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Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life across the country for college and then again for work (multiple times sometimes) while away from

Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life across the country for college and then again for work (multiple times sometimes) while away from family and friends is very foreign. A lot of the conversation around modern American youth feeling isolated, lacking socialization and not building strong relationships seems that stem from this drive. Another thing that’s really weird and related is another recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that comes with living “at home” or staying in the same small town for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means you’re a “loser”.

dyauspitr 2y ago
I think it facilitates the relatively high social mobility you see in the US. Being able to start over a few times means you can easily reinvent yourself whereas someone that lives in the same situation they were born into might not.
bossyTeacher 2y ago
On the other hand, if you look at Latam, you see that compared to anglo countries there is not much entrepreneurial spirit or drive to do things differently or be differently. And I feel this reflects at an economic level (innovation and startups) and social level (women equality, lgbt, secularity, etc)
chasd00 2y ago
Not sure if it’s just in America but people love to tear others down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and you understand what is going on it’s easy to just ignore them.
- DavidPiper 2y ago
  OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's defining characteristic, and things are much better in America. But maybe not.
  - monkeycantype 2y ago
    Tall poppy syndrome isn’t real, Australians don’t have a problem with people being successful but object to greed and lack of humility. Have a look at people who have claimed they were harmed by tall poppy attitudes and see what you think. To use examples familiar to Americans, I’ve never read a bad word written on Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Terrance Tao….
  - lamp_book 2y ago
    The tall poppy thing exists well in the pocket of the US midwest I grew up in (Rust Belt) - I understand it to be a cultural inheritance from the Irish/English/Scottish working class which remain cohesive communities. When you scope out to the broader American culture it dissipates, though I wouldn't be surprised to find it in other kinds of communities.
more_corn 2y ago
This isn’t restricted to US culture. Every culture on earth sees a draw from the small towns and villages to the city. Opportunities, culture, better pay, access to education. Japanese villages are empty. Spain, Italy the same. I’m in Thailand and my guide said exactly the same thing yesterday. There’s also a draw away from the city as people have kids. They want a bit more quiet. Good schools safe environment. The migration is about the different things one wants during the course of one’s life. Perhaps you could rephrase the concept around “if you stay at home you might miss out on some of the opportunities your peers experienced” if you want to look at both sides you could consider the benefits of community family and friends that those who stay are able to enjoy.
- aylmao 2y ago
  > Every culture on earth sees a draw from the small towns and villages to the city. What you're describing is true, but also different from what the original comment is talking about. There is a global trend to urbanization, yes. The original comment isn't talking about moving from rural to urban; what they say applies to moving from one city to another. Moreover, at an individual scale, moving for better opportunities doesn't mean one has to leave family and friends. For example, my grandma: she was very poor, and moved a few times different cities looking for a better life. This meant moving with her whole family, and/or moving where other family was. After she married my grandpa, he got job opportunities in both Guadalajara and Mexico City. I'm sure they could've done better in Mexico City, since it's the capital, but they chose Guadalajara due to proximity to family. Her mom eventually moved to Guadalajara too. Another, more recent example from my family: my uncle. He had the opportunity to move for a very good job, but didn't take it since it was far from family. My brother moved cities for college, but specifically to one where he would be close to family. One thing is moving wherever it takes for the sake of going to a specific school, working at a specific job, living in a specific dream home or dream city. That is very American. Another one is still looking for opportunities, but framing everything in terms of your family and friends; ie, what's the best job, school, home I can find close to my family? That's much more Latin American and much less common, in my experience, in the USA.
  - phil21 2y ago
rauljordan2020 2y ago
I’m from latin america. The world is a vast, beautiful place with stunning, clean cities full of opportunity and serendipity. Either I can explore the world and live in these places, or go back to my dangerous, dirty city to spend the rest of my life there because family lives there. Sometimes it isn’t worth the tradeoff
- ustad 2y ago
  “Though the roads may wind far and wide, And cities gleam with promises bright, The heart will always turn to the soil, Where the roots of our ancestors lie. No matter how distant the dream may be, Home will call, and there we shall be.” – Mariana Ruiz del Valle
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    It just doesn’t though. That is a feeling specific to her and a few others. It’s not universal at all
  - lioeters 2y ago
    We need a poet who sings about having a "dangerous, dirty city" to call home, and the yearning of the heart is to escape to somewhere better and never returning.
    - jimbokun 2y ago
      Not hard to find. Most modern artists value leaving home and tradition in pursuit of the novel and transgressive.
      - lioeters 2y ago
        That's true. It's probably one of the main themes of the modern era, in the arts and in life, the freedom to pursue individualism and novelty, and break with religion and tradition. This meaning of "leaving home" as a cultural trend, I see it as part of the modern historical period that has passed its peak. We're living in the natural and logical result, and searching for a way back home. > The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization, and a belief in the positive possibilities of technological and political progress. > It has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology. It has also been an Age of Discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, strengthened its political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world. It also created a new modern lifestyle and has permanently changed the way people around the world live. > In the 19th and early 20th century, modernist art, politics, science, and culture have come to dominate not only Western Europe and North America, but almost every area on the globe, including movements thought of as opposed to the western world and globalization. > The brutal wars and other conflicts of this era, many of which come from the effects of rapid change, and the connected loss of strength of traditional religious and ethical norms, have led to many reactions against modern development.
seizethecheese 2y ago
80% of Americans live near where they were born. This isn’t the root cause of estrangement.
- moneywoes 2y ago
  curios any more insight on that stat? it contradicts the thesis of the op edit found this https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-close-to-home-despite-freedom-to-move/ https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-...
  - hyperliner 2y ago
    Two good ones: “The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f... “More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than-half-of-americans-live-within-an-hour-of-extended-family/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than...
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      If you’ve lived within 20 minutes of a friend versus 2 minutes of a friend, it’d be immediately obvious how irrelevant “only 18 miles” and “within an hour” are. Someone 45 minutes away might as well require a flight, as far as I’m concerned
      - CMCDragonkai 2y ago
        It's like that thing about radio waves. I proposed the inverse square law on friendship versus temporal distance.
        whiskiss 2y ago
        I agree. You could say temporal distance out of sight squared = amount out of mind. (I know that's not the real inverse square equation just having fun)
iamricks 2y ago
I am Cuban and from Miami. The culture here is very similar where people will sacrifice everything in order to stay living close to family and "home". Here it stems a lot from the financial anxiety passed down from our parents and a culture where you relied a lot on your entire family. I think it really holds a lot of people back.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  If you're Cuban and living in Miami, you are literally not near your "home", and probably not near your family? Or rather, physically close but still a plane ride and a diplomatic cold zone away.
  - alonsonic 2y ago
    Sounds like you haven't been to Miami before or don't know about the city demographics. Cuban population is massive, more people speak Spanish in and around miami than English these days. So yeah, he's home.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Presumably they’re Cuban-American…
DragonStrength 2y ago
From an American's perspective, given how much Latin American migrant inflow we have, it'd be easy for us to say the same about Latin American cultures and not imagining how we could leave everything behind. Perhaps people's choices don't always reflect their desires and instead reflect the economic realities around them. "Getting out" is viewed as success where I was from because "staying behind" meant a worse life for those who didn't come from wealth. Reminds me of all these older Americans talking about how "people don't want kids these days" when polling shows younger folks want just as many kids as their own parents but can't afford them.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > when polling shows younger folks want just as many kids as their own parents but can't afford them. it isn't just that they can't afford them, it's that the standards for "good parenting" have increased. Simultaneously, both partners have less time for raising kids because of economic pressure But the state doesn't subsidize childcare or offer universal pre-K, so the only real solution is to keep importing people from more "trad" cultures until the whole thing blows up
- pjerem 2y ago
  100% of Latin Americans you see are migrants because, well, you are in the US. You are only seeing exceptions. The immense majority of Latin American don’t live in the US neither migrate there.
  - DragonStrength 2y ago
    You could say the same about the US-born, so I think you missed my point since you're trying to draw distinctions between the US-born and Latin American-born based on, well, I'm not sure what honestly. Your response is a bit odd, but kind of proves my point about pathologizing the ills of America and romanticizing other cultures, even those which are decidedly "Western" as well.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      Statistically the number of Latin American migrants that move to the US yearly is tiny compared to the internal migration and especially to the number of people in Latin America who didn't go anywhere, though. The fact the it's not 100% who don't move doesn't really disprove anything.
grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor in teenagers feeling isolated. Suburbia and the decline of third places probably play a far greater role in this demographic. It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive advantage of the Anglo cultures for centuries, eg. moving for opportunity (improved social mobility), ability to connect with outsiders, couple pairing across cultural/geographical boundaries, prerequisite to a high trust society, etc. What really needs to happen is we need to figure out ways of facilitating friend formation/maintenance in this brave new world of the internet and atheism. We are going to need some new social technologies to really combat this. One interesting recent social technology out of china https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3152758/meet-dancing-grannies-loud-glorious-staple https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities...
- deleted 2y ago
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- pas 2y ago
  So, people moving away is not new and not surprising, and happens all over the world, it's basically the main driver of urbanization. What's new was (rich) people moving "back" (to suburbs for the American Dream, and nowadays to have kids). Though it's better than what used to happen - which was lots of kids, and high infant mortality, plus poverty driving kids to find jobs in cities, where bad living conditions and factory work awaited them. (And in the 20th century company towns around mines and factories.) People growing up, flying out of the family nest, and finding friends was a normal part of late teenage years. What's new on top of that is more people are trying to do it again in their 20s after higher education, and again after settling down to have kids, and ... The good news is that we have the social technology of ... affordable safe high density cities, with parks and high-rises (plus the obligatory blackjack and hookers too!) ... where people can be next to their new and old friends at the same time ... oh my! Also https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-loneliness-epidemic https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-loneliness...
deleted 2y ago
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lazide 2y ago
The socio-economic landscape in the US means where it is cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity. And in the US, people can move easily. So kids usually have a a choice - either stay where they grew up, and live with reduced economic opportunities (actually very common, but those folks aren’t usually posting all over the Internet about it). Or move to where the economic opportunity is good, but then be isolated from prior friends and family. Those people talk a lot more, and tend to stick out. That is also more expensive, so those folks tend to have more economic backing and/or stronger ‘resumes’ which correlates to more education, getting more opportunity, etc. If folks from the second group have issues and need to retreat to a more comfortable economic situation, they’ll also return to where they tended to grow up, usually. One of those two groups is more often to be called ‘losers’. Which one do you think it is? Oh, did I say the US? This is actually many countries, minus ease of moving around.
- goodpoint 2y ago
  > cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity That's the problem. Due to car culture and zoning policies etc.
  - BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
    This could now be (partially) solved with remote work.
  - lazide 2y ago
    It’s likely always been that way. Cities are crowded and more expensive, but have more jobs and opportunities. Rural areas are boring, but cheaper.
brightball 2y ago
Agree with this 100%. It’s so much easier to have kids if your parents live nearby to help too. Root cause is moving for work IMO.
- wholinator2 2y ago
  Yes and since a majority of college goers now see it as a job mill (that's what it is for most) the move for college is also just a preemptive move for work
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Most people go to college not very far from where they grew up. That is in the same state or only one state away. Then they move back home afterwards. (or they fall in love with someone, and move near that person's family thus getting a new family)
whateveracct 2y ago
America is huge. A big reason a lot of people move is work and money. I grew up in the Midwest and moved to the West Coast because the job prospects and money were way better. Not to mention the WC state I'm in is much nicer than the Midwest one I grew up in.
dukeyukey 2y ago
The ironic thing is that Latin Americans are largely descended from people who left one continent and set up a new life literally a continent away. Like, your ancestors were the kind of people to sail thousands of miles to create a new life.
- wholinator2 2y ago
  I mean, can't we say that about basically everyone except the people in the African plains/the fertile crescent? The whole species is descended at some point from people who moved away from where they were born
- bluGill 2y ago
  Right, and then we put down roots. People move. some of the people who stetted their have moved on again, but a core remains with roots. Maybe those people will all move away, but I doubt it - humans still live in Africa.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    More that they described it as "very foreign" when it literally is not. The people who didn't live in Spain and Portugal!
cultofmetatron 2y ago
first time I went to latin america, I fell in love with the innate closeness everyone seems to have. ya'll so friendly I keep finding excuses to down to colombia.
odyssey7 2y ago
Remote work could have solved this. The higher-ups had other thoughts. There’s a parallel to sending your kids off to war. Get them away from their sense of stability, to a place where it’s too expensive to live, for years at a time, to fight for the United States’ GDP. It’s not just the young adults who are affected. In some cases their family members grieve the separation. And yet it seems like the only way to get ahead for many.
- nradov 2y ago
  Remote work couldn't have solved anything. It's a great option for some people but it can only ever be possible for a tiny fraction of jobs where everything is done online. So basically nothing in agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, military, transportation, utilities, tourism, hospitality, primary education, sports, etc. Even in the tech industry a lot of employees will always have to at least occasionally work at a certain physical office in order to access specialized or security controlled hardware.
  - odyssey7 2y ago
    Perhaps it’s just my bubble, but I mainly see this happen with people who do knowledge work which could definitely be 100% completed online. Even if this is just a “tiny fraction” of workers, allowing them the liberty to easily pursue their career while also maintaining close relations with their family would be good, not merely something to write off as negligible. Every human life matters.
    - phil21 2y ago
      It simply creates an even more privileged knowledge worker class. I recently spent a lot of time in some more rural parts of the US. There is rapidly growing resentment over this topic. It came up nearly daily in casual conversation/overheard at bars/etc. It might be good for 5-10% of the population, but at what cost to social cohesion? These were certainly not CEO type of folks, and they were not terminally on-line or overtly political. Just quite average people across the age and industry spectrum. Now add in those knowledge workers typically making far more money than the prevailing local wages and it gets even worse as they bid up housing. This is something I think about a lot. It's easy to dismiss as many here do with "stop crying, life isn't fair" - but that's not a very satisfying answer. It's about as satisfying and corrosive to society as telling coal miners to "learn to code".
Loughla 2y ago
>or staying in the same small town for your whole life. I'm living this now. We moved back to have kids near friends and family after college. The judgment I get from people for being a towny is ASTOUNDING. I have to justify the reason for being here and talk about how I've lived in other places for a few years for people to take me seriously. It's ridiculous. Why shouldn't I bring my experience back to fix the problems in this area? What's the problem with that?
- anastasiaess 2y ago
  That’s how things used to be and it’s a good spirit. Volunteering and being civically engaged are good for the soul.
throwaway6734 2y ago
>Another thing that’s really weird and related is another recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that comes with living “at home” or staying in the same small town for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means you’re a “loser”. The older I get, the more I regret moving away from my family and friends in New Jersey. I'm only 3 hours away so still see them about once a month, but I'm very envious of my friends that stayed in our home town and get to see each other every weekend and their children get to spend daily time with their grandparents. Whenever we consider moving back though, housing prices are always one of the biggest deterrents.
ItCouldBeWorse 2y ago
Alot of those values make more sense, if you stop to view them as some side effect for individual happiness and more as cooperate digestive tract juices.
JustExAWS 2y ago
Exactly how was I going to find a job that was computer science related in small town south GA in the mid 1990s?
derefr 2y ago
When Americans are motivated to move out of the small town they were born in, it's often because that "small town" is a dying and depopulated hollow shell full of awful, racist, jobless, drug-addicted idiots who are mostly only surviving off of some kind of long-term disability insurance. Often, with these kinds of places, they aren't a place your family has lived for generations, and nor are they a place you have the opportunity to form any good connections in; rather, they're somewhere your parents had to move to when they lost their jobs/went bankrupt/etc, and so could no longer afford to live anywhere with higher land values. Everyone living in these places encourages anyone who has any potential at all, to get out as soon as they can.
- emchammer 2y ago
  Nobody likes to be told that they are racist. Once you realize that land value and low airfares are just ways of changing the scenery on different time scales, you can start working the deeper problems.
- rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - moosey 2y ago
    I love living in small towns. Truly, I do. I lived in towns ranging from 2k to 10k, and like 90% of it is great. But avoiding police is essential for people like me who even have slightly more melanin in their skin than the usual amount. There are certain stores I learn not to use, and I have to learn the locals too avoid in each one I live. The number of times that I'm treated well but that I'm somehow unique in my imagined racial group is unusually high. And I want to be clear, this isn't just in "white" communities in the Midwest, but other cultures/"races" too. I don't fit in with any because I fall into the mythical "mixed race" category. This is truly a sad social construct that I wish would die already, but yes, it's often part of the cultural nature of such places. Holding these beliefs often leads to people holding the view that their problems are caused by some external force that they can never overcome, and they end up trapped in places with low economic opportunity. So yes, racist. And I'm not limiting this to one race or culture. It's sadly a common part of the places where I most want to live and will never fit in.
mihaaly 2y ago
What we do is making new friends wherever we move. Most of the time keeping the best ones (not all equal, not all relatives are equal either), keeping touch, visiting each other, making things to do together. Because it is good for us, does not feel an effort at all. Now we have friends from foreign places that are not so foreign anymore! Friends from all around the world. : ) I consider ourselves lucky.
funyun5 2y ago
[dead]
refurb 2y ago
HN is a bit of an bubble - the vast majority of Americans never leave the town they were born in. Picking up and moving across the country is pretty rare in America as well. More common than Latin America, but still not that common. That said, I would say the biggest contributor to my economic success is my mobility. But it is a trade off, it certainly has an impact on the family and social unit.

dyauspitr 2y ago

I think it facilitates the relatively high social mobility you see in the US. Being able to start over a few times means you can easily reinvent yourself whereas someone that lives in the same situation they were born into might not.

bossyTeacher 2y ago

On the other hand, if you look at Latam, you see that compared to anglo countries there is not much entrepreneurial spirit or drive to do things differently or be differently. And I feel this reflects at an economic level (innovation and startups) and social level (women equality, lgbt, secularity, etc)

chasd00 2y ago

Not sure if it’s just in America but people love to tear others down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and you understand what is going on it’s easy to just ignore them.

DavidPiper 2y ago
OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's defining characteristic, and things are much better in America. But maybe not.
- monkeycantype 2y ago
  Tall poppy syndrome isn’t real, Australians don’t have a problem with people being successful but object to greed and lack of humility. Have a look at people who have claimed they were harmed by tall poppy attitudes and see what you think. To use examples familiar to Americans, I’ve never read a bad word written on Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Terrance Tao….
- lamp_book 2y ago
  The tall poppy thing exists well in the pocket of the US midwest I grew up in (Rust Belt) - I understand it to be a cultural inheritance from the Irish/English/Scottish working class which remain cohesive communities. When you scope out to the broader American culture it dissipates, though I wouldn't be surprised to find it in other kinds of communities.

more_corn 2y ago

This isn’t restricted to US culture. Every culture on earth sees a draw from the small towns and villages to the city. Opportunities, culture, better pay, access to education. Japanese villages are empty. Spain, Italy the same. I’m in Thailand and my guide said exactly the same thing yesterday. There’s also a draw away from the city as people have kids. They want a bit more quiet. Good schools safe environment. The migration is about the different things one wants during the course of one’s life. Perhaps you could rephrase the concept around “if you stay at home you might miss out on some of the opportunities your peers experienced” if you want to look at both sides you could consider the benefits of community family and friends that those who stay are able to enjoy.

aylmao 2y ago
> Every culture on earth sees a draw from the small towns and villages to the city. What you're describing is true, but also different from what the original comment is talking about. There is a global trend to urbanization, yes. The original comment isn't talking about moving from rural to urban; what they say applies to moving from one city to another. Moreover, at an individual scale, moving for better opportunities doesn't mean one has to leave family and friends. For example, my grandma: she was very poor, and moved a few times different cities looking for a better life. This meant moving with her whole family, and/or moving where other family was. After she married my grandpa, he got job opportunities in both Guadalajara and Mexico City. I'm sure they could've done better in Mexico City, since it's the capital, but they chose Guadalajara due to proximity to family. Her mom eventually moved to Guadalajara too. Another, more recent example from my family: my uncle. He had the opportunity to move for a very good job, but didn't take it since it was far from family. My brother moved cities for college, but specifically to one where he would be close to family. One thing is moving wherever it takes for the sake of going to a specific school, working at a specific job, living in a specific dream home or dream city. That is very American. Another one is still looking for opportunities, but framing everything in terms of your family and friends; ie, what's the best job, school, home I can find close to my family? That's much more Latin American and much less common, in my experience, in the USA.
- phil21 2y ago

rauljordan2020 2y ago

I’m from latin america. The world is a vast, beautiful place with stunning, clean cities full of opportunity and serendipity. Either I can explore the world and live in these places, or go back to my dangerous, dirty city to spend the rest of my life there because family lives there. Sometimes it isn’t worth the tradeoff

ustad 2y ago
“Though the roads may wind far and wide, And cities gleam with promises bright, The heart will always turn to the soil, Where the roots of our ancestors lie. No matter how distant the dream may be, Home will call, and there we shall be.” – Mariana Ruiz del Valle
- bowsamic 2y ago
  It just doesn’t though. That is a feeling specific to her and a few others. It’s not universal at all
- lioeters 2y ago
  We need a poet who sings about having a "dangerous, dirty city" to call home, and the yearning of the heart is to escape to somewhere better and never returning.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    Not hard to find. Most modern artists value leaving home and tradition in pursuit of the novel and transgressive.
    - lioeters 2y ago
      That's true. It's probably one of the main themes of the modern era, in the arts and in life, the freedom to pursue individualism and novelty, and break with religion and tradition. This meaning of "leaving home" as a cultural trend, I see it as part of the modern historical period that has passed its peak. We're living in the natural and logical result, and searching for a way back home. > The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization, and a belief in the positive possibilities of technological and political progress. > It has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology. It has also been an Age of Discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, strengthened its political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world. It also created a new modern lifestyle and has permanently changed the way people around the world live. > In the 19th and early 20th century, modernist art, politics, science, and culture have come to dominate not only Western Europe and North America, but almost every area on the globe, including movements thought of as opposed to the western world and globalization. > The brutal wars and other conflicts of this era, many of which come from the effects of rapid change, and the connected loss of strength of traditional religious and ethical norms, have led to many reactions against modern development.

seizethecheese 2y ago

80% of Americans live near where they were born. This isn’t the root cause of estrangement.

moneywoes 2y ago
curios any more insight on that stat? it contradicts the thesis of the op edit found this https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-close-to-home-despite-freedom-to-move/ https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-...
- hyperliner 2y ago
  Two good ones: “The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f... “More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than-half-of-americans-live-within-an-hour-of-extended-family/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than...
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    If you’ve lived within 20 minutes of a friend versus 2 minutes of a friend, it’d be immediately obvious how irrelevant “only 18 miles” and “within an hour” are. Someone 45 minutes away might as well require a flight, as far as I’m concerned
    - CMCDragonkai 2y ago
      It's like that thing about radio waves. I proposed the inverse square law on friendship versus temporal distance.
      - whiskiss 2y ago
        I agree. You could say temporal distance out of sight squared = amount out of mind. (I know that's not the real inverse square equation just having fun)

iamricks 2y ago

I am Cuban and from Miami. The culture here is very similar where people will sacrifice everything in order to stay living close to family and "home". Here it stems a lot from the financial anxiety passed down from our parents and a culture where you relied a lot on your entire family. I think it really holds a lot of people back.

dukeyukey 2y ago
If you're Cuban and living in Miami, you are literally not near your "home", and probably not near your family? Or rather, physically close but still a plane ride and a diplomatic cold zone away.
- alonsonic 2y ago
  Sounds like you haven't been to Miami before or don't know about the city demographics. Cuban population is massive, more people speak Spanish in and around miami than English these days. So yeah, he's home.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Presumably they’re Cuban-American…

DragonStrength 2y ago

From an American's perspective, given how much Latin American migrant inflow we have, it'd be easy for us to say the same about Latin American cultures and not imagining how we could leave everything behind. Perhaps people's choices don't always reflect their desires and instead reflect the economic realities around them. "Getting out" is viewed as success where I was from because "staying behind" meant a worse life for those who didn't come from wealth. Reminds me of all these older Americans talking about how "people don't want kids these days" when polling shows younger folks want just as many kids as their own parents but can't afford them.

matrix87 2y ago
> when polling shows younger folks want just as many kids as their own parents but can't afford them. it isn't just that they can't afford them, it's that the standards for "good parenting" have increased. Simultaneously, both partners have less time for raising kids because of economic pressure But the state doesn't subsidize childcare or offer universal pre-K, so the only real solution is to keep importing people from more "trad" cultures until the whole thing blows up
pjerem 2y ago
100% of Latin Americans you see are migrants because, well, you are in the US. You are only seeing exceptions. The immense majority of Latin American don’t live in the US neither migrate there.
- DragonStrength 2y ago
  You could say the same about the US-born, so I think you missed my point since you're trying to draw distinctions between the US-born and Latin American-born based on, well, I'm not sure what honestly. Your response is a bit odd, but kind of proves my point about pathologizing the ills of America and romanticizing other cultures, even those which are decidedly "Western" as well.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    Statistically the number of Latin American migrants that move to the US yearly is tiny compared to the internal migration and especially to the number of people in Latin America who didn't go anywhere, though. The fact the it's not 100% who don't move doesn't really disprove anything.

grumpy-de-sre 2y ago

In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor in teenagers feeling isolated. Suburbia and the decline of third places probably play a far greater role in this demographic. It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive advantage of the Anglo cultures for centuries, eg. moving for opportunity (improved social mobility), ability to connect with outsiders, couple pairing across cultural/geographical boundaries, prerequisite to a high trust society, etc. What really needs to happen is we need to figure out ways of facilitating friend formation/maintenance in this brave new world of the internet and atheism. We are going to need some new social technologies to really combat this. One interesting recent social technology out of china https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities/article/3152758/meet-dancing-grannies-loud-glorious-staple https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities...

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pas 2y ago
So, people moving away is not new and not surprising, and happens all over the world, it's basically the main driver of urbanization. What's new was (rich) people moving "back" (to suburbs for the American Dream, and nowadays to have kids). Though it's better than what used to happen - which was lots of kids, and high infant mortality, plus poverty driving kids to find jobs in cities, where bad living conditions and factory work awaited them. (And in the 20th century company towns around mines and factories.) People growing up, flying out of the family nest, and finding friends was a normal part of late teenage years. What's new on top of that is more people are trying to do it again in their 20s after higher education, and again after settling down to have kids, and ... The good news is that we have the social technology of ... affordable safe high density cities, with parks and high-rises (plus the obligatory blackjack and hookers too!) ... where people can be next to their new and old friends at the same time ... oh my! Also https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-loneliness-epidemic https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-loneliness...

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lazide 2y ago

The socio-economic landscape in the US means where it is cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity. And in the US, people can move easily. So kids usually have a a choice - either stay where they grew up, and live with reduced economic opportunities (actually very common, but those folks aren’t usually posting all over the Internet about it). Or move to where the economic opportunity is good, but then be isolated from prior friends and family. Those people talk a lot more, and tend to stick out. That is also more expensive, so those folks tend to have more economic backing and/or stronger ‘resumes’ which correlates to more education, getting more opportunity, etc. If folks from the second group have issues and need to retreat to a more comfortable economic situation, they’ll also return to where they tended to grow up, usually. One of those two groups is more often to be called ‘losers’. Which one do you think it is? Oh, did I say the US? This is actually many countries, minus ease of moving around.

goodpoint 2y ago
> cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity That's the problem. Due to car culture and zoning policies etc.
- BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
  This could now be (partially) solved with remote work.
- lazide 2y ago
  It’s likely always been that way. Cities are crowded and more expensive, but have more jobs and opportunities. Rural areas are boring, but cheaper.

brightball 2y ago

Agree with this 100%. It’s so much easier to have kids if your parents live nearby to help too. Root cause is moving for work IMO.

wholinator2 2y ago
Yes and since a majority of college goers now see it as a job mill (that's what it is for most) the move for college is also just a preemptive move for work
- bluGill 2y ago
  Most people go to college not very far from where they grew up. That is in the same state or only one state away. Then they move back home afterwards. (or they fall in love with someone, and move near that person's family thus getting a new family)

whateveracct 2y ago

America is huge. A big reason a lot of people move is work and money. I grew up in the Midwest and moved to the West Coast because the job prospects and money were way better. Not to mention the WC state I'm in is much nicer than the Midwest one I grew up in.

dukeyukey 2y ago

The ironic thing is that Latin Americans are largely descended from people who left one continent and set up a new life literally a continent away. Like, your ancestors were the kind of people to sail thousands of miles to create a new life.

wholinator2 2y ago
I mean, can't we say that about basically everyone except the people in the African plains/the fertile crescent? The whole species is descended at some point from people who moved away from where they were born
bluGill 2y ago
Right, and then we put down roots. People move. some of the people who stetted their have moved on again, but a core remains with roots. Maybe those people will all move away, but I doubt it - humans still live in Africa.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  More that they described it as "very foreign" when it literally is not. The people who didn't live in Spain and Portugal!

cultofmetatron 2y ago

first time I went to latin america, I fell in love with the innate closeness everyone seems to have. ya'll so friendly I keep finding excuses to down to colombia.

odyssey7 2y ago

Remote work could have solved this. The higher-ups had other thoughts. There’s a parallel to sending your kids off to war. Get them away from their sense of stability, to a place where it’s too expensive to live, for years at a time, to fight for the United States’ GDP. It’s not just the young adults who are affected. In some cases their family members grieve the separation. And yet it seems like the only way to get ahead for many.

nradov 2y ago
Remote work couldn't have solved anything. It's a great option for some people but it can only ever be possible for a tiny fraction of jobs where everything is done online. So basically nothing in agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, military, transportation, utilities, tourism, hospitality, primary education, sports, etc. Even in the tech industry a lot of employees will always have to at least occasionally work at a certain physical office in order to access specialized or security controlled hardware.
- odyssey7 2y ago
  Perhaps it’s just my bubble, but I mainly see this happen with people who do knowledge work which could definitely be 100% completed online. Even if this is just a “tiny fraction” of workers, allowing them the liberty to easily pursue their career while also maintaining close relations with their family would be good, not merely something to write off as negligible. Every human life matters.
  - phil21 2y ago
    It simply creates an even more privileged knowledge worker class. I recently spent a lot of time in some more rural parts of the US. There is rapidly growing resentment over this topic. It came up nearly daily in casual conversation/overheard at bars/etc. It might be good for 5-10% of the population, but at what cost to social cohesion? These were certainly not CEO type of folks, and they were not terminally on-line or overtly political. Just quite average people across the age and industry spectrum. Now add in those knowledge workers typically making far more money than the prevailing local wages and it gets even worse as they bid up housing. This is something I think about a lot. It's easy to dismiss as many here do with "stop crying, life isn't fair" - but that's not a very satisfying answer. It's about as satisfying and corrosive to society as telling coal miners to "learn to code".

Loughla 2y ago

>or staying in the same small town for your whole life. I'm living this now. We moved back to have kids near friends and family after college. The judgment I get from people for being a towny is ASTOUNDING. I have to justify the reason for being here and talk about how I've lived in other places for a few years for people to take me seriously. It's ridiculous. Why shouldn't I bring my experience back to fix the problems in this area? What's the problem with that?

anastasiaess 2y ago
That’s how things used to be and it’s a good spirit. Volunteering and being civically engaged are good for the soul.

throwaway6734 2y ago

>Another thing that’s really weird and related is another recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that comes with living “at home” or staying in the same small town for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means you’re a “loser”. The older I get, the more I regret moving away from my family and friends in New Jersey. I'm only 3 hours away so still see them about once a month, but I'm very envious of my friends that stayed in our home town and get to see each other every weekend and their children get to spend daily time with their grandparents. Whenever we consider moving back though, housing prices are always one of the biggest deterrents.

ItCouldBeWorse 2y ago

Alot of those values make more sense, if you stop to view them as some side effect for individual happiness and more as cooperate digestive tract juices.

JustExAWS 2y ago

Exactly how was I going to find a job that was computer science related in small town south GA in the mid 1990s?

derefr 2y ago

When Americans are motivated to move out of the small town they were born in, it's often because that "small town" is a dying and depopulated hollow shell full of awful, racist, jobless, drug-addicted idiots who are mostly only surviving off of some kind of long-term disability insurance. Often, with these kinds of places, they aren't a place your family has lived for generations, and nor are they a place you have the opportunity to form any good connections in; rather, they're somewhere your parents had to move to when they lost their jobs/went bankrupt/etc, and so could no longer afford to live anywhere with higher land values. Everyone living in these places encourages anyone who has any potential at all, to get out as soon as they can.

emchammer 2y ago
Nobody likes to be told that they are racist. Once you realize that land value and low airfares are just ways of changing the scenery on different time scales, you can start working the deeper problems.
rayiner 2y ago
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- moosey 2y ago
  I love living in small towns. Truly, I do. I lived in towns ranging from 2k to 10k, and like 90% of it is great. But avoiding police is essential for people like me who even have slightly more melanin in their skin than the usual amount. There are certain stores I learn not to use, and I have to learn the locals too avoid in each one I live. The number of times that I'm treated well but that I'm somehow unique in my imagined racial group is unusually high. And I want to be clear, this isn't just in "white" communities in the Midwest, but other cultures/"races" too. I don't fit in with any because I fall into the mythical "mixed race" category. This is truly a sad social construct that I wish would die already, but yes, it's often part of the cultural nature of such places. Holding these beliefs often leads to people holding the view that their problems are caused by some external force that they can never overcome, and they end up trapped in places with low economic opportunity. So yes, racist. And I'm not limiting this to one race or culture. It's sadly a common part of the places where I most want to live and will never fit in.

mihaaly 2y ago

What we do is making new friends wherever we move. Most of the time keeping the best ones (not all equal, not all relatives are equal either), keeping touch, visiting each other, making things to do together. Because it is good for us, does not feel an effort at all. Now we have friends from foreign places that are not so foreign anymore! Friends from all around the world. : ) I consider ourselves lucky.

funyun5 2y ago

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refurb 2y ago

HN is a bit of an bubble - the vast majority of Americans never leave the town they were born in. Picking up and moving across the country is pretty rare in America as well. More common than Latin America, but still not that common. That said, I would say the biggest contributor to my economic success is my mobility. But it is a trade off, it certainly has an impact on the family and social unit.