Building relationships and utilizing support networks on and off campus as a first-generation college student (FGCS) from an immigrant family is critical to achieving postsecondary success. This chapter explores the personal support networks and help-seeking preferences of immigrant-origin FGCSs as part of a three-year longitudinal mixed-methods study with FGCSs at four public Hispanic-serving institutions in California. We employ social network analysis methods using survey and interview data to explore the types of relationships twelve Latinx immigrant-origin FGCSs have that provide them support in college. To guide our analysis, we use Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth. Findings reveal the significance and specific types of support provided by parents, siblings, extended family, friends and peers, co-workers, and college advisors. These findings promote an expansive view of familial support, with many connections providing encouragement, motivation, and tangible support and serving as brokers to college-based resources. Recognizing these relationships can facilitate the modification of student services and programming to help FGCSs enroll and persist in college.

Drawing upon interview data from a yearlong study with fourteen children of Latinx immigrants applying to college, I explore how students’ visions of their futures shape their college decision-making processes. I utilize possible selves theory as a guiding framework, which speaks to how people imagine who they may become in the future and can guide their actions (Markus & Nurius, 1986). I explore the following research questions: (1) how do children of Latinx immigrants conceive of their possible futures, both within higher education and beyond?, (2) what is the connection between student and familial pasts in the conceptualization of educational futures, and (3) how do students’ conceptualizations of the future shape their higher education decision-making? What I find is that students think about various possible versions of themselves simultaneously in their decision-making. This chapter contributes to current research on college choice/decision-making, the application of possible selves theory to postsecondary education, and increased insight on the role of immigrant origins in the construction of higher education aspirations among the children of Latinx immigrants.