Identities in onward migration: young people of Colombian descent in London

ABSTRACT

This article explores the identity formation of onward migrant youths – namely, individuals aged 13–28 who were born and/or raised in their parents’ first destination country and then migrated to other countries, either together with their parents or on their own. Drawing from interviews with youths of Colombian descent who onward migrated from Spain to London, this article shows that onward migrant youths’ identifications are shaped by their trajectories prior to onward migrating and their formative experiences in the previous country of residence. Following onward migration, young people find themselves in a new relational environment which may offer opportunities to claim identities they had limited access to in the previous country of residence and which are deployed strategically to gain belonging, to express longing for left-behind families and friends, and to highlight the challenges they face in the onward destination. Some youths may develop new identities drawing from diverse frames and scales of reference in the onward destination provided they feel accepted and can access opportunities. Ultimately, this article contributes to the understanding of onward migrant youths as a highly heterogeneous group while challenging conventional categories to classify migrant children and youths.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• onward migration
• youths
• Colombians
• Spain
• London

1. Introduction

Scholars have become more interested in the lives of migrant children and youths and their socio-cultural identities – namely, the social and cultural groups with which one identifies and feels attached to (Schwartz, Montgomery, and Briones 2006). The earliest work theorised that migrant youths either assimilate and come to identify with the receiving country or resist assimilation, maintaining their heritage identity (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022). Since then, scholars have found that young migrants’ patterns of identifications are more complex, shaped by several factors, and may develop against frames of reference other than the sending and receiving country (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022; Mas Giralt 2015).

Several studies focus on the second generations and individuals migrating during childhood or adolescence. Less is known about young people who underwent multiple migrations, such as onward migrant youths. In this article, ‘onward migrant youths’ refer to individuals aged 13–28 who experienced onward migration – the process whereby migrants settle in a country for a period of time and then migrate on to another country when circumstances change (Ahrens, Melissa Kelly, and van Liempt 2016). Existing research indicates that onward migrant youths include young people who migrated to a first destination country as children or adolescents, and then onward migrated with their parents or on their own as well as youths born and raised from migrant parents in a given destination country who then relocated with their parents to a new destination (Ramos 2018).

This article centres the voices of onward migrant youths to contribute to challenging what van Geel and Mazzuccato (2018) described as the tendency of migration scholars to conceptualise young people as either immobile (e.g. left behind or being born and remaining in their parents’ destination country) or as migrating only once. More specifically, this article explores how onward migrant youths understand their socio-cultural identities. First, I examine how their formative experiences and trajectories prior to onward migrating inform their identity formation. I then explore how onward migrant youths remake and mobilise their identities in the onward destination.

This article draws from fieldwork conducted in London with youths born from Colombian parents who onward migrated from Spain to London after the 2008 global crisis, which severely affected the economies of Southern Europe (Ramos 2018). The young people in this article are described as ‘onward migrant youths of Colombian descent’ instead of ‘onward Colombian youths’ as they may not necessarily identify as Colombian.

In what follows, I first assess the literature on migrant youths’ identities. After providing an overview of Colombians’ onward migration to London and describing the methodology, I present the findings. Youths often drew from national frames to describe their identities and identified their trajectories to Spain, their engagement in transnational practices, and experiences of discrimination in Spain as salient in shaping their identifications. In London, young people find themselves in a new relational environment which offers opportunities to claim identities they had limited access to in Spain and which are deployed strategically to gain belonging, to express longing for left-behind families and friends, and to highlight the challenges they face in the onward destination. Some youths begin to identify with London when they can access opportunities and feel accepted.

In addition to challenging conventional categories to classify migrant children and youths, this article shows that for young people multiple migrations not only involve the renegotiation of their identities but also open opportunities for claiming and forming identities drawing from multiple frames and scales of reference.

2. Migrant youths’ identities

From an anti-essentialist perspective, identities are not natural, fixed, or pre-determined, but result from constructing boundaries between imagined groups (Brubaker 2002). These boundaries, and therefore identities, are constructed discursively (e.g. through the stories we tell) as well as relationally as they are formed through processes of self-definition and definition by others (Slootman 2018).

Traditional assimilation models postulate that migrant youths either assimilate and come to identify with the receiving country or resist assimilation and maintain their identification with their parents’ homeland (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022; Boland 2020). Under these models, identification with the receiving country is a precondition for successful adaptation. These models have been therefore criticised for promoting a negative view of diversity, fuelling the backlash against multiculturalism (Reynolds and Zontini 2016; Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022).

Assimilation models also fail to recognise that migrant youths may identify with both cultures, acquiring multiple identities that are performed strategically to gain acceptance and belonging (Slootman 2018; Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022). For example, studies indicate that second-generation Muslim youths in the Netherlands ‘code-switch’ between Dutch aspects of their identity and the identity markers of the culture of their parents depending on context (Visser 2016).

Migrant youths can also develop hybrid identities when they combine elements from various cultures to form a distinctive way of being. Conceived by Bhabha (1994) to refer to cultural mixedness in postcolonial contexts, hybridity has been observed in migrant youths’ everyday practices. For example, in Maira’s (2002) study, second-generation Indian youths articulate hybrid identities by creatively combining traditional forms of Bhangra dance with elements of American hip-hop. By focusing on Muslim youths in Spain, Boland (2020) takes the mixing of languages as evidence of their hybrid identities.

Focusing on the factors shaping migrant youths’ identifications, early on Rumbaut (2004) identified the age at which youths migrate as salient. Rumbaut classifies migrant youths using the following categories: 1) second generation for youths born and raised by migrant parents in the destination country; 2) 1.75 generation for those who migrated before the age of 5; 3) 1.5 generation for individuals migrating between 6–12 years old; and 4) 1.25 generation for new arrivals at 13–17 years old. According to Rumbaut, the 1.5 and 1.25 generations find it harder to identify with the new country of residence as it is harder for them to learn the new language and cultural rules.

Irrespective of generational cohort, migrant youths’ identification processes are shaped by discrimination. Discrimination can spark emotions of shame, leading to young people’s emotional distancing from their heritage culture (Katartzi 2017). In Katartzi’s (2017) study, youths born from Albanian parents would hide their origin to gain acceptance among their Greek peers when confronted with discrimination. Other studies demonstrate that migrant youths who cannot access opportunities consciously resist identifications with the receiving culture (Verkuyten, Thijs, and Stevens 2012).

Transnational scholars highlight that migrant youths’ identities are informed also by their engagement in transnational fields (Reynolds and Zontini 2014; Mas Giralt 2015). King and Christou (2011) show that, through familial visits and return migration to the parental homeland, migrant youths develop knowledge of their heritage culture and affective bonds which tie them to their parents’ homeland.

Further highlighting the complexity of migrant youths’ identities, studies indicate that young people may define their socio-cultural identities against frames and scales of reference other than the sending and receiving country (Mas Giralt 2015). For example, Crul, Schneider, and Lelie (2013) found that young people of migrant background in Amsterdam may find it easier to identify with the city, rather than The Netherlands, due to its multicultural and cosmopolitan culture.

While moving away from assimilation models conceptualising migrant youths’ identities in dichotomous and reductionist ways, these studies have focused primarily on the second generations (e.g. youths born in their parents’ destination country) or youths migrating to a new place in their childhood or adolescence. This is less helpful for understanding the experiences of young people engaging in multiple migrations. Recently, Van Geel and Mazzucato (2018) showed that young people are experiencing multiple forms of mobility and migration before they reach adulthood – findings that challenge conventional ways of conceptualising young people’s migration. This article advances the understanding of the implications that multiple migrations have on young people’s identities by focusing on onward migrant youths – a group defying conventional categories that has received less attention.

3. Visibilising onward migrant youths

Broadly defined as the process whereby people leave the country of origin, settle in a given country for a period of time, and then migrate on to another country (Ahrens, Melissa Kelly, and van Liempt 2016), onward migration has received increasing attention in the last two decades. Onward migration can result from a ‘dissatisfaction with the outcome of the initial migration process’ (Ahrens, Melissa Kelly, and van Liempt 2016, 96). According to Della Puppa, Montagna, and Kofman (2021), it is a strategy to escape social immobility by searching for better opportunities elsewhere. Family is both a driver and site where onward migration is negotiated (Bermudez and Oso 2019). Weine et al. (2011) found that African refugees in the US would use onward migration to improve the livelihoods of their households. Mohme (2014) discusses cases of Somali families who first moved to Sweden and then onward migrated to Egypt to join their relatives. Morad and Sacchetto (2020) focus on Bangladeshi families who onward migrated from Italy to the UK to improve their career prospects and their children’s educational opportunities.

While these studies suggest that children and youths are participating in onward migration, research addressing their perspectives is limited. Mohme (2014) discusses how the children of Somali migrants who onward migrated from Sweden to Egypt perceived this move as disrupting their schooling. Weine et al. (2011) highlight the emotional pain that children of African refugees who onward migrated within the US felt by having to leave behind their friendships (Weine et al. 2011). Focusing on youths in their twenties born and/or raised in Sweden by Iranian parents, Kelly (2017) shows that their onward migration from Sweden to London was a way of achieving their high-level career goals and independence.

This article advances this literature by exploring how onward migrant youths make sense of their socio-cultural identities. I first examine how their formative experiences and trajectories prior to onward migrating inform their identifications. Since identities may change over the life-course and depending on social and geographical locations (Mas Giralt 2015), I then investigate how young people make sense of who they are in the onward destination. Finally, I explore whether onward migrant youths develop new identities following onward migration. In van Liempt’s (2011) study, some young Somalis who onward migrated from the Netherlands to the UK began identifying as ‘a little British’. In this article, I consider whether onward migrant youths form new identities against frames of reference other than the national context.

This article centres the voices of onward migrant youths of Colombian descent living in London. In the late 1990s, Spain became a major destination country for Colombians, and more generally, Latin American migrants (Bermudez 2020a). In Spain, Colombians settled in large cities and began forming or reunifying their families. However, the 2008 global financial crisis led to widespread unemployment in Spain, particularly among migrants. Latin Americans, including Colombians, who had acquired Spanish passports began onward migrating to other European destinations (Bermudez 2020a; Bermudez and Oso 2019). At the time of the crisis, the UK was still part of the European Union and London was an attractive destination for Latin Americans holding EU passports. However, as Bermudez (2020a) remarked, while European citizenship allowed Colombian families to onward migrate to the UK, holding EU citizenship did not necessarily protect them from precarity.

Drawing from interviews with Colombians and Ecuadorians who onward migrated from Spain to London, Ramos (2018) identified three main groups of onward migrants: (1) individuals in their fifties who felt unenthusiastic about onward migrating; (2) migrants in their thirties and forties often onward migrating with their children and approaching the onward move as a chance to improve their career prospects and their children’s educational opportunities; and (3) youths born in Latin America, who migrated to Spain as children or adolescents, and then onward migrated to London in their twenties to access job opportunities and gain independence. Given the diversity of the trajectories of London’s onward migrant youths of Colombian descent, their voices can provide unique insights into the implications of diverse migration patterns for young people’s identities.

4. Methodology

This article draws from fieldwork conducted between July 2020 and May 2021 for a larger study on the experiences of onward Colombian families in London during which I strived to include the voices of young people aged 13–28. This age bracket was chosen to include youths with diverse trajectories. The older ones (e.g. ages 20–28) are more likely to have been born in Colombia, to have been brought to Spain during their childhood or adolescence in the mid or late 2000s, and to have onward migrated either with their families or on their own. The younger ones in this group (e.g. ages 13–18) are more likely to have been born in Spain in the mid-2000s and moved to London with their families. While their move to London might have been their first migration, they still are regarded as ‘onward migrant youths’ as they experience their families’ onward migration process.

During fieldwork I conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 onward migrant youths of Colombian descent in addition to holding informal conversations with 2 young people while spending the afternoon with their families. While acknowledging that the number of participants is limited, the interviews with youths were conducted as part of a year-long qualitative fieldwork during which I interviewed 39 experts from Latin American Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) supporting Latin American families and 51 onward Colombian parents. I also conducted participant observations in the online meetings of a group attended by several onward Latin American parents. This helped me contextualise and better understand young people’s experiences.

Of the 23 young people (7 males, 16 females) who participated in the study, 1) 5 were born in Colombia, raised in Spain, and onward migrated to London during their childhood or adolescence with their parents; 2) 6 were born in Colombia, raised in Spain, and onward migrated to London as young adults (e.g. between 18 and 25 years old) on their own; 3) 12 were born and raised in Spain and onward migrated to London as children or adolescents with their parents. The fact that two thirds of the interviewees were female can be partially attributed to the fact that I am a young woman myself. Female interviewees were more open to the idea of sharing their experiences with me.

Interviewees were mostly accessed through their parents. After interviewing onward Colombian parents, I would ask them whether they were willing to have their children participate in an interview with me. Accessing youths through their parents allowed me to interview both adolescents and youths in their twenties. I then used snowballing sampling with interviewees in their twenties to access their friends born from Colombian parents who had similar trajectories.

During the interview, youths were asked to recount how they felt about the places they lived in, why they moved to London, and how they experienced this transition. Interviewees were also asked about their families and friends in order to gain a better understanding of how onward migration impacted their relationships and to identify whether they engaged in transnational practices. Young people were also explicitly asked about how they identify given the many places in which they lived and whether they would identify with the Latin American/European identities.

Interviews were conducted in Spanish, mostly online due to COVID-19 restrictions, and lasted 30–60 min. When interviewing minors, their parents were present for safeguarding reasons. While this might have influenced young people’s responses, the presence of parents made some youths, particularly the youngest, feel more at ease. While parents tended to not interfere with the interview process, in some cases they would interject to validate their children’s perspectives, contributing to making adolescents feel at ease.

Semi-structured interviews were preceded by two focus groups with the students of a Colombian English as Additional Language (EAL) teacher who teaches in a secondary school in London. In Fall 2020, I held two focus groups respectively with 9 students in Year 10 and 12 students in Year 11, all of whom were born from Latin American parents and had onward migrated to London from Spain. Students were asked how they felt about moving to London; how they think migration affects families; and how they identify. The focus groups lasted 50 min, were conducted during the teacher’s lesson time, and had a hybrid format: students and teacher were at school, while I connected online. At the time, visitors were not allowed in the school’s premises due to COVID-19.

This research complied with the principles of informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality. Before interviewing minors, I would provide parents with information sheets for them and their children and seek parental consent. I also sought young people’s assent to ensure they were happy to partake in the study. With regards to the focus groups, the teacher sought the approval of the school’s principal first, then reached out to parents, provided them with information sheets and opt-in forms, and gathered their consent.

Interviews and focus groups were transcribed in the same language in which they were conducted. Only the quotes included in this article were translated to English by the author. Thematic analysis was then used to identify (1) the formative experiences youths named as key in shaping their identifications; (2) which identities they mobilise and claim in the onward destination and why; (3) whether they developed new identifications in the onward destination and the factors that contributed to this. All the names and identity markers in the next sections were altered to preserve anonymity.

5. Constructing identities in Spain

This section presents the narratives of (1) youths born and raised in Spain from Colombian parents and (2) young people born in Colombia who migrated to Spain as children or adolescents. Youths primarily drew from national frames (e.g. being Colombian, being Spanish) to describe their identities and named their trajectories, places of birth, transnational practices and experiences of discrimination as being salient in shaping their identifications.

5.1. Youths born and raised in Spain

Some of the interviewees were born and raised in Spain by Colombian parents. They then onward migrated with their families to London as children (e.g. between 5 and 11) or during their adolescence (e.g. between 12 and 17). As in Gilsenan and Lee’s (2021) study, they attributed their onward migration to the 2008 crisis. Following Rumbaut’s (2004) classification, they would be classified as second generation in Spain as they were born from Colombian parents who moved to Spain as adults.

When asked about their identities, for many the answer was ‘I’m Spanish’ as Spain was the place where they were born and raised. Christou and King (2010) use the term ‘emotional landscapes’ to refer to migrant youths’ affective memories and idealised images of their homeland, arguing they are powerful in fostering transnational attachments. Similarly, these youths preserved affective memories tying them to their country of birth. This is evident in the interview with Manuela, a 15-year-old who moved to London at the age of six:

I remember a lot of my time in Spain […] In Spain there is the house of my grandpa. It’s not my real grandpa, but it’s like he was. In the future, I want to buy it [the house] because I liked it so much […] It was hard to leave [Spain] […] I had to leave all the memories I had with my grandpa.

While claiming their Spanish identity, those who engaged in transnational practices would identify as Colombian more easily than others. Transnational practices allow second generation youths to acquire knowledge about their parental homeland and develop affective relationships with their relatives, bringing them closer to their heritage culture (Katartzi 2017; Reynolds and Zontini 2014; Mas Giralt 2015). Marisa, a 17-year-old girl who moved to London at the age of 14, described herself as ‘100 percent Colombia and 100 percent Spanish […] not half and half’. She learnt about Colombian culture through her regular visits to Colombia which allowed her to get to know her abuelitos (grandparents) and befriend her cousins, with whom she regularly videocalls. On the contrary, youths who did not engage in transnational practices would struggle to identify with their parents’ homeland, as highlighted by a student during the focus groups:

I feel more Spanish because even though my whole family is Latin, I always lived in Spain, I have never been to Ecuador, I have no idea how life is there. I don’t know anyone from my family there.

Second generations can learn about their heritage culture not only through transnational practices but also through their families’ teachings (Mas Giralt 2015). Prior to moving to London with his parents, Jacob lived in Spain surrounded by his relatives from whom he learnt about Colombian culture. For him, this is one of the reasons he can claim to be Colombian. Yet opportunities for intergenerational transmission of culture are shaped by class (Turcatti 2021). Susana, a 20-year-old woman who onward migrated with her mother as a teenager, explains that her mother ‘was always working’ and would enrol Susana in ‘every possible after-school activity’ so that she would be looked after. As a result, Susana felt more exposed to Spanish culture, which is why she refers to herself as Spanish.

Other youths highlighted how their greater exposure to Spanish culture was due to their parents’ integration strategies. This was evident in the interview with Patricia, a 17-year-old who onward migrated to London with her dad when she was 14, who doesn’t ‘feel Latina at all’:

My parents were never the typical Latinos that put Latin music, salsa, bachata […] I grew up with this kind of music, with more European music […] I never had that feeling of being Latin.

During the interview, her father explained he wanted his daughter to ‘integrate into Spanish society’ and not be seen as ‘other Latinos’. Despite sharing language and cultural similarities with Spanish culture, Latin Americans continue to be perceived as the ‘Other’ with low aspirations and poor outcomes (Lobera 2021). By embracing Spanish culture, Patricia’s father wanted to protect his daughter from being othered.

Despite often seeing themselves as Spanish, interviewees highlighted how their Spanish identity was contested. In Spain, Latin Americans experience discrimination, reminding them of their otherness and questioning their belonging (Lobera 2021). This is well captured by Manuel, a 21-year-old young man who moved to London at the age of 14:

When I was in school […] I was bullied. They bullied me because I was a foreigner, they bullied me because I didn’t have much money, they bullied me because I was simply different. Because I wasn’t Spanish. I was the ‘Colombian boy’, you know?

The sense of being ‘Other’ was heightened for youths with darker skin. ‘In Spain they are very closed minded, there’s lots of racism’, says Alejandro. While identifying as Spanish, Susana explained her skin colour set her apart: ‘I suffered racism because they [schoolmates] weren’t used to see people with darker skin’.

5.2. Youths migrating from Colombia to Spain

Onward Colombian youths also include individuals born in Colombia who migrated to Spain as children or adolescents to reunite with their parents who had left in search of better economic opportunities or to escape the armed conflict. Some of them onward migrated to London as adolescents with their parents following the 2008 crisis (Gilsenan and Lee 2021). Others moved to London on their own in their early twenties to deal with the unemployment following the crisis or to gain independence, as also discussed by Ramos (2018).

When asked about their identities, they would emphasise their Colombian roots. Compared to youths born and raised in Spain, they claimed their Colombian identity more easily as they all held memories of their upbringing in Colombia and several continued visiting and communicating with the relatives there. This was the case of Rosalina, a 21-year-old who migrated to Spain with her mother and sister at the age of six to join her father and then onward migrated to London with her family as a teenager. She says:

I always say I am Colombian. I never say I am from Spain because you can tell [she laughs, referring to her Spanish accent] […] I am Colombian because that’s where I was born […] where my family is from.

In highlighting her Spanish accent while discussing her attachment to Colombia, Rosalina is implicitly claiming her identification with Spain too. Later on, she would indeed refer to herself as both Spanish and Colombian. Yet, other interviewees born in Colombia were reluctant to identify as Spanish. Youths migrating during their childhood and adolescence can face several challenges, making it hard for them to develop attachments to the host country (Katartzi 2017; Rumbaut 2004). For Marina, moving to Spain at the age of 12 to reunite with her mother meant separating from her grandmother, by whom she was raised, and acquiring a new set of responsibilities, including looking after her younger brother while her mother was at work. These experiences meant that she kept ‘dreaming about returning to Colombia’. As identified by Le Espiritu and Tran (2002), imagined returns to an idealised homeland are powerful means through which young people maintain and nurture their transnational attachments and identities.

Furthermore, youths born in Colombia reported experiences of discrimination. While Colombians speak Spanish, ‘certain words are different […] in Colombia we say carro (car) but in Spain they say coche (car)’, says José. Youths highlighted how their schoolmates would ‘bully’ them for their Colombian accent and reproduce stereotypes about Colombians as ‘narcos’ or ‘delinquents’. ‘I suffered lots of bullying in school’, says Marina.

On the contrary, positive relationships with members of the host society and accessing opportunities help youths develop attachments to the host society (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022). This was the case of Pamela who moved to Spain with her parents when she was seven. Upon arrival, her family settled in Navarra where she did not feel welcomed as ‘people were closed minded because there was less immigration’. Her experience changed when her family moved to Andalucía:

People were more open minded […] I felt much more comfortable. I started studying hard, I wanted to stay in Spain, because before I didn’t see myself in Spain, I wanted to return to Colombia. Things started to go better […] I started to have lots of friends.

Now, when asked about her identity, Pamela sees herself as both Spanish and Colombian.

6. Renegotiating identities in London

The previous section demonstrated that to understand onward migrant youths’ identities, their trajectories, experiences, and relational worlds preceding onward migration must be considered. Here, I show that following onward migration young people find themselves in a new relational environment which may offer opportunities to claim identities they used to have limited access to, and which young people learn to deploy strategically to gain belonging to multiple social spaces, to express longing for left-behind families and friends, and to highlight new challenges.

6.1. ‘Here I feel more Spanish’

From an anti-essentialist perspective, identities are not fixed but may change over the life-course and depending on social and geographical locations (Mas Giralt 2015). By onward migrating, youths find themselves in a new relational environment which allows them to claim identities they used to have limited access to. ‘Here I feel more Spanish’, says Raul. Raul is a 16-year-old born and raised in Spain, who onward migrated to London with his family at the age of 14. One of the reasons why he feels ‘more Spanish’ is because his Spanish identity is not as contested as it was in Spain. On the contrary, his British schoolmates call him ‘Spanish’ because of his mother tongue and by virtue of coming from Spain. Some youths felt ‘more Spanish’ also because they find it hard to relate to peers who moved to London directly from Latin American countries. This is well explained by Patricia. During the interview, Patricia described herself as a ‘foreigner’ when talking about her white, native peers in Spain. Yet, in discussing her experiences in London, she positions herself as ‘very Spanish’:

I was never able to make many friends in school [in London] […] The majority of the pupils at school came from Latin America directly. I always felt different from them. I never understood Latin culture, so I never managed to have good friendships with them. Because they were very Latin, and I was very Spanish.

Some youths claimed they could not relate to their peers coming directly from Latin American countries not just because they didn’t share similar cultural reference and migratory experiences as in Patricia’s case, but to gain belonging in London. Despite spending her first years of life in Colombia, Fiona explains she acquired a more ‘European’ mentality while living in Spain. According to her, this means holding fewer conservative values when it comes to gender norms, sexuality, and racial diversity which align with London’s multicultural, cosmopolitan character. Fiona’s words not only suggest that some youths internalise colonial discourses constructing Europe as the site of modernity and Latin America as the site of backward values (Lobera 2021), but are mobilising these discourses to gain inclusion in London, at the expense of othering their peers.

Onward migrant youths’ privileging of certain identities over others must also be understood as a strategy to express longing for their left-behind friends and families. As put by one of the adolescents during a focus group: ‘I feel more Spanish because I miss my family’. In Gilsenan and Lee’s (2021) study, young people of Latin American background were reluctant to onward migrate to London with their parents as it meant separating from their friends and relatives. ‘I didn’t like coming here at all because there [in Spain] I had my friends and my family and well … now I am here’, says one of the students participating in the focus groups.

Young people’s emphasis on their Spanish identity was also a way of expressing they missed the lifestyle they had in Spain. Onward Latin American families in London face various challenges (McIlwaine and Bunge 2019). For example, some interviewees had lived or were living with their parents in shared accommodations. Others reported spending little time with their parents to the point that ‘there are days that we don’t see each other’. Latin Americans who onward migrated to London following the crisis experience precarity, as they get incorporated in low-income occupations, particularly in the cleaning sector, which require working long, unsociable hours and having little time for family life (Bermudez et al. 2020b). Pablo, a 16-year-old of Colombian descent, powerfully summarises the deterioration of the quality of life faced by some onward migrant families:

The majority of Latin Americans that come here [to London] from Europe [Spain] think to come here for their future, for the future of their children, because here there is better transport, better jobs, more money. But sometimes they focus too much on these things and they forget about the quality of life, to enjoy life.

This greater appreciation of Spain was showcased also by some interviewees born in Colombia, who moved to Spain as adolescents or children, and had a difficult time adjusting there. Marina always felt like an outsider in Spain. She moved to London at the age of 17 with her mother and younger brother. In London, she shared accommodation with strangers, had to learn a new language, and started working with her mother as a cleaner before going to school. As Marina remarked: ‘it was normal, my friends were doing it too’. Because of these experiences, she ‘learnt to appreciate much more what we had in Spain … We didn’t realise the quality of life we had, the comfort we had’.

This section showed that some youths might re-position themselves as Spanish and/or European because of the new relational environment. This re-positioning is also a way of gaining belonging in the new destination and signalling the new set of challenges they face in London. The next section shows that youths begin to embrace and mobilise other identities too in London.

6.2. ‘Here, I feel more Colombian’

While youths felt they could claim their Spanish identity more easily because it was not as contested as it was in Spain, they could also claim to be Colombian or Latin American without feeling as discriminated against as they were in Spain. Discrimination can spark emotions of shame, leading to young people’s distancing from their heritage culture (Katartzi 2017). This is exemplified by Maria, the Colombian teacher with whom I organised the focus groups:

I have students who say they were Spanish in Spain, or they would put on a Spanish accent to not be bullied […] Once, an Ecuadorian girl with beautiful black, straight, long hair … she arrived [to her first school day] blond! [laughs] After a couple of months, she went back to her black hair. She told me: ‘I used to dye my hair to not look so Latin in Spain’.

This does not mean that in London youths of Latin American background do not confront discrimination. They confront stereotypes of Latin Americans being ‘narcos’, with girls being objectified through the stereotype that ‘Latin Americans girls are sexy’ (Mas Giralt and Granada 2014). Some interviewees also identified a new prejudice that is forming in London: that all Latin Americans are ‘just cleaners’. However, the young people in this study often felt that discrimination is more overt in Spain. This can be explained by the colonial relationship between Spain and Latin American countries which makes Latin Americans a highly visible and problematised group (Lobera 2021). In contrast, Latin Americans in London suffer from institutional invisibility as they are still classified as ‘Other’ in official statistics (Turcatti 2021).

The fact that some of Maria’s students would begin claiming identifications with their parents’ homeland and embrace the pan-ethnic Latin American identity is also due to the school activities she organises. Migrant youths begin identifying with their heritage culture when they perceive their background to be valued and appreciated (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022). Maria regularly invites role models of Latin American background to her classroom to share the challenges they overcame and to celebrate festivities from various Latin American cultures, which ultimately help counteract stereotypes over Latin Americans in her school – fundamental to support migrant students to re-insert in school (Rodríguez-Cruz 2022). Through these activities, Maria is contributing to the creation of a pan-ethnic Latin American identity to which positive meanings are attached and which her students can claim with pride.

Migrant youths mobilise their identities, for different reasons, including to gain acceptance and access resources (Mas Giralt 2011; Boland 2020). Onward migrant youths of Colombian descent learn quickly to deploy their Colombian and Latin American identities strategically. As put by Paula, a 16-year-old girl born and raised in Spain by Ecuadorian parents during a focus group: ‘Here in London, I feel a little bit more Ecuadorian […] when I go to Spain, I feel much more Spanish’. Positioning herself as Ecuadorian in London allows her to bond with other peers of Latin American background. This helped her make friends who could interpret for her when she first arrived. Youths who onward migrated in their twenties mobilise their identities in similar ways. For example, Pamela positioned herself as ‘Colombian’ when she described how she found housing. When looking for accommodation, Pamela reached out to ‘another Colombian girl’ she knew from Spain, who was living in London with her family and had a spare room to rent.

Yet, young people’s embracing of their heritage identity in the onward destination is more than a strategic move as it can also be the outcome of new transnational experiences. Bermudez and Oso (2019) show that some Latin American families prior to onward migrating to London temporarily returned to their country of origin. I did come across interviewees who moved with their families to their parents’ homeland after the 2008 crisis and before migrating to London. These new experiences helped them get closer to their heritage culture. Others began to engage with their parents’ cultural heritage in London. For example, Patricia, who onward migrated with her father at the age of 14 while her mother remained in Spain as her parents are divorced, explains that:

Now that I don’t live with her [her mother] anymore, all that music from when I was a child, like bachata and salsa, that my mum loved and that I did not like and I would never listen to … It’s a bit crazy, but now I listen to it so much because it reminds me of her … Now, I love it too.

Patricia has begun engaging with her parents’ culture as a means of bridging the physical distance with her mother.

Finally, some interviewees would claim their Colombian or Latin American identities to legitimise their belonging to diasporic places. In London, Latin Americans are a vibrant community: they run businesses, direct charities, organise festivals, and hold masses in Spanish and Portuguese (Bermudez and Cuberos-Gallardo 2021). For the newly arrived onward migrant families, these become sites where they can receive support, form new friendships, and engage in cultural and political activities (Bermudez and Cuberos-Gallardo 2021). One of the Colombian mothers interviewed remarked how these sites can be particularly important for onward Latin American families from Spain who might not necessarily receive the support of the Spanish community in London, because of the persistence of discriminatory attitudes by Spanish people abroad.

These Latin American spaces in London benefit onward migrant youths of Colombian descent too. After onward migrating to London with his parents and little sister when he was eight, Jacob’s parents began participating in the cultural activities organised by Latin American diaspora groups and NGOs. There, he started taking regular salsa classes with his mother and making friendships. He recalls how he used to privilege his Spanish identity while living in Spain. Now, he defines himself as Colombian and Latin American. By doing so he claims and continues to legitimise his belonging to the new spaces he has come to inhabit.

7. Developing new identities?

The previous section showed that onward migrant youths draw from a diverse repertoire of identities to adjust to the onward destination. In her work with young Somalis who onward migrated from the Netherlands to the UK, van Liempt (2011) found that some young people were also developing attachments to the onward destination, beginning to identify as ‘a little British’. This section demonstrates that onward migrant youths may develop new identities against frames of reference other than the national context.

Contrary to the young people in van Liempt’s (2011) study, none of the interviewees felt they could claim to be British. As put by a student during a focus group: ‘I don’t say I am from here because I only live here, I don’t have family here, I wasn’t born here’. However, this may not necessarily be the case for everyone. For example, Jacob explains that his younger sister feels more British than Spanish or Colombian. He attributes this to the fact that when their family onward migrated to London, his sister was three years old. This meant she learnt English more quickly and integrated faster.

This comparison suggests that onward migrating at a young age makes it easier for youths to feel part of the new society. This trend was confirmed by some parents who would compare the integration experiences of their older and younger children in the onward destination. However, age of arrival is one factor among several. Sofia, who was 15 at the time of the interview, dreams about leaving London as soon as she finishes high school. While onward migrating at the age of 5, moving to London meant separating from his dad who had first to complete the family reunification process before being able to move to London. Furthermore, Sofia has vivid memories of the bullying she suffered in school for not speaking English and her darker skin tone. Sofia’s experience shows that onward migrating at a younger age does not automatically result in young people’s identification with and attachment to the onward destination.

Like Sofia, none of the interviewees claimed to be British. Yet, contrary to Sofia, some felt London is their home now. Young migrants can indeed develop identities against frames of reference other than the sending and receiving country (Mas Giralt 2015). ‘I’m not British, but I identify with London now’, says Manuel. Born and raised in Spain, Manuel had moved to London at the age of 14 and he is now in his twenties. Upon arrival, he faced several challenges, including homelessness. He remembers sitting in the waiting room of the council for three days before he and his mother were offered temporary accommodation. He was also bullied at school because he could not speak English. However, once he learnt English, he began having friends from ‘all over the world’ that accepted him for who he is. He was not depreciatively labelled the ‘Colombian boy’ as he was in Spain. Manuel now identifies with what he perceives to be the values of Londoners – namely, acceptance of diversity and multiculturalism.

Some interviewees reported to ‘identify with London’ also because they feel that they have better chances to climb the ladder in the British capital, showing how localised identities are contingent on access to opportunities as much as national identities are (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022). Patricia, who was born and raised in Spain before she onward migrated with her father to London at the age of 14, powerfully captures this:

In Spain the food and the weather is better, the lifestyle is incredible […] But the mentality … If in Spain you had the same opportunities you have in England, Spain would be the paradise. But they don’t have them! So, honestly, I feel I identify more with London because … they help you […] I am not English but if they told me: ‘choose between Spain and England’, I would choose England.

Patricia’s sentiment is echoed by some of the youths born in Colombia who onward migrated to London in their twenties who achieved the independence they were looking for. Damaris’s story is a good example. In Spain, Damaris had dropped out of school because ‘school was not for me […] you don’t see Latinos or Black people working in a bank in Spain’. She onward migrated to London to ‘find herself’ but she was incorporated in the cleaning sector. She went back to school because she wanted ‘more from life’. Damaris learnt English in the free classes offered by a charity, where she was also helped to get into an apprenticeship of dental nursing. Later, she found a job in a dentist studio, which she ended up hating. Hence, she applied to university to study public relations and communications, becoming the first woman in her family to attend university. Damaris now has it clear that she wants to stay in London.

8. Conclusion

Recently, van Geel and Mazzuccato (2018) highlighted how scholars tend to focus on the second generations – that is, youths born from migrant parents in a given destination country – or youths migrating only once during their childhood, adolescence, or early twenties. This means that less attention is paid to young people who have experienced multiple migrations, such as onward migrant youths. To advance our understanding of the implications of multiple migrations for young people, this article examined how onward migrant youths make sense of their socio-cultural identities by drawing from interviews with onward migrant youths of Colombian descent living in London.

This article shows that onward migrant youths can form a highly diverse group both in terms of trajectories and identifications. Onward migrant youths of Colombian descent identified their trajectories and places of birth as playing a key role in shaping their identifications, with their engagement in transnational practices tying them to Colombia and experiences of discrimination in Spain as being equally salient. These findings mirror those of the studies conducted with second generations and migrant youths showing that generational cohorts matter to understand migrant youths’ adaptation experiences (Rumbaut 2004) and that engagement in transnational practices (Reynolds and Zontini 2014), lack of opportunities, and discrimination (Arias Cubas, Al-deenm, and Mansouri 2022) are key factors shaping young people’s identifications. While confirming previous research, these findings are nonetheless important because they force us to recognise that onward migrant youths cannot be considered a uniform group and provide important background to understand what onward migrating means for their identities.

Secondly, this article contributes to the understanding of the implications that multiple migrations have for young people and their identities. Scholars show how migrant youths’ identities change depending on social and geographical locations and youths learn quickly to ‘code-switch’ between identities strategically (Mas Giralt 2015; Visser 2016; Boland 2020). This article suggests that these processes apply also for when young people onward migrate. Following onward migration, young people find themselves in a new relational environment which may offer opportunities to claim identities they had limited access to in the previous country of residence and which are deployed strategically to gain belonging, to express longing for left-behind families and friends, to highlight the challenges they face in the onward destination, and to gain acceptance. Importantly, it was highlighted that facing dire socio-economic circumstances upon arrival can result in young people claiming their ‘Spanishness’ to highlight the challenges faced by their families in the onward destination but it can also result in young people aligning with the Latin American community to find support to face these.

Finally, this article demonstrates that multiple migrations open opportunities for forming identities drawing from multiple frames and scales of reference. Thus far, research showed that onward migrant youths may develop attachments and begin identifying with the onward destination at the national level (van Liempt 2011). However, it was discussed that onward migrant youths may form new identities against frames other than the national one. Importantly, these new identities and attachments to the onward destination are contingent on whether young people feel accepted and whether they can access opportunities over time. As such, the length of residence and age of arrival to the onward destination remain key factors to consider in order to understand youths’ new identifications with and attachments to the onward destination.

While additional research is needed to better understand the identities of onward migrant youths, including their non-national ones, the findings from this study have diverse implications. From a conceptual perspective, this article suggests that we need to rethink conventional categories to classify migrant youths and reifies the importance of thinking about identities as relational. From a policy perspective, two main conclusions can be drawn from the findings. First, the article demonstrates the importance of reception policies that enhance the socio-economic opportunities available not only to youths but also to their families so that young migrants can develop a localised sense of belonging. Secondly, these findings clearly demonstrated that holding diverse identities can enhance youths and their families’ ability to access diverse spaces for support. Hence, multiple identities do not necessarily hinder young people’s integration in the new context but rather become assets to nurture.

Ethical approval

This study has been approved by the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography Research Ethics Committee (SAME REC) (Reference Number: SAME_C1A_20_039)

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the young people who shared their stories of migration, their challenges, and dreams with me. I am also indebted to their parents and community leaders who welcomed me in their communities and families, making this research possible by sharing their precious time, knowledge and lived experiences. Special thanks to the teacher and community leader with whom the focus groups were organised and who guided me in making sense of the experiences of young onward migrants. I am also grateful to Rosa Mas Giralt, Carlos Vargas-Silva, and Martha Montero-Sieburth for their insightful comments and critical feedback on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

While conducting this study, the author received the Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.