“My Parents Want Me to Be Something in Life, Like a Lawyer or a Hero”

This chapter shows that all of the parents in this study want their children to go to school and become professionals. The parents use street vending work as a scaring mechanism and motivation to push their children to excel in school as elements of immigrant bargaining. None of the youth want to be street vendors for the rest of their lives. They talked about their educational aspirations in a social justice framework, and their academic goals were motivated by their street vending experience and the inequalities they and their parents experience in the street. Children and parents alike said that work provided valuable lessons and skills that could be used in school, and I observed how work allowed them to create social networks that increased their social capital. Their educational and occupational trajectory is shaped by a collectivist immigrant bargain framework.