generation

i recently learned that sociologists and others use decimal places, not just integers, to describe people's ethnicity. Example: your parents were born in another country and they moved to the US as adults. They are first generation immigrants. You were born in the US, so you are the second generation.

But if you were born overseas and moved here when you were, say, 3 years old, then you are 1.5 generation... according to some. The cutoff point depends on the context.

Also, it seems someone can be a first generation immigrant but a second generation scholar. Take for example someone who was born overseas but moved to the US when she was 10 years old. She then goes to college and write scholarly articles about anthropology or urban planning or what have you. She is a first generation immigrant, but she is writing as a member of the second generation.

I really like this idea that your perspective is not tied to the facts of your birth ... everything is mutable, everything is relevant ... i like this idea ALOT and i'd forgotten it because i learned about it while drunk on champagne, lying on a futon with three or four members of the x.xx generations. I write it here to preserve it for myself.