The next time anyone gets a dirty look, just say, "What you lookin' at Pilgrim!" and then frown and say...shouldnt have work these shoes today, not going to be able to run fast enought....

The blacks and hispanics have been screaming racial profiling for a long time and what were the desis doing? Model minoritying and thus were a tool for blaming blacks and hispanics for their failures. Not to mention outright racism many desis harbor towards blacks and hispanics.

... what were the desis doing? Model minoritying...

How exactly does a group go about 'model minoritying'? Is a familial focus on education now evil?

I was saying the other day that I wanted to go onto the Tube with a big round Acme bomb Wile E. Coyote-style to see what would happen. Yes yes I all know your answer, it involves eight bullets and a funeral pyre.

Recently I've been getting a bit bored with every other Asian I know recounting their sob story about getting funny looks or maybe even...asked to open their bag! Sure, it's a shock at first - I said my piece after 7/7 too. But now shut up. I don't want to hear your story unless it features strip-searching, K-Y jelly or Brazilians. Actually, if your story involves all three I DEFINITELY want to hear it. So I'm delighted someone finally takes the piss as well, very funny post.

I (like others with same appearance) get pulled over at the airport all the time. Way back in 1996, at Madrid airport I was intensely queried by fairly high-up authorities. I had show them the bills from my stay in Spain, and proof of being a graduate student in USA since there had a terrorism attempt day before I was boarding. At that time, they thought I was from Middle East (whatever).

Usually, a potential terrorists goes out of the way to merge with the masses, not to raise alarm. Therefore, profiling thing is all bogus and simplistic. Not soon, we will see white Islamic terrorists...they are just evolving.

All said, I personally dead against the "model minority" concept and ugly baggage. It is us vs. them. I am going blog about it on my blog soon.

Perhaps people are a bit jumpy on the DC Metro because of reports like this...

Jihadist Forum Member Advocates a Chemical Weapon Attack on the Washington Metro Subway System

Vikram, you non-sequitur-slinging nincompoop. I'm glad you're volunteering to be anally probed on your every trip. Take one for the team.

Oeth, bonus points for getting nincompoop into your comment. Good work. Kush Tandon, you weren't listening to me!

Bongo

Your first post is hilarious dude!

I wonder if we should all start wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts saying "Infidel and Proud" on the front and back.....

Travelling on the Tube here in London's certainly an interesting experience these days. Suspicious sideways glances from the majority population notwithstanding, it's funny (in a grim has-it-finally-come-to-this kinda way) how the South Asians scattered throughout the train carriage quickly glance at each other, check if anyone's carrying a rucksack, then deliberately try (and fail) to avoid making eye-contact with each other.

While of course absolutely everyone -- other South Asians included -- keeps looking at the crop-haired, bearded/goateed, young Muslim guy with the holdhall in the corner who probably feels like he has a cross-hairs sign painted on the front of his shirt....

With incidents like this, who do you blame? Desi Canadians, your time to be strip-searched has come.

M. Nam

i've thought people disliked me my whole life especially on public transportation, and now that its true, its good to know i'm not making it up

Some bits that were left out of the block quotation that might be useful to know -- this isn't your typical "woe is me" rant, but much more tongue in cheek:

It's strange for me to get these looks since i was born in this country, have lived the American dream lifestyle, hang out with very few other brown skinned folk and often forget that im not white (you know, american). Im proud of my background/culture, but im american first and only.

Now, im sure someone out there, maybe even another brown skin person, is saying that i shouldn't do that cause it causes unnecessary attention, harm or spreads hate and distrust. Well, guess what? You're absolutely right. But you know what else? Fuck you. cause i gotta deal with this bullshit everyday on the metro. The goddamn metro. It's not even a cool subway like NYC or in Paris. The lame ass DC metro.

Verdict: good sense of humor, right overall idea. Now if we could just improve his punctuation...

How exactly does a group go about 'model minoritying'?

Gujari Girl puts it well:

Recently, I have discovered the Seven Golden Rules for desis. These have helped many Indian immigrants make it in the the U.S. I would like to share them. I also feel that these rules are universal and can apply to other people in other places. So I hope you will find them useful.

Rule 1. Immediately align yourself with the dominant community. Be disdainful of other people of color. Better still, write a book on the subject. Compete ferociously with Chinese-Americans for more-model-minority-than-thou status.

Also learn everything about American sports and even select a favourite team. What? Still can't tell the difference between baseball and gulli-danda? Start packing your bags.

Rule 2. On the other hand, only really make friends with other desis. It is best to stick with people from your own religious, regional and class background. In case you are in an isolated place, settle for other South Asians. Remember you have no business with other Asian, Pacific Islander, black or Latino folks.

How exactly does a group go about 'model minoritying'? Is a familial focus on education now evil?

Of course! Don't you know that the desi kids who are winning spelling bees are only doing so because the white oppressor has stereotyped them as verbally fluent? It's just the opposite of blacks and Hispanics, who generally do badly in school because they're expected to do so -- and exactly the same as those Chinese Americans who rock the math SAT because they've been stereotyped as nerds.

Causality couldn't possibly run the other way, because clearly the stereotype determines their behavior rather than vice versa. Clearly.

its hard for us to know what to do unless told. my parents would never have told me to study and helped me get an education at the cost of other things, and would never have been resourceful and persistent if not for steroetypes.

its got nothing to do with, coming to another country and not fully knowing the language means a person has to be as persistent and driven as possible, and this gets imparted to their kids

it might be that other people saw us as model minorities, but we ourselves were hardly going to be allowed to get C's and not try hard. Our parents hardly did all that work for that. And on some level maybe we knew it

Compete ferociously with Chinese-Americans for more-model-minority-than-thou status.

Saurav's got the right plan. Desis should instead compete ferociously with African Americans and Hispanics for the more-oppressed-than-thou title.

I can see it now: hire Dr. Dre as a consultant. Fremont might be a leafy suburb now, full of desis living the American dream...but post-Sauravation it'll be a Compton-like wasteland. Glowering H1B's on the corner, fondling their AK47's TI89's... And the songs -- oh, the songs!

Straight outta Fremont!
Desi mothaf**** named Raju!
From a company called Google or Yahoo!

Ah...I can see it now. With the oppression comes the moral purity of the ostensible victim. Because in the Saurav worldview the troubles of blacks and Hispanics are *not their fault*, while the successes of Indians and Chinese are to be faulted.

I thangyu Punjabi Boy.

Hell if we're deciding to bite back and get militant, I'm getting my 'FEAR OF A BROWN PLANET' T-shirt out. I've kept it out of sight since July.

Because in the Saurav worldview the troubles of blacks and Hispanics are *not their fault*, while the successes of Indians and Chinese are to be faulted.

Saurav's got the right plan.

Saurav's got the right plan.

My, my! That was quite an extrapolation from one sentence and a link by Saurav. You must really know him and his opinions really well!

By the way, how is my punctuation?

"Is a familial focus on education now evil"?

Hello? If the familial focus on education is a desi thing why is education back in india in such a bad shape? Don't you see that the second generation desis in america are a skewed sample where most of them have at least one parent with a college degree? Don't you know that the most important predictor of SAT score is parent's education status (something like 80% of those with SAT scores less than 1000 have NONE of the parents with college degrees)? Don't you know that many black's parents were barred from entering college campuses in states like Alabama and Mississippi? Dishonest wingnuts like dinesh d'souza have used the success of an utterly skewed sample of indians to show blacks and hispanics in poor light.

Don't you see that the second generation desis in america are a skewed sample where most of them have at least one parent with a college degree?

Yeah, the immigration sieve is why I said familial and not cultural. But don't try and imply that a focus on education and fiscal security is a bad thing. It's exactly what blacks and Hispanics are working for.

Dishonest wingnuts like dinesh d'souza have used the success of an utterly skewed sample of indians to show blacks and hispanics in poor light.

If you don't think a cultural premium for education has something to do with it, you're deluded. I abhor many of D'Souza's views, blacks and Hispanics suffer a lot of discrimination, and there are lot of other factors (e.g. it's difficult comparing small groups to large). But several refugee groups in the U.S. have gone from barely speaking English to solidly middle-class within a generation or two.

Even if you compare countries, structural factors dominate in the short run and cultural ones in the long run. Just look at the island empires.

Desis should instead compete ferociously with African Americans and Hispanics for the more-oppressed-than-thou title.

you missed the point...being a "model minority" is not about aceing spelling bees, it's about distancing ourselves (south asians) from other minorities, and acting like their problems are their fault, when really it isn't so simple...

But several refugee groups in the U.S. have gone from barely speaking English to solidly middle-class within a generation or two.

Manish if you meant the Hmong, they are statistically the poorest and least educated Asian American group.

being a "model minority" is not about aceing spelling bees, it's about distancing ourselves (south asians) from other minorities, and acting like their problems are their fault, when really it isn't so simple...

You are right, although the way the anti-model minority rhetoric gets played out, there is disdain against any depiction of desis and east Asians as successful because it supposedly perpetuates the model minority myth. I don't have any problem with highlighting our successes, as long as it doesn't translate to looking down on other groups. As sparky mentioned, I think that is the underlying concern.

Manish if you meant the Hmong, they are statistically the poorest and least educated Asian American group.

The Mariel Cuban refugees came with very little but now have an income 50% higher than the average in their area.

Like almost all Cubans who came from the island before and after them, Mariel refugees came with almost nothing. Eighty-eight percent had less than $100 in their pockets, and they averaged about $7,000 in income their first year here. Today, Mariel refugees have an average annual income of $32,210 per person... while the average individual income in Miami-Dade is $21,947.

I don't have any problem with highlighting our successes, as long as it doesn't translate to looking down on other groups. As sparky mentioned, I think that is the underlying concern.

How could you look down on those who opened the gates? It was in the ferment of the Civil Rights Movement that the '65 immigration liberalization passed Congress.

That was quite an extrapolation from one sentence and a link by Saurav. You must really know him and his opinions really well!

Ummm, slightly more than one. Saurav and I disagree on virtually everything, but I think we both know where the other stands by now.

And even from that solitary link, it was clear that Saurav *doesn't like* the fact that Indian Americans are a model minority. How much more morally pure it would be to be a victim...then AALDEF could be arguing death row cases rather than moping about the community's comparative wealth and status.

Manish if you meant the Hmong, they are statistically the poorest and least educated Asian American group.

This is true, vurdlife, but they are actually posting big gains right now. See for example here:

The U.S. Census has released long-awaited national level socioeconomic and educational 2000 census data for Hmong in the United States (Summary File 4). This is the first new national-level data that has been available related to these variables in a decade. The following are highlights from this data set. The comparable 1990 figure is in parentheses. Data used are for “Hmong alone” responses on the census form.

U.S. Hmong Median Family Income 2000 - $32,076 ($14,300)

% U.S. Hmong with Public Assistance Income in 2000 – 30.3% (67%)

% U.S. Hmong Families Below the Poverty Level in 2000 – 34.8% (62%)

% U.S. Hmong Population in Owner Occupied Housing in 2000 – 40.0% (13.0)

You can see a significant upward trend with the Hmong. Note the staggering drop in the poverty rate and the tremendous increase in housing and median income over the past 10 years.

acting like their problems are their fault

But this is the thing: if you maintain that their problems are not their doing, then by implication neither are their successes. You're devolving all agency from the individuals in the group to others. But how exactly is white racism causing black on black crime? It's not an America-specific thing -- you see the same high crime rates among blacks in the favelas of Brazil, in Haiti, in South Africa, and in the UK. Any purely cultural explanation is stretched to the breaking point.

I mean, the underlying idea here is that a thumbs up or down from the white majority is what determines the fate of an ethnic group. Why would whites decide to give a thumbs up to Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and Iranian immigrants...but not to new citizens from sub-Saharan Africa, or Hispanics of primarily Amerindian descent?

It's not like all the immigrants from India and China and Vietnam came over with money in their pockets. The Vietnamese fled Communist mass murderers and were mostly penniless when they arrived. Yet their income is now above the American mean. Ditto with the Chinese railroad workers. And ditto with the Ashkenazi Jews of the shtetl around the turn of the century.

Which gets to a larger point: if past oppression really predicted current performance, Jewish Holocaust survivors and Israelis would have terrible economic problems. But they don't...so how exactly are separate water fountains worse than millions dead?

vurdlife, thanks for getting my back. I love Bihar. (this is what I'll say everytime you get my back from now on :)

gc, it's not quite clear what you're saying. I think it's pretty obvious that there's both agency involved on an individual and community level and there are structural factors and history involved. Why is that controversial? All you have to do is hold two ideas in your head at once and understand that the world is kind of complicated. Dubois did it--why can't you?

In any case, the points I probably try to make most frequently on this blog are: 1) don't overrely on identity politics and symbolic instances of oppression 2) don't pretend that all desis are professionals, wealthy, citizens, etc. rather than a really diverse group of people and 3) care about $hit that's going on. And also I get annoyed when people conflate terms like "Indian" and "South Asian" ;)

Finally, it's annoying that you would attribute a view to me that South Asians need to claim moral purity on the basis of oppression. I actually constantly argue the opposite of what you're saying in terms of where desis should place themselves (although my thinking has changed on this over the year(s) so I can see how you might think this about me); for example, I recently linked this article in a comment which goes into some depth about why pretending that South Asians are oppressed in the same ways as Black and Latino people (on race grounds alone) is problematic. Again, it's not impossible to argue that desi people have faced race oppression (particularly on a global scale) and at the same time that some/many of them are more privileged than other people (particularly on a U.S. scale). And all that without denying individual agency. It's not rocket science--just where you choose to put your point of emphasis at a given moment in a given context.

It is a sorry state that our country's in. Just yesterday, I read an article in the L.A. Times about a photographer snapping photos of a "...person of Middle Eastern descent videotaping the Santa Monica Pier and its underpinnings." The photographer gave the photos to S.M.P.D. for follow-up. Our society gets crazier and scarier everyday.

How could you look down on those who opened the gates? It was in the ferment of the Civil Rights Movement that the '65 immigration liberalization passed Congress.

Hey I agree with you. But tell that to Piyush Jindal and Dinesh D'Souza. The MMM in their hands is dangerous.

The Mariel Cuban refugees came with very little but now have an income 50% higher than the average in their area.

It is sort of a side point and plus I don't want to hate on any group, but to be fair, that extra 10K in average income may be accounted for by the Scarface-effect.

Perhaps surprisingly, almost one out of four Mariel refugees polled feel that the Al Pacino movie Scarface, about a Mariel refugee who becomes a Miami drug kingpin, is symbolic of what the Cubans who arrived during Mariel are all about.

... that extra 10K in average income may be accounted for by the Scarface-effect.

Say hello to my little friend, the 1040. I doubt any 'Scarface effect' would be reported to the census.

gc--it's not that the "white majority is what determines the fate of an ethnic group," rather it seems like how well a certain group is doing now, today is 2005 is somwhat propotrional to how much they were trampled upon by imperialism. People of African (Blacks) and Native American (Hispanic) descent had it the worst, thus today they are pretty much doing the worst as a group. Sure, South Asian countries also suffered from imperalism, but not to the extent that Native Americans and Africans did.

Conversely, countries that were not as affected by imperialsim, e.g. Japan, are more or less considered economic super powers. Even looking at the different Asian countries, the more they were influenced by imperalims, the worst off the people are today, like the Philipines.

Part of the disparity may be explained by selective v.s. non-selective immigration. The Chinese, Indians, Iranians, and Vietnamese are highy selected immigrant groups. Blacks and Hispanics are not.

Large parts of India, China, and Vietnam are extremely backward and undeveloped. It's easy to forget that when we're discussing Indian software programmers and Chinese doctors.

I think that a lot of those Vietnamese refugees were eligible for extremely generous special welfare benefits. So it's not like they climbed into the middle-class without any help.

I think that a lot of those Vietnamese refugees were eligible for extremely generous special welfare benefits. So it's not like they climbed into the middle-class without any help.

Not to mention that they emigrated here in large numbers when race relations were somewhat better than the days of widespread, well-publicized organized lynchings, sanctioned segregation, etc. And generally speaking, the U.S. policy on nonWhite immigration has not been "give me your talented, your initiative-taking, your hardworking masses"--professional and non-professional. Think about the wherewithal it takes to acquire a visa in Bangladesh or Nigeria, mortgage your house to pay for the costs, accumulate money, deal with being undocumented (if you are) and the insult of being a trained engineer who now sells goods on the street, and facing the possibility of deportaiton (and thereby losing the financial investment you put downt hrought he mortgate on your home in Bangladesh or Nigeria). Regardless of whether you think that's politically okay, surely you can acknowledge that it's a feat of some wonder.

But this is the thing: if you maintain that their problems are not their doing, then by implication neither are their successes

exactly, there is too much 'feeling sorry' for blacks and hispanics these days. They have A LOT of benefits that many other minorities cannot get a whiff of. Financial aid for education is heavily aimed at promoting blacks and hispanic enrollment. So many undergraduate and graduate programs blatantly set aside spots for blacks and hispanics w/ entrance scores well below the mean. Try being an Indian and apply to a bschool or law school etc...you think your 700 GMAT is being compared fairly to all scores? No way, it's being compared to other Chinese and Indian folks who pull in at that figure. Look at the corporate landscape now. Jobs are specifically being filled by less deserving blacks and hispanics under the 'diversity' blanket. Sure not in mass numbers like regular jobs, but giving handouts isn't going to help any race overcome their issues. All this talk of 'poor them' sickens me, yes they've had it really rough but for the last 10 yrs there has been an astronomical rise in opportunity and exposure for them and for the most part they choose to squander their opportunities.

the single mother pregnancy rate in the black population is estimated at almost 70%! This is not anyone else's fault. Illiteracy, last I read for blacks, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% (i could be wrong). What it boils down to is values and the sustained teaching of those values. Many blacks and hispanics don't value education, they find it more convenient to keep a chip on their shoulder and moan about being victimes and in today's PC climate, they get the attn they crave. Desi population does value and stress education above all else. We understand that it is the way to ensure your future. It's not our fault that some other cultures don't do this. I hate the model minority insinuations, as if we're selling out as a people to do what we're supposed to do. this whole argument about 'the US govt selects the best' is invalid too. Most ppl who come here from other poor countries have just enough to get here and that's it. I have known ppl who ate once a day here just to save money to make ends meet. I have known immigrants working 3 jobs and going to school full time to make ends meet. I have seen doctors working in hotels, engineers working at Wal Mart etc just to get a start and then go from there. it's ridiculous to downplay our accomplishments as a people as if we're doing some disservice to other minorities or as if we owe blacks and hispanics something. If white ppl like us for whatever reason, who cares, they don't define our culture/ppl anyways. This "indians selling out' stuff has to stop.

Keep posting gc, you make a lot of sense, and sense isn't tolerated in the PC world of today.

People of African (Blacks) and Native American (Hispanic) descent had it the worst, thus today they are pretty much doing the worst as a group. Sure, South Asian countries also suffered from imperalism, but not to the extent that Native Americans and Africans did.

Conversely, countries that were not as affected by imperialsim, e.g. Japan, are more or less considered economic super powers. Even looking at the different Asian countries, the more they were influenced by imperalims, the worst off the people are today, like the Philipines.

Problems with this theory abound. For ex., no matter how bad you think brit occupation was, I can readily assure you that Japanese occupation of S. Korea was worse. FAR worse. And yet, despite India and S. Korea gaining their independence about the same time, the S. Koreans are FAR better off. Similar story with other victims of Japanese imperialism including Taiwan, Singapore, etc. etc. etc.

Imperialism sucks, for sure, but other things affect current outcomes more.

I note here that you are acknowledging that the South & East Asians who come over are *economically competent* -- and that hence their success is their own doing.

Part of the disparity may be explained by selective v.s. non-selective immigration. The Chinese, Indians, Iranians, and Vietnamese are highy selected immigrant groups. Blacks and Hispanics are not.

Your hypothesis is that unskilled Chinese immigrants *would not* have been successful in the US. Fortunately, there is a controlled experiment to test this theory. It's going on in Russia right now:

In one stall of the teeming marketplace, Chinese merchants with chopsticks pick at plastic containers of noodles. Across the way, a gaggle of aging Chinese men hunch over their mah-jongg game. A loudspeaker blares out announcements in Chinese as other Chinese sellers collect wads of rubles for plastic sandals, compact disc players and leopard-print bikinis.

Outside the market's entrance sits a different group of men who are playing cards and grousing. They are Russians working as gypsy cab drivers -- men who once had it better. There is a former engineer, a former teacher and several former military men.

Look at that Chinese with the fancy foreign car, grumbles one, who gives his name only as Sergei. "They'll take over and invade our country without weapons. Eventually, they will kill us."

The tense divide between Russia and China is on display every day at the market here in Khabarovsk, the Russian Far East's capital which overlooks the picturesque Amur River that for much of its course separates the two giant powers. The "River Love," as one author called it, in fact bisects a region of hate -- or at least suspicion, envy and fear.

The Chinese have been slipping across the border for the last dozen years. At first, they were a welcome flow of low-wage migrant workers willing to do the menial construction and farming jobs that did not interest Russians in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. But as the years wore on, the Chinese began putting down roots here and starting their own businesses. The Russians who once hired them now often find themselves as employees.

Today, according to regional experts, at least 200,000 Chinese live in Russia's Far East, a region roughly 5,000 miles from Moscow, and many more stay for long stretches of time. They have helped transform the towns along the border in their own image. In Nakhodka, on the Pacific coast, a shopping center built to resemble the Great Wall beckons customers. The Chinese who have settled in Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners as home to the Soviet fleet, have taken to calling the city by its old Chinese name, Haishenwei...

The demographic arithmetic helps explain the tension. On the Russian side of the border is vast, empty space, rich with natural resources and occupied by a dwindling population of 7 million Russians. On the Chinese side is a bursting-at-the-seams society desperate for breathing space and raw materials to feed its modernizing economy. About 77 million Chinese live in three provinces that border their northern neighbor...

President Vladimir Putin warned a couple of years ago that if Russians in the Far East did not do more to regenerate their region and economy, they would all be speaking Chinese or some other Asian language. Local officials decry Chinese men marrying Russian women. Some locals suspect the Chinese of poisoning Russian rivers...

Russians here grow particularly sour as they look across the river and see rapidly developing Chinese cities with gleaming new buildings, radiating the wealth that some Russians are certain China has been stealing from them.

"In the past, Chinese were considered cheap labor and Russian employers tried to get as many of them as they could," said Alexei Mortsev, 30. Mortsev is a former Russian navy sailor from Fokina, a city between Vladivostok and Nakhodka where submarines were built and that is still closed to outsiders. "Now the Russians are cheaper labor. Russians aren't owners anymore."

Lyudmila, 65, a retired teacher, groused about the Chinese as she lugged a couple of sacks of Chinese goods out of the market here. "They're behaving as masters of the land," she said. Lyudmila said she was convinced that Khabarovsk's days as a Russian city were numbered. "Why did we warm up the place for them? They're building their economy on us."

And the men who work as gypsy cab drivers continue with their card games and sullen grievances. Slava, who spent 20 years in the Soviet navy and who, like the others, would not give a last name, said it was time to take action. "They have to be kicked out because Russian Ivans should work this land," he said. If not, he added, "soon we're going to be refugees."

Note those all important bolded passages! A left-winger blindly extrapolating the US-Mexico situation would predict that the Chinese, coming from a poorer country and streaming across the border, would be exploited by the Russians and condemned to poverty. But that's not what happened.

It doesn't matter that these Chinese were illegals, that they didn't speak the language (at first), or that they were initially exploited. Within one generation they rose to the top of the economic ladder, in the face of open ethnic antagonism and without any sort of "antiracist" campaign.

The implications for America's current immigration policy should be apparent.

the U.S. policy on nonWhite immigration has not been "give me your talented, your initiative-taking, your hardworking masses"--professional and non-professional.

Saurav -- we might see eye to eye for once, if the above "has not been" isn't a typo. It seems to me you are suggesting a policy revision. Do you agree that the US should -- like Canada and Singapore -- move to a system that prioritizes the immigration of skilled workers?

It seems that the primary counterarguments above have been that the successful immigrant groups have been those with some set of skills beforehand. While I think the Russian Far East shows that this is not a *necessary* condition, I agree that it is a *sufficient* condition. Leaving aside the implications for the community's responsibility**, do you concur that it would be better for the US if we gave Nigerians with PhDs and South Americans with EE degrees priority over their countrymen?

It would certainly reduce racism in the US if there was less reality behind it -- that is, if the Hispanic community in the US had an influx of engineers from Latin America rather than migrant laborers, stereotypes *would* change over time.

** -- implication being: if you agree that skilled immigrant communities are successful, then you are agreeing that the conduct of immigrants has something to do with their success -- indicating that immigrant success is not entirely a function of "white racism" but rather also a function of community education level, behavior, and mores. Right?

I think it's pretty obvious that there's both agency involved on an individual and community level and there are structural factors and history involved. Why is that controversial?

Hey, so if I get you right: you are agreeing that blacks and Hispanics are at least partially responsible for their current socioeconomic condition?

That is, that individuals within those communities might be doing things that are not to their benefit at a greater rate than individuals in other communities?

If you can grant that, I think we're making some progress.

Saurav -- we might see eye to eye for once, if the above "has not been" isn't a typo.

Sorry---it was a typo :) I think the U.S. already prioritizes and has for a long time the immigration of skilled workers and talented individuals who can come and serve as marginal labor (i.e. the undocumented it lets stay).

Hey, so if I get you right: you are agreeing that blacks and Hispanics are at least partially responsible for their current socioeconomic condition?

That is, that individuals within those communities might be doing things that are not to their benefit at a greater rate than individuals in other communities?

I don't agree in those terms. What I meant is that there are individuals in all communities who are not as hard-working as others, who have mental health problems that pull them down in SES, who have certain talents and not others. Black and Latino people have agency just like everyone else; that doesn't mean that the obstacles they face are the same as other people's (similar to how a woman's or a poor person's or an immigrant's obstacles are different even though all those people have agency too)

btw, that's a separate question from "responsibility," which is a very loaded term in this context because of the moral overtones to it, the history of the "deserving" vs. "undeserving" poor in the U.S., racism, and all kinds of other stuff.

I'm not an expert on the situation in the Russian Far East, but the news articles I've found do indicate that non-laborers from Chinese have also gone there in sizable numbers. Many Chinese entrapaneurs are there specifically to open stores and sell goods.

This is what one article from People Daily claimed.

http://english.people.com.cn/200401/01/eng20040101_131677.shtml

"Currently, there are around 100,000-200,000 permanent Chinese living in the Far East region as approved by Russian and Chinese governments. Except a few students and staff sent there by domestic companies, others are basically small retailers and labor service workers. They mainly deal in articles of daily use, clothes, shoes and hats or are engaged in agricultural planting, tree-felling and construction. In terms of regional distribution, Chinese are concentrated in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Irkutsk and Chita. There are even thousands of Chinese retailers in Chinese markets in some of the cities. Although most of them are doing small businesses, there are locally well-known Chinese entrepreneurs in almost every Far Eastern city."

It's impressive that they've been able to economically dominate the RFE in only a few years, but it's not neccessarily true that Russians are cheap laborers now.

"In refuting some Russian media's reports about Chinese causing increase in the unemployment of residents in the Far East, director of the Market Research Institute of the Far East Academy under Russia's Economic and Trade Ministry said that is sheer nonsense. The unemployment in the Far East is a kind of structural unemployment. Russians are mainly engaged in technical work while Chinese in manual work such as construction, lumbering and planting which Russian are not willing to do. Therefore it must be Chinese who fill in the vacancy. And "the all-round cooperation between the Far East and north China is determined by the natural geographic conditions of the two countries." "

What I meant is that there are individuals in all communities who are not as hard-working as others, who have mental health problems that pull them down in SES, who have certain talents and not others.

Ok -- this is at least some progress. Agree or disagree: setting race aside for now, those who are not as hard working or talented tend to not make as much money as those who are hard working and/or talented, right?

"responsibility," which is a very loaded term in this context

But discussion of responsibility is unavoidable. It is the crux of the issue. If I get you right, you think whites are primarily responsible for the state of black America, while I think blacks are primarily responsible for the state of black America.

Here, by "X responsible for Y", I mean "X is the primary determinant of Y", and any attempts at changing Y must go through X. You think whites are to blame for the crime, drugs, illegitimacy, etc. that plagues Af-Am communities. Hence you talk about racism. Is that a fair statement of your position?

those who are not as hard working or talented tend to not make as much money as those who are hard working and/or talented, right?

I would add "focused on making money to that", but yes. I don't think it's a very profound statement.

But discussion of responsibility is unavoidable. It is the crux of the issue. If I get you right, you think whites are primarily responsible for the state of black America, while I think blacks are primarily responsible for the state of black America.

I think there is a difference between using the words responsibility" and "causality" but lets set that aside for a second.

If you want to know what I think about how to solve race problems in the U.S. and other issues in the Black community and other disempowered communites, I have no idea what a comprehensive solution would be or if such a thing even exists. Indeed, I find it uncomfortable and odd to even try and come up with policy prescriptions for another group of people altogether with whom I have little connection and close to no personal knowledge of what their lives are like day to day.

This isn't solely or even primarily an issue of Black vs. White for me although racism has pervaded American society from the beginning; none of us are free from it, whether we're White, Black, Desi, East Asian, Southeast Asian, etc. So White people aren't the problem--it's the system of values and ideas that privileges being White that's the problem (and also privileges to a different degree being East Asian, South Asian, and generally constructs a hierarchy). This probably goes hand in hand with other questions of power--like money, labor relations, sexuality, women's rights, and other things.

So what I do feel comfortable saying, instead of offering a prescription for how to solve the specific problems in someonee else's community that I haven't dealt with closely, is that there are a group of people that have accumulated a lot of power and are trying to accumulate more. Ultimately, the way for the people who are getting f@#ked over in this process (which is probably most people, in one form or another) is to build power around issues and in other ways and gradually redevelop the political agenda in the U.S. so that the policy debates really are about what's in the best interests of people instead of stand-ins for racism, homophobia, and other tools that allow the powerful to stay powerful (or become more so). It's fundamentally a question of personal ties and movement building, and I think the more ways you're screwed over and the more your life experience conditions you to look at things that way and the more receptive you are to seeing other people's pain, the more likely you are to enlist yourself.

Model Minorityism is ultimately about prentending that none of this situation exists and that we don't need to be a part of it. It's about enlisting yourself on the other side in matters of import.

Say hello to my little friend, the 1040. I doubt any 'Scarface effect' would be reported to the census.

Manish, Its hard for a multi-billion dollar business to avoid manifesting itself on legitimate tax returns somewhere or another.

Problems with this theory abound. For ex., no matter how bad you think brit occupation was, I can readily assure you that Japanese occupation of S. Korea was worse. FAR worse. And yet, despite India and S. Korea gaining their independence about the same time, the S. Koreans are FAR better off.

Vinod, apples and oranges. That analogy b/w S. Korea and India is valid only if all other variables and differences between the countries are held constant. India has a billion people, for instance, while Korea doesn't. Even if Japanese imperialism were worse than the British version (which I'm not convinced of...look at the respective durations of occupation and the attendant stultification of economy and society, not just amount of torture, # of heads chopped off, etc.), there may be other factors that inform Korea's economic superiority over India (even that...by how much are the Koreans better off? This is, after all, the post-Collapse of Asian Tigers period).

All in all, its too complicated a scenario to devalue the impact of imperalism.

GC, interesting article. However JJs post seriously undercuts the point. If the Chinese were already business-minded from before (more so than the average human), their relative success says nothing useful as an indictment of less successful immigrants here.

Plus, one thing a left-winger would expect in the Chinese-Russian scenario is, just like here, the following attitude prevails:

"They have to be kicked out because Russian Ivans should work this land," he said. If not, he added, "soon we're going to be refugees."

Also regarding the complicity of White people, I agree with Saurav its not a simple White vs. Black issue. White people in the South and Midwest are probably getting screwed over as bad as anyone else, and they keep doing it to themselves further by voting for the party of Enron and Haliburton.

Do you agree that the US should -- like Canada and Singapore -- move to a system that prioritizes the immigration of skilled workers?

I think the U.S. already prioritizes and has for a long time the immigration of skilled workers and talented individuals who can come and serve as marginal labor (i.e. the undocumented it lets stay).

There is absolutely no question that the US grossly favors the immigration of skilled/educated worker. Now more than at any other time in the Nation's history.

those who are not as hard working or talented tend to not make as much money as those who are hard working and/or talented, right?... I don't think it's a very profound statement

Ah, but if you flip that around, the logical contrapositive of "if hard work/talent then money" is that people without money tend not to be talented or hard working.

That, I think, *is* a profound statement as it gets to the core difference in our respective worldviews. It is not just that those who work hard will earn money; it is that those who do not have money *were not working hard*.

And this gets to the point of responsibility.

There is absolutely no question that the US grossly favors the immigration of skilled/educated worker. Now more than at any other time in the Nation's history.

I think we're looking at two different policies -- the written and unwritten. I'm referring to our national security disaster on the Southern border. Only Bush knows why we fingerprint legal visitors at airports while promising citizenship to illegal aliens. Certainly the influx of illegals dwarfs the influx of H1B's and skilled workers in absolute terms.

Changing the unwritten policy is what we need to do.

But I'm curious -- everyone seems to agree that skilled workers tend to assimilate better, make more money, have kids who are better educated, etc. So why wouldn't you favor a skilled immigration policy? After all, even if we took a million legal immigrants per year -- a number we could easily fill given the 7.3 million applicants for 50000 diversity lottery spots -- we could fill every spot with engineers, scientists, and PhDs of various stripes. Why wouldn't that be a good thing? Canada and Singapore do it that way.

Plus, one thing a left-winger would expect in the Chinese-Russian scenario is: [quote of Russian racist]

Oh, granted, granted. Though I think the whole outsourcing kerfuffle is instructive -- the upper classes will tut-tut about xenophobia until it affects them .

That is, a New York Times reporter is far more likely to have a brother who is a computer scientist -- and competing with Indians and Chinese -- than a brother who is a dock laborer -- and hence competing with Mexicans.

Even though the effect of millions of illegal aliens on the unskilled labor pool dwarfs the short term effect of outsourcing and H1B's on the skilled labor pool (see for ex. Harvard's Borjas or the NAS study), it is outsourcing which receives the frantic headlines.

This is doubly ironic as it's much easier for skilled workers to retrain and find a new trade than it is for a 40 year old machinist to become a web designer.

Thus, when someone points out the xenophobia of group X with respect to group Y, it is often useful to ask whether that same someone is economically/criminally troubled in the same way by group Y. If not -- if they have, in Wolfe's words, "insulated, insulated, insulated" from the effects of group X -- then one must question the sincerity of their critique. For it is this inconsistency that leads many liberals to denounce free trade and outsourcing while supporting mass immigration of unskilled workers, largely because the former involves foreigners competing with them while the latter involves foreigners serving them.

The recent Hollywood ad for "Best Nanny in a Supporting Role" made this point more tellingly than any parody I could essay.

Hi,

Canada has a point system and higher degrees gets more points. They donot exclude non-PhDs.

I have a PhD. I got my green card in US through exceptional category. With all this said, I will never preach elitism. I am dead against "self-selection" propaganda. I have same respect for a fellow immigrant, irrespective of their trappings.

The heart of immigration policy is diversity. The diversity lottery has more to do facilitate immigration from former eastern bloc countries, and countries that were historically excluded from immigration. That is very fair.

Kush

I don't think mass immigration of ph.d's enigneers is necessarily 'a good thing'. Since you brought in Canada, you cannot ignore that there are a huge number of engineers here from reputed universities like IIT , BHU etc and yet not only is there a shortage of jobs in their fields, but also jobs that are offered to them are usually at lower posts/wages with Canadian degrees being given a preference.

This does create problems when you have countless engineers without jobs. I know of a few capable, experienced, mid-late 30's engineers here who are working as truck drivers ,real estate agents as they prefer these alternatives to being unemployed/underpaid.

It then makes more sense to bring in skilled labourers if they have better job opportunities available for them than to bring in professionals who can't find employment.

although racism has pervaded American society from the beginning; none of us are free from it, whether we're White, Black, Desi, East Asian, Southeast Asian, etc.

Don't you think the above is operationally equivalent to the doctrine of original sin?

If the Chinese were already business-minded from before (more so than the average human), their relative success says nothing useful as an indictment of less successful immigrants here.

Well, if we're willing to countenance the idea that the billion plus Chinese might be "more business minded than the average human" -- an assertion I don't disagree with, by the by -- one must also entertain the possibility that there are groups which are less business minded than the average human.

This hypothetical group would not be expected to be particularly good at making money. They might have other talents, of course. But if they were indeed "less business minded than the average human", then one their relative lack of wealth would mostly be a function of their own actions rather than those of other people, no?

[meta comment: I'm actually enjoying this relatively civil discussion, and am attempting to rein in the sarcasm. My apologies if any offense was taken above...what can I say, I just couldn't resist the lilting euphony of "Desi muthaf**** named Raju".]

then one their

hmmm, strike the "one" in that bit.

those who are not as hard working or talented tend to not make as much money as those who are hard working and/or talented, right?

Ah, but if you flip that around, the logical contrapositive of "if hard work/talent then money" is that people without money tend not to be talented or hard working.

Sure, and i can reword what you said and make it fit my preconceived notions too, but that's not really a conversation :) I said that hard work and talent are one factor in making money, not the one and only factor. It's also somewhat problematic to define success in terms of money alone but I have a feeling I'm not going to get you to acknowledge that :)

That, I think, *is* a profound statement as it gets to the core difference in our respective worldviews.

Indeed; I think your notion of meritocracy is overly reductive, tautological, and wholly unsustained by the reality around us. Education, family background, class, social obstacles, etc. all play a role in a person's success. Or are gender gaps in income level wholly due to women's lack of talen and work ethic ;) But I suppose there's nothing I can do to draw you out of your Calvinism.

The heart of immigration policy is diversity. The diversity lottery has more to do facilitate immigration from former eastern bloc countries, and countries that were historically excluded from immigration. That is very fair.

The key question is whether US immigration policy should be conducted in the national interest. I think everyone here can agree that engineers, doctors, and scientists are more likely to make money, found companies, and assimilate; they are also less likely to commit crimes, put children up for adoption, or go on the dole than the population at large.

In other words, they are a net economic benefit to society. One measure of the extent of this benefit has been quantified here, with original numbers from the Census here.

A key question is whether you believe the US should take in people that will be beneficial to the US or whether it should just take in people at random (i.e. Diversity Lottery). Why should a random draw be prioritized over merit? For example, Europe is now having major problems because they did not think their immigration policy through. Shouldn't immigration be conducted like other foreign policy -- namely, with explicit calculation of America's national interest? [please don't invoke iraq, this is a discussion of whether or not it *should be* conducted in the national interest, not whether it *is*]

If it is agreed that immigration policy should serve the national interest -- not to mention the national security interest -- then it would be difficult to contend that we should privilege the immigration of individuals likely to be net tax recipients rather than net tax payers. I mean, if you agree (as JJ and others seem to) that the socieconomic problems of immigrant group X are a function of that group's education, then an educationally selective process is a prophylactic against such problems.

The key question is whether US immigration policy should be conducted in the national interest. I think everyone here can agree that engineers, doctors, and scientists are more likely to make money, found companies, and assimilate; they are also less likely to commit crimes, put children up for adoption, or go on the dole than the population at large.

Just how do you quantify who's more valuable as human being? What if, it's a child with the potential to become something truly great or fail miserably, how do you judge that's child's worth? Musicians? Poets? Writers? Philosophers? Atheletes? Painters? Sculpters? Who has the ability to judge such things?

Or are gender gaps in income level wholly due to women's lack of talen and work ethic ;)

Gender gaps in income level are a function of many variables, including:

1) the fact that women take time off for childbirth
2) the fact that in studies of men and women of equal competence, women are less likely to be as ruthlessly competitive as men

and

3) the fact that women tend to not want to marry men who make less money than them (or who are shorter, less well educated, etc.). For a brutally candid demonstration of this fact, consider:

Indeed, there’s little evidence to show that as women acquire financial muscle, relations between the sexes have evolved successfully to accommodate the new balance of power. Neither the newly liberated alpha women nor their shell-shocked beta spouses seem comfortable with the role reversal.

For women, the shift in economic power gives them new choices, not least among them the ability to reappraise their partner. And husbands, for their part, may find to their chagrin that being financially dependent isn’t exactly a turn-on. According to psychologists (and divorce lawyers) who see couples struggling with such changes, many relationships follow the same pattern. First, the wife starts to lose respect for her husband, then he begins to feel emasculated, and then sex dwindles to a full stop....

When Emily comes home, she doesn’t always want to be the boss. But she says her husband no longer has the authority to take over. “I want somebody to take that power role away from me,” she explains. “Ultimately, it gets down to pretty basic stuff. It’s hard to be the power broker every day and then be the femme fatale. I’m not going to pay the bills—I feel like his mother—and then come home and suck his...”

Take those together and you have a formula for a robust gender asymmetry in earnings. Which naturally segues to the next point...

It's also somewhat problematic to define success in terms of money alone

Agreed -- so let's forget that economic inequality exists! If, as you claim [and I agree], one can be successful without having money --poor and happy and so on -- then why does it matter whether some Americans are filthy rich by absolute standards (i.e. car, TV, playstation) while others are filthier rich (two cars, two TVs, etc.)?

Let's leave the issue be. Then we don't have to argue about whether or not logical implications of non-"profound statements" are invalid when they lead to unpalatable conclusions :)

Returning to the gender wage thing...let's also acknowledge that just as monetary success is not all there is to success, neither is *sexual* success in the sense of hooking up with as many people as possible. The truth is that though women make less $ than men, women in general can more easily get sex than men can. And so they trade: marriage if it's a long term contract, and prostitution in the short term.

By neglecting this enormously important non-monetary form of exchange by mentioning only the gender *wage* gap, you are making women out to be far less powerful than they actually are. Wages can buy you some things, but sex appeal can buy you quite a few others -- and if you sum the buying power and take into account the fact that the two buy different things...it's not at all clear that one group is "ahead".

Just how do you quantify who's more valuable as human being? What if, it's a child

Children don't -- and shouldn't -- immigrate unless they're with their parents. The decision is made on the basis of their parents.

In any case, refusing to decide is not an immigration policy. We don't have open borders for a good reason -- virtually the whole population of the world would come. When you have 7.3 million applicants for just 50000 spots in the rather obscure Diversity Lottery, we'd see our population grow overnight.

Thus if we dispense with the open borders issue, we're talking about admitting some finite number N of people per year. The number of applicants will exceed N. Hence we have to make judgments on which people we should admit. Terrorists and enablers will be stricken right away, but that leaves quite a few more. We have to make decisions on the rest, no?

2) the fact that in studies of men and women of equal competence, women are less likely to be as ruthlessly competitive as men

Co-operation also works. Being competitive is not the sole deciding factor.

why does it matter whether some Americans are filthy rich by absolute standards (i.e. car, TV, playstation) while others are filthier rich (two cars, two TVs, etc.)?

Consider two situations: in one, Jhontu is raised by two parents making $35,000 between them, working three jobs between them, with high school educations and no health insurance. Consider the medical treatment he's likely to get, the possible bankruptcy of his parents if any of them should come down with a severe illness, what kind of parental support he will get for his educational activities (both financial and in person), how much time he will get with his parents, the strain on his parents' relationship and how that will play out, and the emotional eff
ects of living in a society that tells you you should be wealthy or "middle class" and mocks you when you are not, consider the aspirations of his parents have. JConsider that most of the people around him are going to go into the military or blue collar jobs after they garduate from high school, if they do graduate at all. When Jhontu graduates, one of his friend's parents helps get him a job in an auto plan. These are just a few examples of what it might be like to be working class (I don't really know, because I wasn't raised working class so I hope someone out there will correct me or help me fix this vision).

Now consider Tarit's situation. Tarit's father is a doctor and makes upwards of $200,000 a year. His mother works part time out of interest, but has time for him. Tarit takes piano lessons, ice skating lessons, and guitar lessons. Tarit is told, from the time he is very young, that he can be anything he wants to be. When Tarit comes down with pneumonia, but it's quickly diagnorsed and treated with medicine that his father gets from the hospital. When Tarit needs a summer internship during high school, one of Tarit's father's friends hooks him up with a job at an investment bank. Tarit goes to public school, but in the suburbs, and the school spends $12,000 per year per student and has special programs for different types of students, ample extracurricular opportunities and other means. Tarit takes a sample SAT and gets 1000; he takes an SAT prep class after that and gets 1200. he takes out some loans to go to school and his parents help him with the rest. He gets into the University of Pennsylvania and his parents encourage him to become a lawyer because he doesn't want to be a doctor; His grades are not great and he didn't work kthat hard, but they're good enough for him to get into a 2nd tier law school. He goes to law school, works at a firm both summers, and then goes on to become a lawyer.

Consider the relative amount of power each of these people will have to affect public policy. Now multiple Jhontu's situation by tens of millions of people and multiple Tarit's by about one million, and you'll understand why class matters (particularly structural class and not social class). Consider that if Jhontu somehow became upwardly mobile and made it to a higher SES, that would still leave tens of millions of other people behind. Consider that if Tarit somehow lost his job or was struck by mental health problems, he would have much greater financial and social support mechanisms.

You don't have to be a socialist to acknowledge that this kind of situation is not ideal.

oh--and i have no problem with--and in fact think it's better---to expand this analysis to a global one that recognizes that people have privileges on the basis of nationality also. So an American working class person, while getting screwed, has more opportunities for a decent life and for meeting his/her own definition of success than a working class Mexican person. Who in turn has more opportunities than a workingclass person in Niger.

And then we can talk about nation-states and the roles they play in preserving the inequalities of this global class/nationality system that's built on the legacy of colonialism and continuing imperialism (soft or hard) both of which were and are influenced by race, ethnicity, religion, as well.

In any case, refusing to decide is not an immigration policy. We don't have open borders for a good reason -- virtually the whole population of the world would come. When you have 7.3 million applicants for just 50000 spots in the rather obscure Diversity Lottery, we'd see our population grow overnight.

Thus if we dispense with the open borders issue, we're talking about admitting some finite number N of people per year. The number of applicants will exceed N. Hence we have to make judgments on which people we should admit. Terrorists and enablers will be stricken right away, but that leaves quite a few more. We have to make decisions on the rest, no?

Admitting a finite amount wasn't the issue of your previous comment. The pretext of it was the belief that only a particular type immigrant be allowed in; my question was how would you base your policy around this idea? Race? Genetics? Looks? Psychology? Pathology? Height? Width? How far they could spit? Smokers? With or without STD? Balding? Fat or skinny? Would they have to physicals? SAT's and ACT's? Straight or GAY or Bi or Tran?

Who would the jugdes be? Could they be impartial?

Children don't -- and shouldn't -- immigrate unless they're with their parents. The decision is made on the basis of their parents.

They do and they can. I have a very good from Iran who emigrated in his early teens, i.e. 11 or 12. He lived with aunt's and uncle's, and his family is still in Iran. He is not perfect but a very talented musician, electrician, and programmer. Based on your earlier statement would you have allowed him in?

Plus your original statement....

they are also less likely to commit crimes, put children up for adoption, or go on the dole than the population at large.

...is predicated your belief that certain minorties, namely Latinos and Blacks (and probably south asians too), are genetically not predisposed to the...

national interest

You know it's interesting, but your anonymous bio and other's posting on gnxp are mysteriously gone. But what I do remember, other than how cognitively elite you are, is your concluding quote from the constitution: "the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness". Isn't it sad that your policy would be to deny others the very same.

Well, if we're willing to countenance the idea that the billion plus Chinese might be "more business minded than the average human" -- an assertion I don't disagree with,

No no I think the Chinese migrants who went over to Russia were themselves more business-minded than the average Chinese (and the average human). Every nation and race has its business-minded folk.

A key question is whether you believe the US should take in people that will be beneficial to the US or whether it should just take in people at random (i.e. Diversity Lottery). Why should a random draw be prioritized over merit?

I think others addressed the issue of merit, but the other value in the diversity lottery is....well, diversity. America is the land of immigrants and displaced Native Americans. As a country we must stay true to this tradition (well not the displacing Native Americans part). Granted it can't be open immigration from a practical point of view, but we can try to be fairer in the distribution of visas ... hence the diversity visa. Seems like a good thing, no?

I'm actually enjoying this relatively civil discussion

agreed. increase the peace!

By neglecting this enormously important non-monetary form of exchange by mentioning only the gender *wage* gap, you are making women out to be far less powerful than they actually are. Wages can buy you some things, but sex appeal can buy you quite a few others -- and if you sum the buying power and take into account the fact that the two buy different things...it's not at all clear that one group is "ahead".

I had to smile while reading this one. So if femininity connotes power, under your system should we give highest immigrant preference to single, attractive, PhD women? Maybe we can call it the "Miss Sakimoto visa" .... :-)

blac