H1-B Visa Stories

 H1-B Visa Stories.... my mom worked at Florida Power and Light for 40 yrs. In the 1990s, FPL fired most of the middle managers and started replacing the older engineers with younger workers from India and China. As a side note, my mom started bringing home sci-fi books from her new coworkers. One of her coworkers got me hooked on Isaac Asimov's THE FOUNDATION. She even brought home a first printing of JURASSIC PARK from same coworker. Anyway everyone got along well but FPL wanted to pay younger engineers less and American-born ppl wouldn't accept that. By the time my mom retired she was part of a rare class: American-born employee who worked at FPL for 40 yrs, was properly paid, and retired with a full pension. A unicorn.

My sister is a doctor and she worked in Central Florida for several years, deep red Republican country. After a few yrs she noticed that many of the hospitals were staffed with Indian and Chinese doctors, which pissed off many of the older white patients. They wanted to be treated by white American doctors. But white American doctors have options so they are NOT lining up to work in rural counties for less money.

A few years ago I was in South Carolina working on a play. Most of the young ppl I met outside of theatre were from Central and South America. They were in construction and working their way up the east coast as foremen, carpenters, or tile workers. Skilled labor. 

You got this dynamic of trickle-down Reaganomics hollowing out the middle class, which then collapses the tax base of a city. Cities become poor. Then medical, tech, construction, and skilled industries still existing in these poor areas go out in search of skilled labor. So they hire immigrants to fill in the gaps (and to pay them less money). Then there's a growing resentment by the native population which will make them double down in the same economic policies which hasten their demise. 

If you want American-born citizens in the tech and medical industry then you need a great education system and a salary that pays them their worth. But when you're only trying to make a dollar you don't really care about cultivating an environment of curiosity and fairness. 

This isn't new. At the turn of the 20th century, Irish immigrants came in and undercut the pay of American-born dock workers and coal miners. Violence ensued. Native workers lashed out against the Irish as the problem. Irish ppl fought back like 'I was asked to come here b/c you're too lazy and/or expensive.' But no one lashed out against the invisible hand of stockholders as they played working-class Americans against immigrants. 

After WW2, Britain was in ruins. The gov asked ppl from Jamaica and its old colonies to come and help rebuild the UK. Black and brown ppl flooded in and were met with violent hatred, racism, and then ghettoized in most cities. London was rebuilt and then conservatives pivoted to 'how do we get these all these brown ppl to leave the house they rebuilt with their blood, sweat, and tears? Make them the enemy.' 

This is why history is so important and also so rarely taught in American schools.