Education, Acculturation, and Ethnic Discrimination Among Indigenous Migrants from Latin America in New York City

Immigrants from Latin America’s Indigenous and rural communities in New York City are likely to break the cycle of poverty by improving language proficiency, acculturation, and education. Their well-being has received poor attention in the economic literature, and little is known about the needs, financial welfare, health status, or education among Indigenous-origin migrants from Latin American households. This study used primary data from a non-probabilistic sample of 121 self-identified Indigenous migrants living in New York City (NYC), a demographic cohort presenting challenges in terms of research access. National-level data usually aggregates all Spanish-speaking individuals as Hispanics and fails to acknowledge the presence of these pre-Hispanic groups. Integrating low-skilled Latin American Indigenous migrants into labor markets remains a challenge. We examined the link between the household income of Indigenous migrants from Latin America in NYC and education, acculturation, and discrimination. Using a logistic regression, we substantiated that education retains its prominence as the primary determinant of income for Indigenous migrants, but perceptions of discrimination based on skin color undermined this progress. This study highlights the need for interventions to promote language proficiency, acculturation, and education among Indigenous immigrant communities and implement culturally tailored policies to encourage the upward mobility of this population.