Llewellyn King: Immigrants’ buoyancy, including success in science
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
I have been exploring the heights of scientific endeavor in reporting on artificial intelligence, from its use in medical research (especially promising) to its use in utilities and transportation. It is notable that many of the high achievers weren’t born here.
They have come here from everywhere, but the number of Asians is notable — and in that group, the number of women stands out.
As an immigrant, originally from what was called Rhodesia and is now called Zimbabwe, I am interested in why immigrants are so buoyant, so upwardly mobile in their adopted countries. I can distill it to two things: They came to succeed, and they mostly aren’t encumbered with the social limits of their upbringing and molded expectations. America is a clean slate when you first get here.
A friend from Serbia, who ascended the heights of academe and lectured at Tulane University, said his father told him, “Don’t go to America unless you want to succeed.”
A Korean mechanical engineer, who studied at American universities and now heads an engineering company that seeks to ease the electricity crisis, told me, “I want to try harder and do something for America. I chose to come here. I want to succeed, and I want America to succeed.”
When I sat at lunch in New York with an AI startup’s senior staff, we noticed that none of us was born an American. Two of the developers were born in India, one in Spain and me in Zimbabwe.
We started to talk about what made America a haven for good minds in science and engineering and we decided it was the magnet of opportunity, Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill.”
There was agreement from the startup scientists-engineers — I like the British word “boffins” for scientists and engineers taken together — that if that ever changes, if the anti-immigrant sentiment overwhelms good judgment, then the flow will stop, and the talented won’t come to America to pursue their dreams. They will go elsewhere or stay at home.
In the last several years, I have visited AI companies, interviewed many in that industry and at the great universities, such as Brown, UC Berkeley, MIT and Stanford, and companies such as Google and Nvidia. The one thing that stands out is how many of those at the forefront weren’t born in America or are first generation.
They come from all over the globe. But Asians are clearly a major force in the higher reaches of U.S. research.
At a AI conference, organized by the MIT Technology Review, the whole story of what is happening at the cutting-edge of AI was on view: faces from all over the world, new American faces. The number immigrants was awesome, notably from Asia. They were people from the upper tier of U.S. science and engineering confidently adding to the sum of the nation’s knowledge and wealth,
Consider the leaders of top U.S. tech companies who are immigrants: Microsoft, Satya Nadella (India); Google, Sundar Pichai (India); Tesla, Elon Musk (South Africa); and Nvidia, Jensen Huang (Taiwan). Of the top seven, only Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Jeff Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Andy Jassy can be said to be traditional Americans.
A cautionary tale: A talented computer engineer from Mexico with a family that might have been plucked from the cover of the Saturday Evening Post lived in the same building as I do. During the Trump administration, they went back to Mexico.
There had been some clerical error in his paperwork. But the humiliation of being treated as a criminal was such that rather than fight immigration bureaucracy, he and his family returned voluntarily to Mexico. America’s loss.
Every country that has had a large influx of migrants knows that they can bring with them much that is undesirable. From Britain to Germany to Australia, immigration has had a downside: drugs, crime and religions that make assimilation difficult.
But waves of immigrants have built America, from the Scandinavian and German wheat farmers that turned the prairies into a vast larder to Jews from Europe who moved to Hollywood in the 1930s and made America pre-eminent in entertainment, to today’s global wave that is redefining Yankee know-how in the world of neural networks and quantum computing.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island.
Jill Richardson: It’s past time to toss Trump’s huge lies about immigrants
Preparing for an immigrant-naturalization ceremony in Salem, Mass.
Via OtherWords.org
As Donald Trump leaves office, it’s worth remembering how he first launched his campaign: by calling immigrants “murderers” and “rapists.”
This was outrageous then. And there’s more evidence now that it was, of course, false.
A new study finds that “undocumented immigrants have considerably lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of criminal offenses, including violent, property, drug, and traffic crimes.”
The study concludes that there’s “no evidence that undocumented criminality has become more prevalent in recent years across any crime category.” Previous studies found no evidence to support Trump’s claim, but now we have better data than ever before.
Put another way, Trump was telling a dangerous lie.
Sociologists Michael Light, Jingying He and Jason Robey used crime and immigration data from Texas from 2012 to 2018 to find that “relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.”
Unfounded accusations of criminality are a longstanding tool of racism and other forms of bigotry across a range of social categories.
When anti-LGBTQ activist Anita Bryant wanted to discriminate against gays and lesbians in the 1970s, she claimed they molested children. More recently, when transphobic people wanted to ban trans women from women’s bathrooms, they falsely claimed that trans women would rape cisgender women in bathrooms.
Consider how much anti-Black racists justified their actions in the name of “protecting white women” from Black men. In 1955, a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, wrongly claimed that a 14-year-old Black boy, Emmett Till, grabbed her and threatened her. White men lynched Till in retaliation. More than half a century later, Donham revealed that her accusations were false.
In 1989, the Central Park Five — five Black and Latino boys between the ages of 14 and 16 — were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for raping a white woman. They didn’t do it. In 2002, someone else confessed and DNA evidence confirmed it. (Trump, who took out full-page ads calling for their execution then, never apologized.)
Racism and bigotry are about power and status. Yet instead of openly admitting that some groups simply want power over others, most bigots find reasons that sound plausible to the uninformed — even if the reasons are completely untrue. Bigotry is much easier to market if it can masquerade as fighting crime.
It wasn’t just Trump himself. During the Trump administration, officials like the U.S. solicitor general argued before the Supreme Court that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately likely to commit crime. Data: None. Claims: False.
As the late New York U.S. Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
So when you hear a claim that a particular group of marginalized people are criminals, question it. What is the evidence for the claim? What is the evidence against the claim? Why is the person making the claim, and how will they benefit if people believe them?
If someone cites research, who performed the research, and who funded it? Do the funders have a financial stake in the research findings? Was it published in a peer-reviewed journal? Is the data publicly available for others to replicate the findings?
In this case, the research debunking this racist lie was government-funded, peer-reviewed in a major journal, and the data is available to the public.
Hearing that particular group of people poses a threat to your safety can be frightening. But because such claims have been used throughout history to spread bigotry against marginalized groups, they should always be fact-checked.
In this case, the evidence is clear. Trump stoked anti-immigrant sentiment in the name of fighting crime, and his claims were baseless and false. The lie should end with his presidency.
Jill Richardson is a sociologist.
Justin Vest: Standing up for immigrants -- in Alabama
Via OtherWords.org
This summer, people gathered in cities throughout the country to protest our government’s separation and incarceration of immigrant families. In Alabama, hundreds of local residents came together in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Dothan.
It was only the Huntsville rally that made national news — after an armed counter-protester attempted to disrupt the event. Whether explicitly stated or not, the narrative was the same: A white Trump supporter threatening violence came to epitomize Alabama’s stance on immigration.
It’s a convenient narrative that plays into the hands of anti-immigrant policymakers, who’ve been using Alabama to justify harsh immigration policies for years.
In 2011, Alabama passed the notorious HB 56, the harshest anti-immigrant law in the country. It required schools to determine the immigration status of students, barred undocumented immigrants from working or renting housing, gave local law enforcement authority to verify immigration status, and criminalized certain actions by individuals and charitable organizations — including transporting immigrants to the doctor or grocery store.
Some of these provisions were struck down following legal challenges, but many of the most egregious elements are finding new life at the federal level. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently said schools should be able to decide whether to report undocumented students to ICE. And Jeff Sessions’ new “zero tolerance” policy and a series of procedural changes have taken the spirit of Alabama’s original HB 56 nationwide.
What gets ignored is the actual attitude of Alabamians toward immigrants. The majority of Alabamians aren’t uneducated racist bigots in lockstep with President Trump’s agenda.
Yes, Trump won 62 percent of the vote in Alabama, but 36 percent of eligible voters weren’t compelled by any candidate to turn out to vote. Taken together with those who voted against him, Trump only won 39 percent of the total Alabama electorate. Among those who voted for him, an even smaller margin supports his every move.
As a native of Alabama who grew up in small towns, this isn’t news to me, but the rest of the country needs to know as well.
The fact that hundreds of people attended numerous rallies across Alabama in support of immigrants should be evidence enough. The crowds may not have broken any records, but in a state that’s predominantly rural, it’s a big deal.
Volunteers with Hometown Action, a new group organizing a multiracial constituency of working class people in small towns and rural communities, have knocked on thousands of doors throughout Alabama. They’re asking about which issues matter most to local residents, and who they believe is responsible for their problems.
Even in some of the most conservative counties in the state, we found that most people don’t blame immigrants for their problems — even if politicians do.
Most people understand it’s the politicians and their wealthy corporate donors — industries that also exploit the resources of Latin American nations, the labor of immigrant workers, and profit off the incarceration of children and their families — who are responsible for their day-to-day struggles.
These are the same kinds of people who profit off the opioid crisis, replace good-paying jobs with precarious low-wage work, and who limit the opportunities of our children by underfunding our public schools.
I’m sick and tired of my people — working-class white people and small town Alabamians — being used by politicians as justification for these atrocities.
Alabamians are standing up for immigrants, and it’s time to change the narrative about who we are.
Justin Vest is the executive director of Hometown Action. He grew up in Alexander City, Ala.
Elsa Nunez: 'Dreamers' are at heart of the American Dream
Science Building at Eastern Connecticut State University, in Willimantic.
WILLIMANTIC, Conn.
The recent controversy surrounding a proposed ban on immigration from seven Middle East countries recalls similar times in our history. More than 130 years ago, Chinese immigration was restricted. In 1924, Japanese immigrants were effectively barred from entering the U.S., and Mexicans living here during the Depression were the subject of repatriation, even those who were U.S. citizens. Other restrictions on immigration have marked our history, based on the domestic and global politics of the times.
The latest policy pronouncements reaffirm the need for comprehensive immigration reform in this country. It is time for Congress to decide how to balance securing our borders with the need for a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people already in the U.S.
While we wait to see what Congress does, 1.8 million young people deserve better. Known as “Dreamers,” this entire generation of talented, dedicated students was born abroad but raised in this country without documented legal status. Since 2012, more than 740,000 Dreamers have been given Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, allowing them to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.
DACA students came to this country as children, they have grown up here, been schooled here, and dream of having productive, engaged lives here as American citizens. They think of themselves as Americans. They are exactly like the children of immigrants arriving in our country throughout most of our nation’s history, and today, they are like the children sitting next to them in school, except for the matter of permanent legal status.
Even with DACA status, these young people still face an uphill battle to achieve the promise of a college education. In 16 states, DACA students are either prevented from attending their in-state public college or university, or are forced to pay prohibitively expensive out-of-state tuition to attend their home-state public institutions. “Locked out” states include Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
TheDream.US, a national foundation created by former Washington Post publisher Donald Graham and his wife, Amanda Bennett, has established the Opportunity Scholarship program to support upwards of 500 Dreamers over the next few years. Opportunity Scholars receive sufficient scholarship funds to fully pay for their tuition, fees, room and board.
In fall 2016, Eastern Connecticut State University was one of two institutions nationally—Delaware State University is the other—to enroll the very first cohort of Opportunity Scholars. In addition to 42 eligible Dreamers from the 16 locked-out states, the Dream.US foundation is also supporting five DACA students from Connecticut to attend Eastern. No public funds are being used to support Eastern’s Dreamers, and no in-state students are being denied admission because of the program.
Our 42 out-of-state Dreamers come from eight locked out states—Georgia, Idaho, Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana—and from 13 different countries, ranging from Brazil to India, Ecuador and Zimbabwe. Applications are already being accepted for fall 2017, and Eastern will likely enroll another 75 Opportunity Scholars.
How are our Opportunity Scholars doing in this first year at Eastern? All 42 out-of-state Opportunity Scholars—as well as all five from Connecticut—have successfully weathered their first semester on campus and are back for the spring. The median GPA of our out-of-state Dreamers is an impressive 3.58! They are already becoming campus leaders—as members of the Honors Program, as resident assistants and as senators on the Student Government Association. The key has been to treat them with respect—they aren’t singled out nor housed in a single dormitory or made to feel different from their peers on campus. They receive the same personal attention for which our close-knit, public liberal arts campus is known.
When I speak to our Opportunity Scholars—and I make an effort to seek them out individually whenever possible—I am struck by their gratitude and their determination to succeed. These young people—like the native-born citizens they sit next to in class—are our nation’s future leaders, doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers and business leaders. Their talents, work ethic and diversity bode well for our economy and society.
As much as this success story at Eastern is uplifting, the broader issue of the future of Dreamers in our country is a test of this nation’s moral fiber. Everyone in this country—except Native Americans—has ancestors who originally came from other lands to create the rich diversity we have today in the U.S. Like other members of American society, motivated, high-achieving immigrant students, no matter their nation of origin, should also have access to education—the key to social mobility and economic security in the U.S. That must be our commitment to them, knowing that what we get in return—a rich diversity of culture, religion, race and political thought—is the core strength of our democracy.
It is not by accident that our nation is the world’s melting pot, brimming with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. The U.S.—the greatest experiment in democracy the world has ever known—has enjoyed a moral standing throughout the world because it serves as a beacon of hope to all who long for freedom and opportunity. Acknowledging the right of today’s Dreamers to pursue a college education will reaffirm this moral high ground. Returning them to home nations that they cannot remember would be a disservice to these young people, would prevent them from making a contribution to our society, and would diminish our moral standing around the globe.
At Eastern, we will continue to enroll, support and advocate for the outstanding Opportunity Scholars who have come to us to earn their college degree. We urge all educators—all Americans!—to lobby our congressional leaders to do the right thing—extend the American Dream to a deserving generation of Dreamers while pursuing a viable long-term solution to the immigration issue.
Elsa Nunez is president of Eastern Connecticut State University. This piece first ran on the Web site of the New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org).
Llewellyn King: Muslim immigrants demand that Western nations bow to them
In the aftermath of the Brussels attacks, critics are blaming Belgium for not assimilating immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
The fact is that Europe does not do assimilation. Europeans widely practice what might be called “anti-assimilation.” Instead of engagement with their immigrants, they practice a kind of look-the-other-way stance.
Muslim immigrants on the whole do not seek to integrate into European societies, but rather to demand that European societies adopt their ways. In Belgium, which has three official languages, Dutch, French and German, there are constant demands that Arabic become a fourth. Muslims in Britain, and throughout Europe, demand shari'a, or Islamic law, for their communities. Muslims in Europe, and the United States, demand that Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) be accorded the same recognition as a public holiday as Christmas.
Muslim defenders, after the bombings in Brussels, insist that Western countries with large Muslim minorities should do more to integrate them into national life. But this integration mostly means that the host culture should bow to the insurgent one.
In ancient lands, like Britain and France, this is an affront; as though the extraordinary traditions of those countries should be shoved aside to accommodate the cultural demands of an a very antagonistic minority. That is asking too much.
Europe has mostly dealt with the challenge by hoping that new generations born in Europe and subjected to the influence of European education, the arts and media will become little Europeans: little Frenchmen, little Belgians, little Englishmen, versed in European history and imbued with European values. There are such people throughout Europe, from those of Turkish descent in Germany to those of Indian descent in Britain and North African descent in France.
But by and large the Muslim minorities remain separate, unequal and belligerently hostile to the countries that have given them shelter and opportunity. Rather than the generations born in Europe adopting European norms, they have ended in an unfortunate place where they are outcasts by their own inclinations and by the difficulties posed by European societies, which are quietly nationalistic, closed, eyes-averted.
If anything, the separation has grown worse for generations that know no life other than the one they lead in Europe. This is often marginal, lived in ghettos like the banlieues, the suburbs to the north of Paris, the troubled Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, or Bradford in the north of England.
The original immigrants could look back to what they had escaped, whether it was war and persecution in Algeria, in the case of those who migrated to France, or the grinding poverty that prevailed in Pakistan, in the British case. People move for safety or for a better life. They do not move because they want a new food or a new religion: They want the old food and the old religion in a better place.
Trouble is that three or four generations on, the immigrant descendants may not feel they are in a better place. They are isolated, largely unemployed and subjected to the preaching of murderous extremists.
Once in Brussels, my wife and I were walking down a side street not far from the Grand Place. My wife, who lived in the Middle East and speaks Arabic, remarked that we had left Europe within a few streets and entered North Africa.
As we passed some young men standing outside a cafe, she heard one say to another in Arabic, “What are they doing here? They don’t belong here.”
When the London suburb of Brixton was becoming a black enclave, favored by West Indian immigrants, I lived nearby. “Don’t go there. Maybe they will leave one day,” my neighbors said when I wanted to go there.
No-go areas are not always that: they also are not-want-to-go areas. Someone has to want assimilation, if that is the answer.
Llewellyn King, host and executive producer of White House Chronicle on PBS, is a iong-time publisher, editor, columnist and international business consultant. This piece originated on InsideSources.