The purpose is to highlight emigrants' own experiences and perceptions of migration and return migration. By shedding light on emigrants' personal experiences of integration, it can foster greater understanding of certain aspects of migrants' situation today.  An overview of previous research has identified gaps and areas that require further investigation, especially regarding emigrants' own experiences and perceptions of migration and return migration. Based on the purpose, this paper intends to employ the theoretical concepts of gender, class, and hegemonic masculinity to explore, explain, and discuss this theme.  Key conclusions include that the decision to emigrate was strongly influenced by network migration, where social networks played a central role in the decision-making process. Swedes were prioritized over other ethnicities in certain sectors of the American job market. From the emigrants' own stories, it is evident that further advancement was unthinkable, leading Swedes to take low-status jobs that American citizens were uninterested in. Hegemonic gender structures highlight a hierarchy within the white group. While social stratification measurements mainly focused on men, the sources presented in the paper also depict descriptions of women improving their social status upon return.