<p>cameliasinensis, you are an immigrant by definition. If you came with your grandparents, parents, and even if you had children that were born in your mother country you would all be immigrants. Once you had children born in this country, they would be first generation Americans. I don't think you can be an immigrant and a first generation American. Even if you are not a US citizen your children born in the US are American citizens (not the same in Europe). Are there second generation immigrants? I don't think so, because to say first generation immigrant would be reduntdant.</p>
<p>For admissions, as long as you are a legal resident it seems to be the same as being a citizen. Somebody correct me if I am wrong. However, for certain scholarships you have to be a US citizen. The only time I have seen "first generation" mentioned is in reference to first generation to go to college (regardless of country of origin).</p>
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I don't think you can be an immigrant and a first generation American.
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<p>On what grounds? The Japanese terminology, which is clear and unambigous, says precisely that the immigrants are the first-generation Americans.</p>
<p>In my opinion the 'were you the first generation born in this country' test doesn't always really work (at least in the philosophical sense). If someone comes to the US when they're still a child and then eventually has kids in the US I don't think their kids are really 'first generation Americans.' </p>
<p>So I'd say if the parents came to the US prior to being 18 then their kids would be second generation and if they came after 18 their kids would be first generation.</p>
<p>If someone's parents moved to the US when they were 5, it would be a bit misleading for them to claim that they were 'first generation Americans' even if that may legally be correct.</p>
<p>I'm not a professional linguist but to help the OP, is how ancient Japanese wording is defined even relevant here? Isn't the OP seeking clarification on usage here in America? Remember, even our English varies in the U.K. Lift, suspenders, braces, and knickers come to mind quickly.
I believe a first generation American would most often be used to refer to the first offspring born here after immigrant parents moved here.</p>
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I'm not a professional linguist but to help the OP, is how ancient Japanese wording is defined even relevant here?
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<p>I'd like to see an attestation of this usage in English that precedes its specific usage in regard to Japanese immigrants, who appear to have had more concern about counting generations than some other immigrants. In other words, I think the English usage of "first-generation," "second-generation," etc. immigrants may have ORIGINATED in Japanese, which would be persuasive evidence about what it first meant in English. </p>
<p>Any professional linguist today would tell you what you can find out just by inspecting this thread--that not all speakers of English agree in their use of this terminology. My sense is that the Wikipedia article </p>
<p>is correct in relating that many speakers of English are unaware of their disagreement with other speakers in how they use these terms, but that the usage that is most consistent with all terminology in the field is that the person who arrives from the other country and then stays is the "first-generation" person, and a person born to that person is a "second-generation" person. (And, yes, that is the Japanese usage distinguishing "issei" from "nisei.")</p>
<p>Perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't think it helps OP to know ancient Japanese meanings or origin in this case. I also don't think it helps OP to know what first usage in English meant, either. Why? I think Op is seeking todays' meaning for a usage now. There is no benefit to the OP to know the origin of a word if that meaning has changed, or is used differently now. Japanese, Chinese, or Icelanders may have been the first to coin the phrase but that is of no relevance to the Op if the common usage now is different from the origin.
Just as the words "pot" and "gay" have changed meaning over the years, this phrase may have changed too. How Japanese defined it years ago has no bearing on the OP unless Op is Japanese, or filling out forms relevant to ancient Japanese if the usage now is different from the origin. I still believe in today's usage, first generation American refers to first generation born here and not to first generation to have become naturalized citizens.</p>
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I still believe in today's usage, first generation American refers to first generation born here and not to first generation to have become naturalized citizens.
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<p>I still believe otherwise, and dictionaries (and the Wikipedia article) back me up to attest that the usage I prefer is very much a current usage among careful writers. But thanks for expressing your opinion. The OP figured out as soon as the thread unfolded that he needed to ask the colleges that bring up this issue what THEY mean, and his original post made clear what his own situation was. I repeat myself here just to alert the people replying (as the Wikipedia article also does) that the usage I advocate is legitimate and attested among a variety of native speakers of English who write about these issues.</p>
<p>after thinking about this a bit more, i think i'd consider myself a first-generation american if i became a citizen during my lifetime, and an immigrant if i remained a permanent resident or any other visa status. it makes intuitive sense to me that "first-generation american" would refer to the first generation to achieve citizenship -- whether through marriage, naturalization, being born here, or any other method -- really regardless of whether they were born here or not.</p>
<p>i guess it just makes me sad to think that even if i managed to become an american citizen i still wouldn't be considered a "real american" to some (if my kids post-naturalization are first-generation americans, that must mean i am not an american), but i'm admittedly sensitive about things like this.</p>
<p>By contrast, to me, the American whose ancestors were American before the United States was an independent country, anyone is an American who arrives here to stay, irrespective of legal status. I think my wife was already an American when she was a permanent resident, years before she was naturalized. (Certainly, her American in-laws tried from the beginning to Americanize her rapidly.) Being American is all about sharing a vaguely defined American Dream.</p>
<p>tokenadult, that's actually a good point. i think i am already pretty "american," but considering i am not even a permanent resident yet, it seems very presumptuous to call myself one. i don't really know where i draw the line; citizenship seemed like a convenient boundary, but i guess that's pretty arbitrary. i think permanent residency is probably required, if only because "feeling" american doesn't count for much unless you're legally allowed to live here.</p>
<p>when people ask me where i'm from i say washington, d.c. ("i mean, i'm swedish, technically, but i grew up in d.c."). to be honest i don't feel that much at home in sweden anymore, even though i still love to visit, but i haven't really earned the right to call myself american (swedish-american?) either. confusion confusion.</p>
<p>If you Google "first generation American," you will find that the most common hits are people discussing the question of what it means. After that, there are just many uses of it, and it appears from an unscientific review that most of these refer to a person born in this country of immigrant parents. I didn't find any official or semi-official definition of the term.
Again, don't confuse this with the first generation to go to college.</p>
a person born in this country of immigrant parents
but that assumes both parents are immigrants, which isn't always the case. a hypothetical child born to me and my boyfriend would have an immigrant mom and a fourth- or fifth-generation american dad (with czech/polish/various other eastern european jewish ancestry)... i'm not sure how you're supposed to count the generations there.</p>
<p>again, the part that really bothers me with that line of reasoning is that if my child is a "first-generation american," that means by definition that i am not an american, regardless of whether i am a citizen or permanent resident by then... it seems to relegate naturalized citizens to a sort of second-class status, and that seems counter to the ideals i always thought this country was supposed to be about.</p>
<p>This is all semantics, but a "generation" is "generated." To me, that means born. An immigrant can become a naturalized American citizen, but he or she isn't a "generation." I suspect that the problem is that some of us are thinking of the concept, "the first generation born in this country," and using an unclear term to describe it.</p>
<p>Surely everyone is part of some generation of some family, and in some families (not all, around the world) people become Americans. The generation that earliest becomes American is the first generation to do so. This is all very clear in Japanese, which, after consulting a lot of dictionaries, I'm beginning to think may have been the language in which all this terminology originated. </p>
<p>generation
c.1300, "offspring of the same parent," also "body of individuals born about the same period" (usually 30 years), from L. generationem (nom. generatio), from generare "bring forth" (see genus). Generator in the sense "machine that generates power" first recorded 1794; in sense of "machine that generates electric energy," 1879. Generation gap first recorded 1967; generation x is 1991, from Douglas Coupland book of that name. The verb generate is attested from 1509; originally "to beget;" in ref. to natural forces, conditions, substances. etc., attested from 1563.</p>
<p>I would just note that the issue here is not really over definitions--because there is no definitive definition of what "first generation American" means, but rather of usage.</p>
<p>Having read these posts, FWIW, I agree with tokenadult. To think otherwise, brings me to the following question. If the immigrants become american citizens, what generation are they? Generation zero? The first generation to arrive on these shores by any means, to me, is the first generation. Obviously, I now know to be more careful in using a term like this, since all do not agree.</p>
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If the immigrants become american citizens, what generation are they? Generation zero? The first generation to arrive on these shores by any means, to me, is the first generation.
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<p>I used my son's university access to the Oxford English Dictionary online this afternoon to check the citations. The definitions support both usages found here in this thread, and "first-generation" is not an entry in the OED, but rather a sub-entry under "generation" and mentioned under some other entries (as I found by using online advanced search). Early citations, however, seem strongly supportive of the interpretation quoted above.</p>
<p>By any definition I'm sure we all agree that cameliasinensis is welcome to stay and if she becomes naturalized she could change her screen name, with a nod to her Swedish heritage, to that, arguably, quintessential American drink, IcedTea. ;)</p>
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If the immigrants become american citizens, what generation are they?
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The answer would be that they are not a "generation" of Americans. They are part of an immigrant generation, some of whom become American citizens by naturalization. Under this formulation, the first "generation" of Americans would be the first generation born, or "generated" in this country.<br>
Of course, since both usages are fairly common, and there is confusion about this, it's probably best to be specific if you want to express this.</p>