The American Dream

America is the only country in the world which represents the dream of a true multicultural society, Successive American presidents nurtured this dream because they knew what fueled the phenomenal growth of the country. Immigrants constitute a small minority of the US population. But they are highly qualified in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. Over 60 % of Nobel Laureates in the US universities are immigrants. Silicon Valley the global center of technological innovation is manned by immigrants, about 50% of what venture capitalist Aileen Lee figuratively called Unicorns and 40 % of famous Fortune 500 companies were set up by immigrants or their children. Most of these immigrants came through the H1-B visa or L-1 route and are the ones who published papers, applied for patents and set up enterprises. This is the powerhouse that has made modern America. They have adopted America as their home for several generations.  It needs to be said that a very large component of these enterprising immigrants are Asians mostly of Indian origin. They are known as Indian Americans.

But there is another America, the white, nativist, rightist America consisting of white Americans not exposed to higher education. They consider themselves the original May Flower immigrants. In a country of immigrants, they consider themselves and their descendants as the natives, not the Red Indians, the true natives of the promised land.  Although greatly enriched by the economic miracle created by these ambitious, mostly Asian immigrants, these so-called natives detest them as ones who took away their jobs. Fact remains that they would never be eligible for these highly skilled jobs. They are jealous of their success stories and consider these nonwhite immigrants as invaders. Trump has cultivated this grievance and is supported by these nativists.

This is the dichotomy of American culture. To win election Trump antagonizes the very section of the population which catapulted the country into its trajectory of the most powerful country of the world. This is the arithmetic of his policy of banning several categories of visas through which talented immigrants came to USA and made USA their permanent home.

Trump has shielded his order under the cover of emergency created by corona virus on the ground that there is a colossal job loss to native Americans and it is necessary to temporarily ban these visas at least up to the end of 2020. But that is his election strategy. Once he is elected again for the second term, he will religiously stick to this ban to satisfy his constituency.

I think immigrants know this well and they have started searching other safe heavens wherein their talents are in great demand like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany. But this seems to be a short-sighted policy. Overall, it appears that globalization is at an end. Countries are reverting to their shells. Free movement of human beings across the world threatens to remain simply a utopian pipe dream.

We have started wooing foreign enterprises set up in China because they intend to shift from there. We have offered them all incentives. But Indian Americans are our own people. They will be only too eager to set up ventures in India if they are convinced that our old mind set has changed and they can build the same success stories here as in USA.

Why not convert this obstacle into an opportunity? Why not develop our own homeland into a land of unlimited opportunities? We have, fortunately, a political leader and government poised for taking advantage of such situations. We have one of the largest markets in the world and comparatively young and talented population. We need to educate our leaders to start processes by which we can initiate a reverse brain drain and convert our economy into a most prosperous world class economy. Having said this, I admit that the job is arduous but not impossible.