
Asian workers now dominate Silicon Valley tech jobs (2012) - crassus
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22094415/asian-workers-now-dominate-silicon-valley-tech-jobs
======
argumentum
The statements made by Yolanda Lewis in this article are disturbingly racist.

> _Tech companies, Lewis said, "do not want to employ Americans. They import
> labor from overseas, pushing for H-1B visas. Check the job boards. They
> basically say, 'H-1B Visa. Americans need not apply.' For years, women,
> blacks and Latinos have been kept out of the tech job market. Now white men
> are being forced to train their replacements."_

What does the h1-b visa have to do with Asian _Americans_? Apparently she
believes that only women, black, latino and white people can count as
"american".

Also, the idea that "Asian Culture" has a particularly "deep work ethic" or
dedication to eduction is confirmation bias. Asians who immigrated to America
were a self-selected group of highly educated people who aspired to a better
life.

~~~
claudiowilson
There was also no mention of which jobs were held by Asian Americans versus
immigrant Asians. I think there's a stark difference between an increase in
jobs held by Asian immigrants versus an increase in jobs held by Asian
Americans. In the latter, the jobs are still held by Americans.

~~~
argumentum
That should be true for Black, White and Latino immigrants as well. The
_assumption_ that Asians are immigrants while others are not is a prejudiced
one.

It's also not wise to provoke animosity against immigrants generally. Most of
these people are going to become "Americans" soon enough. They are here,
contributing to the economy and culture, paying taxes etc.

We are a nation of immigrants .. cliched but true. Newcomers should be
welcomed and celebrated.

------
afarrell
""" Tech companies, Lewis said, "do not want to employ Americans. They import
labor from overseas, pushing for H-1B visas. Check the job boards. They
basically say, 'H-1B Visa. Americans need not apply.' """

Can anyone point to a few examples of this? I've never seen it.

~~~
FD3SA
Fwd.us?

~~~
gopher1
Yeah, exactly, and even though you're technically prohibited from excluding
Americans in the job ads, take it from Cohen & Grigsby, there's plenty of ways
around that problem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU)

They'll teach you how they assist employers in running classified ads with the
goal of NOT finding any qualified American applicants.

You can thank them directly here:
[http://www.cohenlaw.com](http://www.cohenlaw.com)

------
FD3SA
What fascinates me the most about this and related issues is that there is a
relentless drive towards reducing the rights and compensation for salaried
workers, while increasing the rights and powers of entrenched, powerful,
wealthy elites.

It is no secret that the tech industry is furious with the salaries it is
forced to pay engineers. This drives billionaires batshit crazy, enough so
that they're willing to pay lobbyists millions to constantly increase the
number of impoverished foreign engineers imported on tenuous "work visas".

A cursory glance at history puts this in perspective. Oligarchs and feudal
lords went to considerable lengths to ensure the average artisan received
little more than a subsistence wage. Furthermore, taxes were for the little
people, not the elites. "Government" has historically been a protection racket
made for the elite, by the elite. Any delusions to the contrary have been put
to rest quite conclusively [1].

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-
demo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-
democracy.html)

------
crypt1d
There is an interesting observation about Asian cultures made by Malcolm
Gladwell in his book Outliers [1]. He argues that one of the reasons why
Asians are _statistically_ better at math than others is because of the
language and cultural legacy. More precisely, it is a lot easier to remember
numbers in Chinese (and other Asian languages, apparently) than in English,
giving Chinese children a head start in mathematics. This turns into quite an
advantage by the time they reach college. He also argues that societies that
were developed on rice farming tend to be more diligent as it is a lot more
labor intensive work than ,for example, wheat farming. Also Chinese feudalism
had more of a "hands off" approach, where the landlords were always taking a
fixed amount of their earnings. So while Europeans were making pretty much the
same amount of money during all their harvests, Asians had an income which was
more proportional to their efforts. There is a lot more to it for sure, and I
don't know if he is right, but its certainly a nice read.

[1] - [http://gladwell.com/outliers/rice-paddies-and-math-
tests/](http://gladwell.com/outliers/rice-paddies-and-math-tests/)

~~~
yardie
By this logic Arabs and Persians must be mathematical geniuses since they
invented the math system most of the world uses.

Malcolm Gladwell says (sells) a lot of shit. Literally.

------
dominotw
This is from 2012. Maybe put that in the title ?

~~~
dang
Thank you. Given that and the high-indignation, low-information thread it has
already precipitated, I think this post can be described as a troll.

------
yardie
> as a 19-year-old junior at SJSU studying computer science, Leu said many
> non-Asians don't appreciate "the Asian culture, where there is a deep work
> ethic that America hasn't really bought into yet."

Checks GDP per Capita[1]. I believe she meant "some Americans don't appreciate
the Asian culture, where some Asians have a deep worth ethic that some
Americans haven't bought really bought into yet."

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

~~~
shadowfox
Maybe I am confused. What does GDP have to do with this?

~~~
yardie
Since the P in GDP stands for productivity and the US has one of the highest
GDPs I find it extremely ironic when someone says Americans don't have or
don't understand work ethic.

------
obvious_throw
That's so strange. According to Shanley Kane and Anil Dash, the Valley is
dominated by racist white men who systematically exclude all outgroups.

Clearly, this article is just the white supremacists and their power
structures writing puff pieces to hide the slavery lurking within the black
heart of the Valley?

~~~
tsax
Look guize, us Asian men don't count in the diversity quota. In fact it works
against us. We retain all the 'privilege' narrative-based negative points in
Progressive demonology as white men, plus we gain a few systematic
discrimination points from University affirmative action programs, etc.
Whenever 'diversity' is mentioned, we are either invisible or to be implicitly
counted among white men.

~~~
wavefunction
Progressives don't demonize white people. You should investigate what a
progressive actually is, rather than regurgitate whatever talking points
you're getting from mass media or wherever.

------
ChrisNorstrom
✓ Victim Complex: "For years, women, blacks and Latinos have been kept out of
the tech job market."

✓ Blame Game: "Now white men are being forced to train their replacements."

✓ Biased Reporting.

Apparently anyone can be a "journalist" now a days. Do you guys remember all
those articles about San Francisico Gentrification a few weeks back? All
complaining about how the evil white male tech workers were taking up real
estate? Ooops. Turns out 50% of the tech workers are Asian. Funny how that was
left out. I'm having a hard time believing anything anymore.

I guess there's no such thing as a fluctuation anymore. Every change is a
conspiracy.

~~~
ntiku
Asian representing more than 50 percent of the tech company workforce in
certain counties does not indicate their salary level, titles, or how much
they allocate towards housing, which would be a be better indication of the
impact on gentrification. "Funny" how that works.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Funny indeed.
[http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1](http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1)

