U.S. Ecuadorian Altruistic Expression: Synthesizing the Ancestral With U.S. Latino/a Immigration Experiences

This investigation brings to the forefront what Ecuadorian immigrants claim is their identity and how in their words they practice their cultural and social relations in two spaces: Ecuador and the United States (U.S.). This ethnographic study’s perspective at the intersection of race, gender, and class facilitated the exploration of how reflexively aware individuals (Giddens 1991) ---inextricably tied to varying degrees by DNA to African ancestry (Paz‐y‐Miño 2016) --- negotiate ideas about who they believe they are and what they want as they establish transnational identities. Ecuadorian migrants in this study give meaning and speak about the practice of their diverse racial-cultural identities by comparing their ideas of who they are to the U.S. government’s 2010 census-based claim that immigrants from Ecuador may define themselves as “Hispanic” or “Latino/a”, Chicano/a, and Afro-American or Afro-Latino. Existing scholarship brought to the surface the concept of Buen Vivir – living good -- that frames and shapes across ethnic and racial boundaries the construction of identity, aspirations, hopes, and dreams in Ecuador (Gudynas 2011). This investigation focused on the tri-axis junction of this Andean ideal emphasizing altruistic acts and self-improvement, racialized public policies, and the rigorous demands to acquire what each subject personally defined as the American Dream in the U.S. For example, this investigation asked subjects to discuss ways in which they believe they have appropriated or ignored the ancestral component of their racially and ethnically diverse identities to acquire what they believe to be living good, or the conflation of principles and ideals seated in both Buen Vivir and the American Dream. The findings of this anthropological study about the lived experiences of Ecuadorian migrants in Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami increases the breadth of knowledge across disciplines about the global migration of populations struggling to come to terms with the plasticity of multifaceted ethnic and diasporic heritages