Manu Joseph: Migrating to the US has long been a rite of humiliation

Vivek Ramaswamy appears to have aired a tweet recently that seemed to all but venerate Indians in America. (AFP)
Vivek Ramaswamy appears to have aired a tweet recently that seemed to all but venerate Indians in America. (AFP)

Summary

  • That America is a ‘land of immigrants’ is among the nonsensical flourishes of language, on par with ‘spirit of Mumbai.’ And the humiliation of going there long precedes Trump’s return to the White House.

Long before Donald Trump, from the time I remember, migration to the United States was a rite of humiliation. Yet, it was exactly what the finest of my generation prepared for. 

Even the most dignified part of the process, which was the first step, where the bright applied for a student visa to go study something in science, lacked grace. 

An enduring memory of my childhood in Madras is the sight of a half mile-long queue of the city’s cultural elite for their fateful visa interviews. They were top rankers, IITians and doctors and those who had got job offers, and they waited for hours in the hot sun (the consulate put up sun shades only years later). 

For people like me, who had no prospects and passed by Mount Road in public buses, it was the first clear sight of what prospects really looked like—a wait outside the American consulate. And my lack of prospects didn’t seem so bad.

But when the bus turned a corner, a familiar fear filled all of us who chose to be artists and were apparently of no use to America and the ‘Free World’—if you were not standing in that queue with a science degree, what would become of you?

That America is a “land of immigrants" is among the nonsensical flourishes of language, on par with “spirit of Mumbai." America may have once accepted all sorts of people, but they and their descendants have no particular fondness of immigrants anymore. 

At most, they only want the rich and talented, and even among the talented, only those who would be of practical use.

Also Read: America’s H-1B visa is vital to US interests—and suits India too

So, generations of Indians worked hard to become useful to America. Some even fooled themselves into believing they were needed because Americans were “dumb." But one way or another, talented Indians figured that their place in the US was created because there were things Americans did not wish to do anymore, or at least not for such low pay. 

Visa holders found their spouses could not work and their green cards did not always convert into citizenship. And now, strategically conceived children born on US soil will not get US citizenship if Trump has his way. His order may get struck down by courts, but it is hard to miss the layers of humiliation in going to a place where too many people wish to go.

For centuries, only the poor and the persecuted migrated. They fled. Even the early European migrants to the US were either destitute or mistreated. The social elite had no reason to move out. 

Also Read: Hardship has driven people to risk illegal immigration

Then, in the mid-20th century, the upper classes of poor nations began moving to the US. These were the cultural elite, if not the economic elite, who had an immense head start in their own society. It was yet another opportunity life gifted them—migrate to a richer nation.

They had to pay a price. From being masters in their home towns, atop the social pyramid, they became something else in America that can be captured by an expression Indians once used commonly: “second-class citizens." What they meant by this was that the American upper classes viewed them the way they viewed lower classes in India.

Everywhere, the migrant is treated badly. The poor are equipped to take it in their stride because they are used to being treated in this manner even if they are not migrants. The Indian upper class is not so suited for poor treatment. Every little discrimination stings them.

This may explain why many of them began to love India more than Indians themselves back home. When an old elite feels slighted in a new place, it compensates with great love for what made it feel special. An unspoken history of the world is how America, to which the elite of poor nations thronged, created expat nationalism.

As another form of compensation, possibly, some of these immigrants also acquired an exaggerated swag—that they succeeded in America because they were bright and “worked very hard," compared to other groups.

It is this popular but dim analysis that American politician Vivek Ramaswamy appears to have aired in a recent tweet: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long… A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ… I know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity… and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates…"

The truth reveals itself if you trace the lineage of successful individuals of ‘Indian origin’ who claim to have done well because they “worked hard." The first wave of Indian immigrants did well chiefly because they were the actual or metaphorical Brahmins of where they came from; they had an enormous head-start not only over other Asian immigrants, but also over most Americans. Their children, in turn, were better placed to harvest their luck. Yet, it is important for the Indian community in America to go on about “hard work." The false preening of the lucky often makes the less fortunate feel that it is all their fault, when usually it is not.

Elite Indians in the US, it seems, want Trump’s America to make a distinction between Indians and Mexicans, and all the other immigrants who face his ire, including “irregular" Indian immigrants. 

But then, typically, the ruling class of a society does not see people through income statistics and their college degrees. It goes by appearances. And to much of the American elite, maybe all Indians look the same. In fact, all immigrants may look the same.

The author is a journalist, novelist, and the creator of the Netflix series, ‘Decoupled’.

Also Read: India has good reason to help Trump erect a border wall

 

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
more

topics

MINT SPECIALS