In Los Angeles many Latino immigrants earn income through street vending, as do some of their teenagers and younger children. Members of their community and external authorities view these economic activities as deviant, low status, and illegal, and young people who engage in them are sometimes chased by the police and teased by their peers. Why do they consent to do this work, and how do they respond to the threats and taunts? Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with street vending children and teens, the authors argue that an intersectionalities perspective can help explain both why the youth engage in this work and how they construct narratives of intersectional dignities to counter experiences of shame, stigma, and humiliation with street vending. Intersectional dignities refers to moral constructions based on inversions of widely held negative stereotypes of racial ethnic minorities, the poor, immigrants, and in this case, children and girls who earn money in the streets. By analyzing how they counter stigma, one learns something about the structure of the broader society and the processes through which disparaged street vendor youth build affirming identities.

This article prompts a re-visioning of segmented assimilation theory by examining the household dynamics and consequences that occur when Latino immigrant children and youth become active contributors to family street vending businesses. Based on participant observation and 20 indepth interviews with Latino children who work with their immigrant parents as street vendors in Los Angeles, the article demonstrates how adolescent street vendors contribute to household decisions. It is argued that children in street vending families share power in the household because of: (1) their contributions to their family's income; (2) their involvement in business negotiations and decision-making processes; and (3) their 'American generational resources,' which include English language skills, citizenship, and technological and popular culture knowledge, all valued by their parents and useful for the family street vending business.

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This essay focuses on the diversity of Latinx millennials. As sociologists, each one of us has conducted primary research on particular segments of Latinx millennials, and we draw on our respective research to identify enduring, ongoing issues confronting Latinx young people, analyzing and comparing what we see today with experiences of Latinx young people in the past. Along the way, we review scholarship on Latinx millennials, and we conclude by suggesting critical avenues for future research.