In all my flights within the US--either entirely domestic or the domestic segments of international flights--I have never, ever, been in a plane with a flight attendant--male or female--who looked Indian-American. In the international flights--even on Lufthansa--there have been quite a few Indian personnel, yes. But, for that matter, even when waiting at US airports, which I have done a lot, I have not seen Indian-American flight attendants rushing around. Ground-staff I have seen in plenty, yes. But not the flying kind Indian-American staff.
Of course, there could be a huge sampling error at play. But, within this sample, when I have seen flight attendants who are Chinese-American, Korean-American, Japanese-American, Filipino-American, well, how come no Indian-American?
It could be that Indian-Americans are chasing other occupational opportunities:
Indian Americans lead all other groups by a significant margin in their levels of income and education. Seven-in-ten Indian-American adults ages 25 and older have a college degree, compared with about half of Americans of Korean, Chinese, Filipino and Japanese ancestry, and about a quarter of Vietnamese Americans.Seven-in-ten! No wonder that my friend is impressed that every Indian-American I know seems to have at least one graduate degree!
The American story is full of one kind of "group" having its glorious moment. In a country that was long dominated by the WASP elites, then came different groups with economic success. Five decades ago:
In 1960, second-generation Greek-Americans reportedly had the second-highest income of any census-tracked group.A couple of generations later, the "group" is no longer statistically different from the mainstream averages. Perhaps it is the Indian turn now.
The picture of the Indian-American is certainly not narrow anymore to being a motel owner (Patel motel) or being in a science/engineering occupation. The recent Pulitzer Prize in Poetry is perhaps the most recent piece of evidence:
Bangalore-born Vijay Seshadri’s volume of verse, “3 Sections,” won the Pulitzer prize for poetry on Monday.It is a huge achievement--an Indian-American stating to his parents about his wish to be a poet, when the "norm" is to enter the more traditionally high-income occupations. Of course, Seshadri is not the first of such off-beat success:
Mr. Seshadri lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College. When he was five, he moved with his family from India to the United States.
Mr. Seshadri is the first Indian-American to win in the poetry category. He joins a growing list of Indian-American writers to have won the prestigious Pulitzer. In 2000, Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for her first novel “Interpreter of Maladies” in the fiction category. Then in 2011, cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” won in the general non-fiction category.We have had Indian-American motel owners, 7-11 caricatures, physician and engineer stereotypes. On to literature also.
But, how about the Indian-American plumbers and electricians? Flight attendants? Are there any? Surely not all Indian-American kids have the abilities or the interests to be surgeons and programmers and poets. Where are those Indian-Americans? What lives do they lead? I would love to read a profile of a flight attendant who was born in the US to parents who immigrated from India. Wouldn't you too?
2 comments:
Oh - if you had free movement of labour, almost every alternate stew would be an Indian - the other would be Mexican. But since that will never happen, Indian Americans have sensibly chosen more sensible professions than going through the torture of having to exist on an American plane.
Back in graduate school, when India had yet to open up its economy to the world, I distinctly recall arguing in one class that while capital seemed to flow freely more than ever across countries and continents, we had plenty of checks against a free movement of labor. My professor said that the flow of capital takes care of the concern that I had.
My view has not changed on this one, and I am with you, if what you are also suggesting is that labor ought to be allowed to move around as freely as capital is allowed to. If labor moves that way, then, yes, it will be quite some changes in the US and elsewhere.
(Ironically, a corporation, whose capital is what is often moved around to any corner of the world, is considered to be a person by the SCOTUS, even though a corporation is not a citizen. Labor, on the other hand, has rights to citizenship but with severe restrictions on geographic mobility ... )
Post a Comment