Abstract
Based on twenty-eight in-depth interviews with children of immigrants recently enrolled in education tracks such as medicine, dentistry, engineering, and law, this article presents a new perspective on their choice of prestigious higher education. The aim is twofold: first, to describe these minority youths’ accounts of this choice, and second, to analyse the emerging narratives as part of an identity construction. The narratives highlight the importance of free choice and individuality. Two recurring stories stress that “I have always loved it” and “I was never pushed.” With the backdrop of discourses about parental pressure and lack of autonomy for youth in immigrant communities, narratives of free and interest-based educational choices could remedy a stigma that impedes acceptance by the majority population: that these successful minority youths have made the right choice, but not necessarily for legitimate reasons.