I saw a post in some thread singing praises about Indian American community’s great achievements - control of hotel industry, 10+ pct in medicine, large ownership of silicon valley etc. Certainly things to be happy about. However, I think this is too rosy a picture, because it is a partial view.
^ wow! amazing. But I’d caution Indians about some of this:
A large proportion of Indians in America are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. Since in general, people who migrated from India to US are a select group (in terms of education, initiative and mental strength) and so one would expect a high rate of success. I don’t believe this is the profile of all immigrations into the US - the Mexican immigrants are unskilled and uneducated in general; the Chinese migrated on political grounds in recent times and for unskilled labor in the past (railroad days).
Even though the Jewish migrated from RUssia and Europe due to persecution, look at what they have achieved in terms of business, science and arts.
Quite frankly I am worried about the Indian community in the US. There are too few ‘effective’ community organizations, too many infights (eg: the Flushing temple issue is in the court). We have done a horrible job of PR in showing to middle-America that outsourcing to India is really not a threat and how small it is at that. On the other hand China has taken over so much of manufacturing from US and yet, they have gotten scott free in the PR game. They dwarf us in terms of FDI, size of trade, cultural integration. Their kids are populating school academic and non-academi teams in larger numbers than anyother community. Every 4th restaurant is Chinese. Every 3rd laundry is Chinese.
If we want to assess our community, it is insufficient to just look 2 or 3 metrics. Take an overall perspective - economics, education and enterprise we are doing well. Community integration, political activism, philanthrophy, arts - we have to do much much better
