Let me respond briefly (inserted below). Cheers, Anthony xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of Washington Campus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, ravi wrote: > > > perhaps anthony d'costa might know the answer to these questions of > mine: the primary new means of migration from india to the US is H-1b > work based. i use the potentially inappropriate term "migration", rather > than immigration, since H-1b is a temporary work authorization, and is > not an immigrant visa. however many H-1b workers do manage to obtain a > green card and settled down in the US. also, i say "new means" since my > guess would be that earlier immigration from india was mostly family > sponsored. This is partly true. The doctors and engineers who came in the 1960s were "generously" allowed in because of the shortages. I have all sorts of students tell me that the doctors they often saw in their small towns were from India. > > now my questions: > > i would guess that most of the H-1B workers from india come from the > middle class or upper classes of india. Middle class, yes. But some low middle class. But we have to make a distinction here. Middle class in terms of income or social values? We all know how the Indian middle class pushes its children to perform well in school. Many of these families (including mine) were not much better off financially than some of the better off working classes. Furthermore, trading classes in India are upper classes financially but not necessarily middles classes socially. Family business was handed down to male/female heirs. Today it's a little different. Family business heirs have their Harvard and Wharton degrees. iirc, anthony d'costa had > suggested this might not be true, but i am not sure - is it the case > that a significant number of H-1B workers from india might come from > lesser privileged classes? I wouldn't say lesser privileged in the sense that they rise from the peasant groups or scheduled castes and tribes. But there are many who do come from such background over time. It is an intergenerational process. The trick is to get your foot in the door. The government has made this somewhat possible through its reservations system. So if you get into the top engineering schools, it's likely you will develop the necessary technical skills, which opens up a lot of doors, including emigration via H1B visas. There are also bright students, of middle class, but small town/rural backgrounds. Their middle class social values are completely different from their urban counterparts, even as they embrace higher education for mobility. > > was there a significant shift in the distribution of the class > background of indian H-1B workers during the 96-01 tech boom? could it > be said that lesser privileged members of the indian society were > afforded the opportunity to a better life, during this period, by > exploiting the H-1B? Assuming that not all H1B holders are engineers who have gone through the country's elite engineering schools. They may be diploma holders. Again, they need not be "lesser privileged members", if by that you mean a rickshaw puller, tea stall owner, a security guard at the bank. Although I suspect that the guard is likely to have children who might experience some mobility. I think it's the middling up process, whereby lower middle classes experience the mobility in India (see Robert Stern on the bourgeois revolution, Cambridge UP). > > assuming the answer to the last question is 'yes': was there any > significant flow of money from such H-1B workers that helped improve the > life of those back home, especially the underprivileged families? H1B visas mean temporary residence, at least initially. Therefore, initially no families move to the US. Hence, the savings (if not frittered away) are sent back home. Once they formally emigrate and reside in the US with their family members, they there is no need to send money home. But in many cases money is sent to ageing parents, relatives, etc. Much would depend again on the social background, and the nature of family ties based on more rural/provincial verusus more urban/western. > > and now my reasons for these questions: > > a couple of weeks ago, on the nyc pacifica radio station (WBAI), the > co-host of a PC radio show, did a small segment criticizing the H-1B > program, mainly from the viewpoint of its impact on local labour. i felt > (perhaps unjustified) that his rant had unintentional overtones of > anti-immigrant sentiment (the foreigners are taking our jobs away). Foreigners are taking some jobs. But most of the growth of the Indian IT industry is based on "expansion", meaning when firms grew they outsourced. They did not necessarily outsource existing work. The reason is simple. These sorts of jobs require hundreds of technical people, who can be recruited quickly, so that the product/service can be delivered quickly. The US does not produce so many engineers. Only China and India do. > there are a host of problems with H-1B (exploitation of foreign workers, > corporations working around regulations to hire workers at lower pay, > etc), but the host did not touch upon those issues during his show. Yes, there is exploitation such as lower pay. > > i fired off an email to the show pointing this out and i am engaged in a > conversation with them. but before i invest further time in this, i want > to be sure that H-1B has actually had some beneficial effect to some > underprivileged groups somewhere. It does. As I said its a middling up process. But there are other spinoffs. The use of IT to make life more convenient in India. There are demonstration effects, in favor of education and the like. if it turns out that H-1B has mostly > transplanted privileged indians to a position of even further privilege, > the debate is not worth the time, and the point of anti-immigrant > sentiments against privileged brats reduces to a smaller and lesser issue. > > --ravi I might add there is an income transfer taking place in favor of India. In a structural sense this is certainly a good thing. > > > p.s: i am addressing india in particular since i am told that the bulk > of h-1b visas are/were granted to indians. (during a part of 1999-2000, over 50% of H1Bs went to India). however, the questions are > general, and if h-1b work permits were granted to underprivileged > members of other nations, it would be useful to know that. > > The problem is who is the "underprivileged"? It takes a certain amount of income and motivation to get to tertiary education and a technical one at that. You are not going to find illiterates. You are going to find the middle classes, mostly urban but some rural as well. Not all of these middle classes are privileged, financially they are often at the borderline. If you have seen Satyjit Ray's "Mahanagar" (the big city) you will know what the struggles of a middle class family could be. But they are the middle class because of their literate, intellectual background.
