The 2016 Presidential election has been a profoundly disturbing period for most Indians who have made the USA their home.
The great majority of Indians in the USA came here for better economic prospects. Even for those who came here as students (as did I) and decided to stay on, economic opportunity was the critical driver. Overwhelmingly, we were from urban India and had benefited from a strong tradition of educational achievement. Many of us happened to be from the privileged castes and communities, yet were imbued with the ideals of democracy and secularism that were the norm in the first four decades of independent India. For us, USA was a place where one could work hard and by sheer dint of merit rise to the highest echelons of corporate America, or strike out on one's own to build great businesses. The US had what India did not - the unrestrained opportunity to go forth and get rich without many of the overt constraints that the license Raj had imposed on India.
As importantly, America's key attributes - freedom of religion and expression - allowed us to adapt and continue to cherish many of the religious and cultural traditions that we had grown up with. We built temples, gurudwaras and mosques and celebrated events such as India Day in major cities.
We moved from small apartments in urban concentrations and small college towns to leafy and mostly white suburbs as we climbed the economic ladder. We kept up with the Jones in suburbia and our children joined the ranks of the privileged in the USA.
The fact is we led complex double lives. There was the professional aspect of our lives which was all American and all business - setting aggressive goals and achieving them; going out for lunch with colleagues and occasional drinks and dinner and work. Some of these colleagues did become close friends, but this was rare. When it came to social engagement, other than attending children's school concerts, soccer games, and the like, the bulk of socializing involved hanging out with other Indian (and South Asian) families. As our numbers grew, South Asian Associations became Indian Associations and then (multiple) Bengali/Tamil/Marathi Associations.
While this association with people of South Asian ethnicity enabled our children to retain many of our traditional values, it also imposed a considerable burden on them with living with one foot in each culture. Children are very adaptable and they still thrived. However, this article is not about the children.
While we implicitly give back to this country in terms of our professional contributions and businesses that we have created, we really do not interact with a huge chunk of America. We rarely volunteer in soup kitchens, become big brothers and big sisters or after-school tutors in low income neighborhoods, participate in local government, or for that matter encourage our children to join the ROTC.
In short, we live comfortable lives that have been largely unaffected by the currents that have roiled the USA over the last few decades. We are a privileged, highly skilled and highly compensated, "ideal" minority which up until recently has not felt the resentment of the white working class which has seen its own privilege get whittled down over time, or for that matter the resentment of African American and Latino communities who never had many of the advantages that we take for granted. We have been living in social ivory towers.
During the recent presidential campaign, many of us were perturbed by the phenomenon that is Donald Trump. But we never panicked and did little to impact the outcome. After all, America was a land of freedom and opportunity, where all men are born with certain inalienable rights. To us, Trump stood for racially divisive politics, misogyny, intemperate language, and downright lack of civility. It was inconceivable that he could become the President of the USA. We drank from the same fountains as the liberal media and the coastal elites. We were part of the tribe that had a rude awakening this election.
I think it is time for us to reflect on the America that we inhabit, its evolution over the last few decades, and our place in it. Face it, we benefited greatly from the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960's and did not bear any of the costs. Most of us came to this country after the race riots of the 70's and benefited from the newly formulated EEOC rules. We found that we had little in common with the African American community which was largely absent from the leafy high income suburbia and also from the high technology sector. There was limited opportunity to interact, and we made little attempt to seek out opportunities for interaction. In fact, many of us brought with us prejudices grounded in caste and skin color. What we failed to grasp is that without the Civil Rights movement of the '60's, we would have had to live in a very different America. We would have then understood what a toll discrimination can take in sapping the potential of individuals and communities.
With our technical skills and educational backgrounds, we Indians found ourselves perfectly placed to participate in the technological innovation that has led to huge gains in productivity and automation in the last two decades. Immigration of Indians accelerated in the last two decades as US business needed to meet the huge demand for software and engineering talent. There was software needed in every product, including bringing produce to the table!
As trade barriers were dismantled and money sought the highest returns, many manufacturing and services jobs left the USA for more profitable destinations - primarily in Asia. The victim of this massive transformation was the (predominantly) white working class and the white middle class. They say Globalization has winners and losers. Clearly the Indians in the USA were some of the winners.
We live in Trump's America because those who have been disadvantaged by the globalization of trade came out and voted en mass for Trump. We Indians were shocked and bewildered by the fact that a candidate who appeared to seek out and found enthusiastic support from racist fringe elements is now the President elect. While the media is involved in soul searching over how they got this election wrong, we Indians need to treat this as a wake up call.
When the likes of Steve Bannon makes statements about the preponderance of Asians in Silicon Valley, he is not calling us out as a model minority. On the contrary, he is identifying us as an immigrant group that seems to have gained disproportionately from the technology and innovation that has changed the way Americans live and work. This is coming from a place of envy and resentment, and of identifying and stereotyping various ethnic groups. It is part of identity politics which has brought Trump to power.
Indians have to re-engage with America in a very different way. We have to get out of our comfort zones and high rent/value homes and go into (A) disadvantaged urban areas, and (B) rural America. We have to seek out and interact with people that we typically do not encounter socially. We have to volunteer at soup kitchens, we have to join Big Brother & Big Sister, and most importantly we have to start becoming active in local government.
We have to make an impact at the social level, not just as the proverbial IT support geek, the doctor or the convenience store owner. From social engagement comes true assimilation into the mainstream of American life. Our children are already engaged in this. It is we adults who have been in this country for decades and essentially stayed away from engagement who have to change. We have a lot to contribute in terms of helping level the playing field for all Americans for the jobs that will need to be filled in an America that will undergo wrenching changes from AI and Deep Learning. I believe that we have the obligation to do so in our adopted homeland.
We grew up in an India that was culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse. We know how to deal with diversity. We can help heal the divisions in America, regardless of political affiliation, race, religion, and national origin. We can straddle many of these divisions. It will be a pity if we stay glued to CNN and CNBC and nurture our nest eggs.
Let me even ascribe a selfish motive to this engagement. We will make our kids proud!
The great majority of Indians in the USA came here for better economic prospects. Even for those who came here as students (as did I) and decided to stay on, economic opportunity was the critical driver. Overwhelmingly, we were from urban India and had benefited from a strong tradition of educational achievement. Many of us happened to be from the privileged castes and communities, yet were imbued with the ideals of democracy and secularism that were the norm in the first four decades of independent India. For us, USA was a place where one could work hard and by sheer dint of merit rise to the highest echelons of corporate America, or strike out on one's own to build great businesses. The US had what India did not - the unrestrained opportunity to go forth and get rich without many of the overt constraints that the license Raj had imposed on India.
As importantly, America's key attributes - freedom of religion and expression - allowed us to adapt and continue to cherish many of the religious and cultural traditions that we had grown up with. We built temples, gurudwaras and mosques and celebrated events such as India Day in major cities.
We moved from small apartments in urban concentrations and small college towns to leafy and mostly white suburbs as we climbed the economic ladder. We kept up with the Jones in suburbia and our children joined the ranks of the privileged in the USA.
The fact is we led complex double lives. There was the professional aspect of our lives which was all American and all business - setting aggressive goals and achieving them; going out for lunch with colleagues and occasional drinks and dinner and work. Some of these colleagues did become close friends, but this was rare. When it came to social engagement, other than attending children's school concerts, soccer games, and the like, the bulk of socializing involved hanging out with other Indian (and South Asian) families. As our numbers grew, South Asian Associations became Indian Associations and then (multiple) Bengali/Tamil/Marathi Associations.
While this association with people of South Asian ethnicity enabled our children to retain many of our traditional values, it also imposed a considerable burden on them with living with one foot in each culture. Children are very adaptable and they still thrived. However, this article is not about the children.
While we implicitly give back to this country in terms of our professional contributions and businesses that we have created, we really do not interact with a huge chunk of America. We rarely volunteer in soup kitchens, become big brothers and big sisters or after-school tutors in low income neighborhoods, participate in local government, or for that matter encourage our children to join the ROTC.
In short, we live comfortable lives that have been largely unaffected by the currents that have roiled the USA over the last few decades. We are a privileged, highly skilled and highly compensated, "ideal" minority which up until recently has not felt the resentment of the white working class which has seen its own privilege get whittled down over time, or for that matter the resentment of African American and Latino communities who never had many of the advantages that we take for granted. We have been living in social ivory towers.
During the recent presidential campaign, many of us were perturbed by the phenomenon that is Donald Trump. But we never panicked and did little to impact the outcome. After all, America was a land of freedom and opportunity, where all men are born with certain inalienable rights. To us, Trump stood for racially divisive politics, misogyny, intemperate language, and downright lack of civility. It was inconceivable that he could become the President of the USA. We drank from the same fountains as the liberal media and the coastal elites. We were part of the tribe that had a rude awakening this election.
I think it is time for us to reflect on the America that we inhabit, its evolution over the last few decades, and our place in it. Face it, we benefited greatly from the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960's and did not bear any of the costs. Most of us came to this country after the race riots of the 70's and benefited from the newly formulated EEOC rules. We found that we had little in common with the African American community which was largely absent from the leafy high income suburbia and also from the high technology sector. There was limited opportunity to interact, and we made little attempt to seek out opportunities for interaction. In fact, many of us brought with us prejudices grounded in caste and skin color. What we failed to grasp is that without the Civil Rights movement of the '60's, we would have had to live in a very different America. We would have then understood what a toll discrimination can take in sapping the potential of individuals and communities.
With our technical skills and educational backgrounds, we Indians found ourselves perfectly placed to participate in the technological innovation that has led to huge gains in productivity and automation in the last two decades. Immigration of Indians accelerated in the last two decades as US business needed to meet the huge demand for software and engineering talent. There was software needed in every product, including bringing produce to the table!
As trade barriers were dismantled and money sought the highest returns, many manufacturing and services jobs left the USA for more profitable destinations - primarily in Asia. The victim of this massive transformation was the (predominantly) white working class and the white middle class. They say Globalization has winners and losers. Clearly the Indians in the USA were some of the winners.
We live in Trump's America because those who have been disadvantaged by the globalization of trade came out and voted en mass for Trump. We Indians were shocked and bewildered by the fact that a candidate who appeared to seek out and found enthusiastic support from racist fringe elements is now the President elect. While the media is involved in soul searching over how they got this election wrong, we Indians need to treat this as a wake up call.
When the likes of Steve Bannon makes statements about the preponderance of Asians in Silicon Valley, he is not calling us out as a model minority. On the contrary, he is identifying us as an immigrant group that seems to have gained disproportionately from the technology and innovation that has changed the way Americans live and work. This is coming from a place of envy and resentment, and of identifying and stereotyping various ethnic groups. It is part of identity politics which has brought Trump to power.
Indians have to re-engage with America in a very different way. We have to get out of our comfort zones and high rent/value homes and go into (A) disadvantaged urban areas, and (B) rural America. We have to seek out and interact with people that we typically do not encounter socially. We have to volunteer at soup kitchens, we have to join Big Brother & Big Sister, and most importantly we have to start becoming active in local government.
We have to make an impact at the social level, not just as the proverbial IT support geek, the doctor or the convenience store owner. From social engagement comes true assimilation into the mainstream of American life. Our children are already engaged in this. It is we adults who have been in this country for decades and essentially stayed away from engagement who have to change. We have a lot to contribute in terms of helping level the playing field for all Americans for the jobs that will need to be filled in an America that will undergo wrenching changes from AI and Deep Learning. I believe that we have the obligation to do so in our adopted homeland.
We grew up in an India that was culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse. We know how to deal with diversity. We can help heal the divisions in America, regardless of political affiliation, race, religion, and national origin. We can straddle many of these divisions. It will be a pity if we stay glued to CNN and CNBC and nurture our nest eggs.
Let me even ascribe a selfish motive to this engagement. We will make our kids proud!
No comments:
Post a Comment