from the American images were those of commerce
or enterprise (9%) and waste or abandonment (8%). Several of the pictures (around 9%)
contained some visible indication of commercial spirit. As shown in Fig. 9, for example,
two subjects independently selected dollar discount stores as emblematically American. The
flip side of a market economy, of course, is creative destructionthe displacement and
abandonment of old products and structures with new and improved products offered by the
market. Eight of the images focused on some aspect waste or abandonment, two of which
are shown in Fig. 10. The top image shows an abandoned building that is partly collapsed,
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Fig. 6 Two American images of cars and traffic

and the bottom one shows unwanted consumer products left curbside for pick-up on garbage
collection day. The discarded products include a personal computer, a turntable, a tape deck,
an amplifier-receiver, a kitchen cabinet, and a blue cooler. The juxtaposition of these two sets
of images suggests that immigrants perceive Americans as competitive, high-level consumers
but also wasteful people.
When asked about the dollar store picture, in particular, the photographer, a first generation
Mexican, responded:
Respondent: Well, a dollar an item, thats ridiculous. If you can see, many times it couldnt
pay for the materials the thing is made of, in other countries or here. If you
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Fig. 7 American images of monumental architecture in the United States

want to produce some product for sale at a dollar, not even here in America can
you pay for the material theyre made from if you sell it for a dollar. The time
. . . how much time are you going to use in making a tool, such as a hammer?
The material, the metal, the transportation, the selling in the store. I dont know
how this kind of store manages to sell it for a dollar.
Interviewer: Then, from your point of view a dollar does not represent the total value of the
work?
Respondent: No! It is a product of exploitation in other countries like China or India or
some Latin American country that has created some kind of, you know, system
of slave labor.
When the same photographer was asked about the garbage picture, he said:
Well, in this case everything would be used in Mexico. I mean, there everything has
a great second use up to the point where it can no longer be used at all. But here, no.
Here you find on the street or in trash cans all kinds of castoffs, which in truth do not
deserve to be in the garbage. Rather, we call them castoffs because they are presently in
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Fig. 7 Continued

the garbage; but they are things that still can function, or which still have much useful
life ahead of them, be it furniture or real estate.

Contrasting identities
In this paper we sought to construct how Latino and American identities are perceived by first
and second generation immigrants to the United States. Disposable cameras were handed
out to a small sub-sample of subjects, who were then asked to take pictures of whatever, to
them, seemed American and Latino as they went through their daily lives. The resulting set
of 115 American images and 134 Latino images suggest that Latin American immigrants
see a great contrast in the content of the two identities.
Our subjects apparently view American identity as having to do with bigness and power (as
reflected by the phallic imagery of skyscrapers and other monumental buildings). Americans
are in constant motion and in a hurry (as suggested by images of and taken from moving cars);
they are competitive and commercial (as suggested by photos of commercial symbols); and
they are cold, distant, and impersonal (as indicated by the predominance of photos centered
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Fig. 7 Continued

on places or objects rather than people, the shots of empty streets and walkways, and the
lack of a single facial close up). Although these components of American identity may
produce a wealthy and powerful society, they also yield much waste (as indicated by photos
of abandoned consumer goods and buildings) and impersonality (indicated by the absence
of people in photos).
In contrast, subjects viewed Latino identity as focused on people (a majority of the shots
taken) and composed of intimate social relationships (as indicated by the frequency of facial
close-ups and the relative absence of shots devoid of human beings). The building blocks
of Latino identity, according to our respondents, appear to be work (the subject of nearly
a quarter of the photos), home (8%), and Latin American cultural products (as indicated
by the frequency of shots of businesses selling Latin American records, foods, and cultural
products as well as several shots of those products themselves). This generally warm and
positive picture of a family- and culture-centered Latino identity is offset, however, by an
awareness of an opposition gang identity as an alternative way to be Latino in the United
States. Two second generation subjects included multiple shots of gang imagery in their
photos, such as graffiti and hand signals. Fortunately, they comprised a small minority of the
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Fig. 7 Continued

images assembled (just 6%), and we can only hope that just as small a number of second
generation immigrants will take this path toward segmented assimilation.
In general, the photographic images offered by our subjects suggest the construction of
Latino identity through social links and interpersonal networks experienced predominantly
through face-to-face interactions with other immigrants. In contrast, they see American
identity in terms of abstract symbols and material objects and view U.S. society as focused
on the individual rather than the group, emphasizing personal aspirations rather than social
bonds of solidarity. These conclusions generally coincide with the broader literature on
Latino identity, which view its construction as an affirmative response to labels imposed
by an indifferent and sometimes hostile Anglo society (Gutierrez, 1995; Oboler, 1995; Fox,
1997).
When immigrants first arrive in the United States, of course, they do not perceive themselves as Latinos, but as Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Colombians (Bean & Tienda,
1987). The formation of a Latino identity is an American experience that grows out a common
sense of marginalization with respect to mainstream society and the pervasive labeling that
immigrants encounter in their daily interactions with non-Hispanic whites (Oboler, 1995).
The construction of a Latino identity offers one way of turning this external labeling and
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Fig. 8 Two American images of American symbols or icons

marginalization into something positive and affirming; but in building this new identity, immigrants do not haphazardly select cultural elements from their surroundings. Rather, they
draw on sentiments and symbols that are deeply held and likely to resonate across national
linesfamily, community, religion, food, music, crafts, and folk traditions.
Many of the respondents in our sample were undocumented, and these people are keenly
aware that they lack protections or even a clear future in the United States. They continue to
fear formal American institutions, from which they perceive rejection and discrimination. The
photos taken by our respondents offer some evidence that, in the absence of documentation
and lacking clear possibilities for social mobility, some Latinos growing up in the United
States turn to street gangs in order to gain access to an alternative form of sociability and
adaptation, potentially leading to downward mobility.
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Fig. 9 American images of commerce in the United States

In theoretical terms, the content of the photos are, at least on the surface, consistent with
the viewpoint of segmented assimilation. Whereas some migrants are clearly constructing
a Latino identity on the basis of attachment to work, family, and the immigrant community
generally, which suggests a pattern of consonant or selective acculturation that puts them
on a path of upward mobility, we also found a distinct subset of youth people whose
conceptualization of a Latino identity included gang symbols, rap music, and a gangsta
lifestyle, which might suggest pattern of dissonant assimilation leading to a path of downward
mobility. Nonetheless, our respondents themselves cautioned us about reading too much into
this fascination with American urban culture, as most were gainfully employed, looked upon
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gangs as a form of social affiliation and support, and viewed the totems of street culture as a
hip style rather than a confrontational challenge to mainstream culture.
Whether fascination with gangsta rap indeed constitutes a door to downward mobility
or a salutary social response to marginalization cannot be determined here. We simply
note that, when asked, none in the sample of 160 interviewees admitted to feeling totally
American. Even second generation migrants who felt positively about living in the United
States defined their identity as Latino-American, underscoring the paradoxical and complex
nature of identity construction. These respondents appear to perceive two realities once, the
essential dilemma of the migrant: I come from, I move to. I am here and I am there. As
one second generation Mexican from Philadelphia put it when asked if she felt American:
Oh, I am American. Its just that I am still Mexican and Im proud of my nationality.
When asked if she felt Latina, she answered yes, and when probed about what it was
that made her feel Latina, she said:
Basically a lot of things: the way we think and the way we talk, the way we live. [The
two identities] are related to one another in every single aspect of life.
Globalization has thus created, through immigration, a complex process of identity formation that transcends cultures and national boundaries. Nonetheless, among the photos taken
by migrants, we see little evidence of a significant transnationalization of identity. Although
subjects were specifically asked to capture Latino and American elements on film, they
were free to select whatever elements the wished for each category. For the most part the
realms of the two identities are not mixed and blurred, but separate and distinct, with contrasting contents and different semiotics. Migrants leave their countries largely for economic
reasons, not because they wish to acquire a new cultural identity. Within the United States,
however, they feel marginalized and excluded. They know their place economically but not
socially and as a result go about constructing a new Latino identity, possibly segmented,
that uses well-known cultural tropes and national symbols to create an affirmative identity
defined in contradistinction to the impersonal, mercenary, wasteful culture of the United
States, which at least among our subjects, continues to be viewed, at best, as cold and alien,
and for some, downright hostile and rejecting.

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Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
He is currently President of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences and Past-President of
the American Sociological Association and the Population Association of America. His most recent book is
Chronicle of a Myth Foretold: The Washington Consensus in Latin America, coedited with Jere Behrman and
Magaly Sanchez R and published as a special issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Sciences.
Magaly Sanchez R has been a Professor of Urban Sociology at the Instituto de Urbanismo at the Universidad
Central de Venezuela and at the moment she is Senior Research in the Office of Population Research at
Princeton University. Her recent research focuses on the expansion of Urban Violence In Latin America, as
well as on International Migration, and the formation of Transnational Identities among Latinos in United
States.

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