TORTOISES AND ELEPHANTS IN THE CONTEXT OF FAMILY SOCIAL MOBILITY: SECOND-GENERATION SPANISH MIGRANTS IN FRANCE AND THEIR DESIRE TO 'RETURN'

This article posits that the 'return' strategy of the children of Spanish migrants in France is due not only to nostalgia for the country of origin, but also and more so to the family's social mobility project, whereby the parents have placed their hopes for return seen as the key to success in the migrant social mobility strategy in their children. On retirement, the 'elephants' or the elderly first generation make their way back to the cemetery in the land they left behind, whilst the 'tortoises' the younger second generation-return to their point of origin to ensure that the family's history is reborn from its point of stagnation. This article is based on data obtained from fieldwork (family life stories) carried out in and around Paris between 1998 and 2008.