<p>If you’re using it in an essay, just say what the situation is. If you want to talk about how your mother being an immigrant affected you, just say she’s an immigrant. If you want to talk about being raised with two different cultures, then say your mom was an immigrant and you father was born here. It doesn’t matter if your technically third or second. I don’t know of a situation where it would matter (unless it’s a scholarship or something, in which case they would define it).</p>
<p>I’ve only ever heard 1st generation refer to children of immigrants, and never immigrants themselves. I suppose this may vary by region or person; however, no immigrant I have met has referred to him or herself as “first generation”. This includes my immigrant parents. As I was the first generation in my family born in the US, I consider myself a first generation American. </p>
<p>According to Wiki and the Oxford Dictionary, either definition for 1st generation is correct. No wonder there’s confusion. </p>
<p>@irlandaise,
Yes, it must be a regional difference. Here on the west coast, there are a ton of kids born from immigrant Asian parents. The immigrants and conversations are not of the 1st generation - the immigrants, but more of the 2nd generation - the kids of the immigrants who are the first generation born in the US and are pulled between the culture and expectations of their immigrant parents and the culture and expectations of their peers. That’s the model of 1st and 2nd generation that I have grown up with. But I agree that it makes more sense to call the first generation that was born in the US as 1st gen rather than the first generation that immigrated to the US as 1st gen.</p>
<p>Funny too, is that here in CA, there are also a ton of immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, etc and they never seem to talk about 1st gen, 2nd gen etc while Asians make such a big deal of it.</p>
<p>My father always referred to himself as an immigrant. My mom, on the other hand, referred to herself as a naturalized US citizen. </p>