Money Tales: Tangled Financial Socialization of US Immigrants’ Use of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations

Abstract

This Money Tales project explores the financial socialization experiences of some Black immigrants from West African and Afro-Caribbean diasporas living in the United States, focusing on their participation in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs)—informal, communal savings groups. While ROSCAs are globally practiced and culturally diverse, this study analyzes them through the interpretive lens of African Indigenous knowledge (AIK) to illuminate how relationality, mutual aid, and intergenerational learning can shape financial behavior among immigrant communities. Using life history calendar methodology with thirteen U.S.-based immigrants, the study explores money-related messages Money Tales storytellers received and how they inform their adult financial decisions, particularly their use of non-mainstream tools like ROSCAs. This research addresses key omissions in existing financial socialization literature, which often centers on white, middle-class young adults and formal banking systems, by amplifying the voices and strategies of often-overlooked populations. Although ROSCAs predate currencies, modern financial institutions, and are practiced across the globe, they remain marginalized within dominant financial discourses—often dismissed as relics of the Global South or tools for those excluded from the formal economy. This study challenges such assumptions by advocating for inclusive frameworks that recognize ROSCAs as legitimate, culturally grounded economic practices. Findings from the Money Tales storytellers’ stories reveal that financial knowledge was often absorbed through silent observation, communal obligations, and early-life exposure to ROSCAs—experiences rarely framed as “formal education” but quite impactful. Storytellers described reactivating these lessons in adulthood as strategies for achieving not only economic security but also relational accountability and cultural continuity. In centering their money message memories, the study positions ROSCAs as instruments not just of survival, but of communal stewardship, group prosperity, economic agency, and diasporic resilience.