Second-gen U.S. desis sometimes compete for business also outsourced to desis in India and Pakistan. And the second gen are not guaranteed to be as professionally hardcore and driven as either their parents or new desi immigrants their age. But we’re not the only community with these tensions: the New York Times reports that that American blacks are also competing with African immigrants:
“These are very aggressive people who are coming here,” said Dr. Austin, who is calling for a frank dialogue between native-born and foreign-born blacks. “I don’t berate immigrants for that; they have given up a lot to get here. But we’re going to be in competition with them. We have to be honest about it. That is one of the dividing lines.”…
By 2000, foreign-born blacks constituted 30 percent of the blacks in New York City, 28 percent of the blacks in Boston and about a quarter here in Montgomery County, Md… Bobby Austin, an administrator at the University of the District of Columbia who attended the meeting in Washington, said he understood why some blacks were offended when Mr. Kamus claimed an African-American identity. Dr. Austin said some people feared that black immigrants and their children would snatch up the hard-won opportunities made possible by the civil rights movement…
In New York City, for example, and this is strictly in my humble opinion, the 1st-gen desis who’ve made it through the immigration strainer are much more hardcore on average than U.S.-born desis of the same age. That’s due to the requirements of U.S. immigration law as well as the financial, familial and cultural hardships of emigration.
In addition, the naming issue lives forever, like a cut-rate zombie. Desis, ABCDs, Indian-Indians, South Asians, South Asian Americans, South Asians, 1st gen, 2nd gen, Asians, East Indians, Indians/Pakistanis/Nepalis/Sri Lankans/Bhutanese, ‘with a dot, not a feather.’ We’re not the only ones futzing with the name. After 200 years, the black community is still working on it:
Many argued that the term African-American should refer to the descendents of slaves brought to the United States centuries ago, not to newcomers who have not inherited the legacy of bondage, segregation and legal discrimination…
Some black Americans argue that black immigrants, like Mr. Kamus, and the children of immigrants, like Mr. Obama and Mr. Powell, are most certainly African-American… Yet some immigrants and their children prefer to be called African or Nigerian-American or Jamaican-American, depending on their countries of origin. Other people prefer the term black, which seems to include everyone, regardless of nationality.
