Of course I care about India, too. And, well, everybody. Why would I want any country not to be peaceful and prosperous?

Anyway, this has been a good conversation and I have learned a lot, thanks.

To me for instance, a “culture” is a box of goodies developed by a certain group over generations, rather than an identifier to be stamped on your forehead. Like it is fair for a painter to mix paints, it’s fair for an individual to mix cultures. Therefore, nothing wrong with listening to indie pop instead of Indipop while sitting in Mumbai. Also, I sense a double standard– why this extra burden of “authenticity” for “ethnics”? Is a German Sanskritist who knows more about ancient India than ancient Germany “confused”? Is an American who chooses to live in Japan, is married to a Japanese, and sees it as his home?

Culture knows no boundaries. When a “culture” dies (in the way I like to see it, a toolbox goes out of fashion), another is born. Why the fear, the need to desiccate, mummify, preserve? Look to the future, I say.

Relevant reading: Amartya Sen’s “Identity and violence”, and Vijay Prashad’s recent article “Multiculturalism kills me” (I disagree with Vijay on almost everything, but here he makes some good points).

was just throwing my observations out there to see what peoples reaction is. not trying to offend or generalize ot a whole group of poeple. sorry if this did not come across.

this is probably true. clearly an overly vocal minority. the problem is that the louder you hsout, the greater your numbers appear. im sure the avg H1B type just wants his paycheck and go home.

Well said, Personally, as I know both worlds, worked in a large IT company in India before coming for my Master’s degree, just because someone does not have a Master’s degree in US doesn’t mean they are not ambitious/smart. Moreover, for the work a majority of people end up doing in IT / programming, you really don’t need a Master’s degree.

Let us not fall for the “divide and rule” policy and together fight for increasing the H1Bs as well as fast tracking the H1Bs to GC, irrespective of US education. In this regard, I really appreciate the work done by Immigration Voice.

My take on this is, if one wants to get a GC eventually, they should clearly find out what it’s all about, there is no point blaming the riff-raff that passed out from ‘NIIT’. They have committed to something of their own free will and oh, it’s not like they had to ride across the Atlantic in a dinghy to get there. Spent money, time and had ambition? Well, good for you. Too bad the going is tough these days. But if you are smart as you say you are, you should realise that the sweatshop dudes are not the problem. They’re going to the US because, well, they can. You got a problem with that, change the rules of the game. Wow, some people are so riled about their little American dream not materialising yet, now they want to build walls at the borders and ridicule others.

Let’s also stop pretending that all H-1B workers are somehow mercilessly being exploited. The exploitation is there, but it’s not like people didn’t know how much they would be making when they get here. The 65-70K that a lot of folks make is not small change for them. A lot of people do realise they’re being paid less than prevalent market wages and those who can look to move on. The ones that don’t are generally people with relatively little experience or ones with ambitions of climbing up the ladder. Sympathy should go where it’s due, to those who are at the mercy of the real body shoppers operating out of dodgy set ups, not for Wipro/TCS/Infy dudes. They should be able to take care of themselves.