Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

There is no denying the fact that it's hard to get permanent residency in the US. But immigration should be a two way street, if people decide to stay in the US they should try to assimilate. Is there a "bamboo celing", yes there is; so is a "curry ceiling" and what have you "ceiling". But if you do not push yourself to better your communication skills and other relevant skills required to be successful, you can't expect to shatter this ceiling. This was true for other immigrants too (18th/19th century Irish, Italian etc.)

It's hard not to overlook the fact that a lot of would be immigrants make no effort to assimilate and cluster themselves off from mainstream society; especially in a immigrant welcoming area like Silicon Valley. I bet if you were to go to China/India etc., no one's going to go out of their way to accept you.

(BTW, I'm an Indian citizen on H1B and I'm saying this, you can downvote my post but it doesn't change ground realities)

The melting pot is what makes America strong. We are stronger together than any of our constituent parts.

If you wish to become an American, I wish you all the best of luck (sorry for all the paperwork) and welcome you to our country with open arms.

> if people decide to stay in the US they should try to assimilate

This is problematic. If you're a hard-working taxpayer who doesn't receive subsidies or cause a net negative on the economy, why do I care if you "assimilate" to my culture? In fact I'd rather you keep your culture proud and strong since it will make you happier and more productive. You may even encourage your hard-working friends to join you and make the economy even better.

("you" and "me" above are just rhetorical here...)

Instead of "assimilate", you can reframe your thinking to "be overall positive to the economy." I think that's what you intend but I could be wrong.

Indians do much better in SV/tech senior management positions than Chinese.

Also, what does assimilate mean in an American context? It’s not like America really has a strong well defined culture in the first place, it’s been like ever since the country was founded.

While I agree with both of your points individually; I fail to see how your two points are connected. The complicated process of getting a permanent residency has nothing to do with your willingness to assimilate or degree of assimilation.

What exactly is the connection you are implying between the two?

> Indians do much better in SV/tech senior management positions than Chinese.

Please be careful about making generalizations based on race - they're generally incorrect/unprovable and rarely provide any value to a conversation. You can rephrase this to be "I've seen more Indians do better..."

> But immigration should be a two way street

Why?

> if people decide to stay in the US they should try to assimilate

oh I see.

Apparently hte people who come to the US for school and try to live and work here right alongside you and me (white guy) aren't trying hard enough to assimilate.

> BTW, I'm an Indian citizen on H1B and I'm saying this

So? You're criticizing chinese people pretty explicitly. Don't try to hide behind your race.

Actually it's pretty easily provable, you just need diversity numbers.

Doesn't explain the "why" though.

> The melting pot is what makes America strong. We are stronger together than any of our constituent parts.

I am not American, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the melting pot metaphor about taking people from different cultures and backgrounds and "melting" them together into one much more homogenous culture?

Huh? This is quantifiable. It’s no big mystery to anyone who works in tech, and is not saying anything about abilities, just outcomes.

> So? You're criticizing chinese people pretty explicitly. Don't try to hide behind your race.

No it's true for Indians too. I said "It's hard not to overlook the fact that a lot of would be immigrants make no effort to assimilate" which includes Indians too.

I've experienced the opposite in general, but I've seen some huge outliers in both directions on both sides.

Yes - its the Borg concept of multiculturalism - people come here, add their cultural distinctiveness to the whole and become an American by adopting a certain set of ideals.

When I mentioned assimilation, I meant a certain acceptance of the American culture. I did not in any way mean complete abandonment of your "native" culture.

One of the most obvious things I saw different about Americans is their sense of individuality; you'd see a super conservative person living next to a hippie in peaceful co-existence (although these days the media would make you think otherwise).

As an example, I'm mostly vegetarian (for staying healthy, I'm atheist) but I do like the occasional steak. If I say to a fellow Indian (or naturalized Indian American) that I eat beef, I will be mostly ostracized (I'm assuming that this person is Hindu, which may not be the case). I personally don't care what anyone thinks about my personal choices, but this is an example of people not assimilating and accepting what is generally accepted American trait of "individuality".

Yes they aren't, and I'm arguing is that it should. My point was specifically towards "For MS and PhD students staple their passports with a green card immediately", although the op did not use this phrase it is somewhat implied that someone who has a graduate degree should be allowed to stay and work indefinitely.

> As an example, I'm mostly vegetarian (for staying healthy, I'm atheist).

That's a weird qualification to me, as if most other vegetarians do it because of their religion. I don't have any data/stats, but environmental destruction based on our farming practices, and cruelty to animals, both factor a lot higher than religion (has been my experience anyway, but it might be an interesting difference in the US given the deeply entrenched state of religion there).

In theory, but I'm not actually too sure multiculturalism is actually the case for America, at least not from my personal experience.

The American melting pot rejects plenty of aspects from other culture, and does more along the lines of "this is how we do things in USA, take it or leave it" rather than assimilation (at least from what I've observed in the recent decade). From elementary schools to the workplace environment, things have only been getting harder for immigrants, to the point where I'm not sure if USA can claim to be multicultural by strict terms.

By contrast, a mosaic setup like in Canada, where every cultural aspect brought into the country are welcomed and celebrated, is much more comforting to immigrants. Because multiculturalism is actually incorporated into the Canadian federal policy thanks to, surprise surprise, the previous Trudeau.

I can bet my bottom dollar that Indians (who are Hindus) give me weird looks and comments, not based on environmental destruction but some moron who came up with this rule that Hindus are not supposed to eat beef (but meat from other animals is okay).

If you look up the original Hindu texts, it specifically says you should not eat meat, respect nature and animals; which means you should NOT eat any kind of meat.

>That's a weird qualification to me, as if most other vegetarians do it because of their religion.

Most vegetarians on the Indian subcontinent/Asia in general do not eat meat for religious/cultural reasons. Growing up in a Hindu/Buddhist-adjacent culture is often enough to cause someone to avoid red meat.

Buddhism isn’t so much veg like Hinduism. Lots of meat eating in Buddhist countries (Myanmar, Thailand) and even the monks eat meat if the elevation is high enough (Bhutan, Tibet).

See my example of assimilation to my reply to "ryanianian" in the thread below.

It's not a generalization, there's public data for this. Just take a sample of the top N SV companies, go to their Management/Staff page, and do a count. (note, we're talking senior management, not middle management)

I do have some ideas about why, but it requires going into some sociological analysis. (note: I'm a minority so I speak from that experience).

Sure, there are plenty of meat eating Buddhists but there are plenty of vegetarian(ish) Buddhist schools as well. Full vegetarianism isn't as common as among Hindus, but restricting meat consumption to fish and poultry is fairly common (mostly among schools originally influenced by Chinese Buddhism iirc).

like I said, the Borg concept of multiculturalism we add elements from our immigrant cultures, food, some cultural customs, they are woven in like thread into a tapestry, but the whole remains American - no one who came here, even the folks from the UK had their culture in total preserved, instead they add some of their distinctiveness to the whole.

Well, pork is popular in Thailand.

> By contrast, a mosaic setup like in Canada, where every cultural aspect brought into the country are welcomed and celebrated, is much more comforting to immigrants.

The point of moving to a country is to make a better life for yourself. We are not trying to comfort immigrants, we are trying to make countries stronger.

There are plenty of abhorrent views held by people out there in the world. What part of the mosaic should that be part of?

> If I say to a fellow Indian (or naturalized Indian American) that I eat beef, I will be mostly ostracized (I'm assuming that this person is Hindu, which may not be the case). I personally don't care what anyone thinks about my personal choices, but this is an example of people not assimilating and accepting what is generally accepted American trait of "individuality".

I am not US American, but to me this description rather sounds like that you don't accept his individuality, too.

> This was true for other immigrants too (18th/19th century Irish, Italian etc.)

Are you suggesting that the Irish and Italians brushed up their communication skills in order to succeed? The Irish and Italian immigrants weren't considered white initially - I can't say if there is a causal relationship between their success and this perception changing.

No. I used them as an example to highlight them as a group who had to assimilate in a mainly protestant country.

How so?

The example I used for myself is the typical group/herd mentality that people have (unlike individuality). The assumption is I'm a Hindu Indian, hence by definition I should not eat beef. And if I do I'm a "bad" person/outcast, rather than someone who is different from you despite sharing a similar background.

America has never been a melting pot - more like a salad palette, with clear boundaries between constituent parts. Melting pot is but a nice-sounding rhetoric. Racial bias aside, people usually prefer to live closer to their own kind. For minorities, this is usually because of better access to their ethnic groceries and cultural engagements.

I do not disagree with general idea in your post - I would just change the first sentence to "The salad palette is what makes America strong."

Cool so you had to make a "throwaway" account to make your point, very brave. If you see my other posts I am not sucking up to white people or any other people. I call a spade a spade.

> How so?

In the sense that you are cautious to accept that the other side is rather serious about religion and vegetarism.

> In the sense that you are cautious to accept

What anyone eats is their own business, me or anyone should not judge. My point was there is a slanderous judgement on one's character based on personal diet choices which is ridiculous.

Let me give you an example; in Texas I once had colleague who was extremely conservative and has a tremendous amount of Southern pride (he has a confederate flag on his Jeep). Professionally speaking, I never had any issues with him whatsoever. I can't say the same about a fellow Indian who despises me (personally and professionally) just because I have a personal choice of eating beef. This is the a subset of American "individuality" I'm talking about; that despite the differences they are willing to work together. In India (and Asian countries, or so I've heard) people conflate personal and professional lives, which IMO is backward and stupid.

Therefore if you choose to be American or live in America, you need to accept that people are different and learn to accept as they are. Just because someone is different from you doesn't make you superior or inferior. Now, I know you can give me examples of tensions between race relations in the US (which I agree totally exists), but people try not to mix professional vs personal lives as much in the US as elsewhere in the world.

This is an open secret, at least for us minorities.

City folk often start out camping in designated grounds before moving on to solo trecks in the wild. "modern" cultures that have had more time to assimilate looser and more free conventions don't see how discerning or unsafe certain things are to a more traditional worldview.

There is some compassion for Grandma, but other cultures are seen as "backwards" as not being "developed" enough.

I suspect it's because they speak English natively