Indian Americans: The New Model Minority

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-americans-opinions-contributors_immigrants_minority.html

by queensnake • 17 years ago

47 47 17 years ago

ajju9• 17 years ago

As an Indian American, I appreciate the attention. I truly do. But comparing an IQ score derived from the average score of immigrant Indian American kids on an arbitrary memory test (it was 112) to the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews (110, claims the article) to show them in better light is scientifically wrong in so many ways, (not to mention, an indicator of nothing) it made me want to stop reading the article.

vizard• 17 years ago

112 was quoted as IQ score for Indian-Americans.

ajju9• 17 years ago

"When statistical adjustments are used to convert the backward digit span results to full-scale IQ scores, Indian Americans place at about 112"

I don't know how you can meaningfully relate a score on a "backward digit" memory test to an exact IQ score. Nevertheless, I am editing my comment to reflect that it's an IQ score derived from the test and not the score on the test.

randomwalker2• 17 years ago

I came here to say exactly that. Since you already said it, I will merely add that it is bizarre that the article would veer into the IQ explanation after discussing self-selection, which is sufficient to explain the success of Indian Americans as well as the observed memory test scores.

mynameishere• 17 years ago

The forward digit test is a memory test. The backward digit test is a staple of IQ tests and correlates pretty well with the whole. I think the article used that because it was the best data available.

dangoldin• 17 years ago

The suggested action ("A new immigration policy that prioritizes skills over family reunification could bring more successful immigrants to the U.S. By emphasizing education, work experience and IQ in our immigration policy, immigrant groups from other national backgrounds could join the list of model minorities.") is similar to Australia's immigration policies which is based on a point system.

They even have an immigration point calculator: http://www.workpermit.com/australia/point_calculator.htm

aditya• 17 years ago

As is Canada's: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/tool/index.as...

biohacker42• 17 years ago

Again with the pseudo science IQ crap!

Here's a much better metric for immigrant quality what ever that means. The more expensive the trip is, which has very good correlation with distance, the higher IQ the immigrants will have on average. Bonus points if the only way to get here involves a plane.

No wonder Indian immigrants are doing so well in America. Considering they are located on opposite end of the earth, and given the average income in in India vs the price of plane tickets, it's fairly obvious you'd have to be pretty extraordinary to even make to the US.

g__g• 17 years ago

I live in India. Although it's not really hard for me to get a plane ticket to America, your reasoning I think correctly sums up everything.

ajju9• 17 years ago

Here's a suggestion from an Indian American on immigration policy: Don't force skilled immigrants (even those with graduate degrees from US universities) to work at the same employer for 5-8 years just to get a permit to stay in the country.

I have to stay with the same employer on an H-1B visa while my application for a greencard is pending (currently, people who applied in 2001 with a bachelors degree or 2004 with a masters degree are being considered).

Half of my immigrant classmates (Indian or not) from gradschool would have started a startup if they didn't have to stay stuck with the same employers to be in this country.

unexpected3• 17 years ago

I'm okay with this as long as you're willing to pay the H1-B and greencard fees if you decide to bail and start a startup.

All those costs add up- it's about 10-15k per employee.

ajju9• 17 years ago

Define "bail". I think it's actually illegal to pay for your own H-1B to discourage fake applications or something, but wrt the Greencard, there is usually a negotiated agreement between the employer and the employee about who pays the cost (or what fraction of it). So there is no bailing out.

I fully intend to honor mine and wouldn't actually mind paying the H-1B costs either, were it legal.

nebula2• 17 years ago

I'm tired of these oh! "why don't you give me a greencard" attitudes. Even on HN, whenever something related to migrants comes up for discussion, there is this invariable rant about "hard-to-get-greencards" tucked in an insightful(at least apparently to HN users) comment.

What's the deal here? If you are saying, oh! only if you had given me a greencard without 5 year wait, I would have started a startup and changed the world, why don't do it in your home country and make it a better place? Yeah right! if only someone had created a silicon valley in my country, ad infinitum.

Seriously, I have trouble coming to terms with the fact that these highly motivated people with the big ideas to change the world think it appropriate to nag about some other country not granting them citizenship.

w1ntermute• 17 years ago

Apparently you didn't realize that the country as a whole benefits from these startups. By stifling innovation through poor immigration policy, the US is hurting itself.

ajju9• 17 years ago

You are having quite an argument on your own there by putting words in my mouth so I'll leave you to that except to say that I am in this country because the US government thinks it's beneficial to the US in some way.

Meanwhile let me note you haven't presented any cogent argument as to what benefit the US gets by forcing me to stick to one job while I am already here and waiting for a greencard.

statictype2• 17 years ago

Why not start a startup in India? Internet access to people in India is still on the way up and has not yet reached critical mass. You could launch a business there targeting India-specific needs. The possible market there is larger and not yet saturated.

FWIW, I'm kind of the opposite of you.

I'm an American citizen working in India.

jey• 17 years ago

"I'm an American citizen working in India."

Why? (I'm American but my parents are immigrants from India.)

ajju9• 17 years ago

There's no reason not to other than life's led me here just like it's led you there. When (not if) I go back I will start a startup there.

chiffonade2• 17 years ago

This whole "model minority" concept is so incredibly degrading and haughty. It's a bunch of white people thinking they are doing a group of people a favor by applying a label to them.

Oh you should be so proud - you're not like how most other dark skinned people are! So smart and able to succeed!

katz3• 17 years ago

Why? I think the "model minority" label fits. If a minority is fairly successful (low crime, high achievement, etc...) it makes sense to increase immigration from those countries.

Also, once a minority is a "model minority" things such as affirmative action can be changed to only apply to struggling minorities.

> Oh you should be so proud - you're not like how most other dark skinned people are!

Aren't most "model minorities" in the USA far more successful than white people?

mechanical_fish2• 17 years ago

If a minority is fairly successful (low crime, high achievement, etc...) it makes sense to increase immigration from those countries.

The reason the "model minority" label is bad is that it's designed to help the human mind draw racist conclusions. Like the one that you appear to have just drawn.

The logic seems to go something like this:

A. The average Indian-American in the United States is more successful than the average member of Group X.

B. Therefore, smartness and success must have something to do with being from India.

C. Therefore, if a person is from India, we should give them a preferred immigration status over someone from another country.

But C is explicitly racist. It discriminates against (e.g.) a smart and potentially successful African, or Mexican-American, or American Indian by holding him or her responsible for the "average" success and test scores of an entire U.S. ethnic group. (As if the woman standing before you were somehow responsible for the test scores of every other U.S. resident who looks like her!) And it ignores a very, very obvious alternative theory: That Indian-Americans living in the United States are successful "on average" because the "average" person of Indian descent lives in India and can't afford to move to the United States.

Another problem with the "model minority" label is: Who designs this "model"? The editors of Forbes? I note that, this week, winning a spelling bee in English is a "model" behavior, whereas hairstyling, short-order cooking, psychological counseling in non-English languages, installing ceramic tile, picking strawberries for minimum wage, or volunteering to serve in the military are absent from the list of American civic virtues.

randomwalker2• 17 years ago

That's funny--as a member of the group under discussion, I didn't feel particularly degraded. Nor, for that matter, did I feel proud; rather, having always felt that the curious facts mentioned in the article deserved scientific study, I was glad that this was getting some attention in the mainstream press. Maybe this will prompt some research into the cultural factors in my community and how they translate into the observed behavior. I have anecdotal explanations, as does everyone else, for why my people prefer certain professions, but that's not science, and it doesn't answer why the effect is so strong, even in comparison to other Asian groups.

As the article says, "Most Americans know only one thing about Indians--they are really good at spelling bees." I'd much rather be labeled than ignored :-)

ardit33• 17 years ago

"Maybe this will prompt some research into the cultural factors in my community and how they translate into the observed behavior. "

I think it is not good to jump ahead in these conclusions.

what you missing is that the way filters are set up, a major part of indian immigrants that came here are the white collar types. Plus just by sheer numbers (there is one billion+ indians) there is more likely to produce a larger amount of smart/capable people, from a country with lests say 200million people.

When you look at the whole indian society, I would not call it a model. The caste system is still alive, and most indians live in slummy conditions (by european standards anyways).

neilk2• 17 years ago

Do you really think it's something about Indians, or just the large numbers of candidates and the selection process?

In my experience Indians are a lot more willing to commit to long-term, difficult projects at the urgings of elders. But they share that with other Asian cultures. This also helps explain the spelling bee thing; Indian families are used to the idea of rote education being very important, and even participating in the education of their child that way. Really, almost anybody can get that good at spelling, it's just that more European-American parents would tend to see it as pointless.

The one thing I do find interesting is how the gender split works. Asian minorities (in the American sense: China, Japan, SE Asia) seem to have very different expectations of boys versus girls. But modern Indian families, from the castes that are likely to produce US-bound immigrants, seem to encourage their daughters to go for technology jobs. For me at least, almost 100% of the female engineers I've worked with in the Valley were Indian-born.

And the other thing I've always found strange: the QA departments of many companies in the Valley are dominated by Indian-born women.

sanj• 17 years ago

A new immigration policy that prioritizes skills over family reunification could bring more successful immigrants to the U.S.

And they would earn as much money as they could, and then they would leave. Because people like being with their families, especially parents, especially when they kids.

bluishgreen• 17 years ago

"A new immigration policy that prioritizes skills over family reunification could bring more successful immigrants to the U.S."

So if I can code and spell, and my wife cannot I get stuck without a family? How many of your wives can spell Guerdon or whatever.

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

Oh, yeesh, not yet more junk science on IQ. First of all, digit span is exquisitely subject to training effects

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD...

(this is just one citation among many for this often-replicated result) and digit span is not related to important cognitive functions that sum up to "rationality" as distinct from IQ.

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...

http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psycholog...

But in general about articles in the popular press posted to Hacker News about IQ, what I say is that the obligatory link for any discussion of a report on a research result like that is the article by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Check each news story you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the story.

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

The most successful hack of the founders of the United States was to found a constitutional and economic system that could bring in people from different countries all over the world, and have them all work hard to build up a new nation. There must be some reason that the smartest people (however we define smart behavior) in many other countries see more opportunity in the United States than they see in the countries where they grew up. Read the Federalist Papers to become a better political hacker.

gclaramunt• 17 years ago

At the end it could be read as just another lobby attempt. Using the same statistics, we can say that the majority of H1B visa fraud is committed by Indians, and 100% of the arrested for that kind of fraud are Indians too... that proves anything?

known2• 17 years ago

Isn't it desirable to include Indians in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

Indian Americans: The New Model Minority

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