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Indians are just Yankee-doodle
dandy
By Priyanka Bhardwaj
NEW
DELHI - A study released last month by the US
Census Bureau confirms what has been suspected for
quite some time: that Indians are the best
educated, highest-earning, youngest and most
likely to be white collar workers among all major
ethnic groups in the
United States, including native-born
Americans.
The study, titled "We the
People: Asian Americans in the United States" and
based on 2000 census results, highlights the
enormous socio-economic mix of the 10 million
Asian-Americans, of whom more than one-third live
in California. In the past 10 years, the number of
Asian-Americans has increased from 6.9 million, or
2.8% of the US population, in 1990 to 10.2
million, or 3.6%. If one were to take into account
mixed race Asian-Americans, counted by the census
for the first time in the year 2000, the
population is 11.9 million, or 4.2% of the US
population.
Indians are the
third-most-populous Asian ethnic group in the US, after
Chinese and Filipinos, surpassing Koreans and
Vietnamese. These five groups each number a
million or more and make up 80% of the United States'
Asian population. Six other detailed Asian groups
listed in the census - Japanese, Cambodian,
Hmong, Laotian, Pakistani and Thai - made up 15% of
the Asian population. Curiously, the census report
put the Pakistani population at only 155,000,
yet Pakistanis pride themselves on being at
least 500,000-strong in the US.
However, it is the Indian-Americans who have moved ahead
as the most vibrant Asian minority in the
US, garnering the highest levels of
income, education, professional job status and fluency in
the English language, even though 75%
were foreign-born, according to the US census data.
The unique success of Asian-Americans with roots in India
is a sharp contrast to the tough
conditions experienced by Cambodian, Laotian and
Hmong immigrants, who continue to display high
poverty rates, low job skills and limited English-language
abilities.
According to the study,
Asian Indians, the nomenclature used to
differentiate them from American (native) Indians, totaled 1.65
million in the 2000 census when considered alone, and
1.85 million when grouped with other races such
as Americans or Africans. About 75% of the
United States' Asian Indian population are foreign-born.
This is in contrast to the older immigrant status
for the Japanese in the United States, 60% of whom
are US-born. A big chunk of Indian immigrants
embarked on their journey to the US after 1990 - 54%
- marking the 1990s as the decade
when Indian immigration peaked. Asian Indians also
have the youngest median age (30.3 years), compared with
the national median of 35 and the Asian median of 33.
They also numbered low in the over-65 age category
(3.8%), compared with the national average of 12.4%.
But it is in the area of education
and professional achievement that Asian Indians
come out on top. According to the study, 63.9% of
the United States' Indian population has a bachelor's
degree or higher, contrasted to 44% for Asians and
24.4% for the country as a whole. Indians were also
the most likely to be employed - 79.1% of Indian
men and 54% of Indian women were part of the
US labor force. Indians have the highest
percentage of people (60%) in management,
professional and related services, compared with 44% overall
for Asians and 34% nationwide. The study also
supports the long-standing claim that Indians are among
the top earners; Indian men had the highest year-around
full-time median earnings (US$51,900), more than
the Japanese ($50,900) and well ahead of the
national average ($37,057) and the Asian average
($40,650).
Separately, Indian women
were only slightly behind Japanese women in
median earnings ($35,173 versus $35,998,
respectively). Overall, the Japanese had the highest
median family income ($70,849), followed closely
by Indians ($70,708). Both were way ahead of
the national average of $50,046. However,
reflecting that they have been in the US longer,
Japanese, Filipinos and Chinese were more likely to be
homeowners (about 60%) than Indians (46.9%), who,
reflecting their more recent immigrant status, are
more likely to be renters (53.1%).
This high average comes as no surprise. "It is
a fact that over the past couple of decades it
is the cream and the best of Indian society and
youth who have moved to the US," says
prominent sociologist Asis Nandy. Indian-Americans are running
Fortune 500 companies and are regularly featured in
top business magazines across the world; there's
Rono Dutta, former president of United Airlines;
Rakesh Gangwal, president and chief executive
officer of US Airways; Kolkata-born Rajat Gupta,
former managing director of consulting giant
McKinsey & Co. The number of Indian New
Economy millionaires is in the thousands in the
US, though many were hurt by the meltdown a couple
of years back. Yet some successes are well known,
such as Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun
Microsystems; Sabeer Bhatia, who sold Hotmail to
Microsoft for $400 million; Massachusetts' Gururaj
Deshpande, co-founder of a number of
network-technology companies and who was at one
time worth between $4 billion and $6 billion.
These are the top names, but there
are many more who enjoy being part of the elite
mass. In 2002, more than 300,000 Asian Indians
worked in technology firms in California's
Silicon Valley, with their average income was estimated at
$125,000 a year. About one-third of the engineers
in Silicon Valley are of Indian descent, while more than 7%
of Valley high-tech firms are led by Indian
CEOs. Technology, of course, is the known area of
Indian expertise, but the story has moved
further. Prominent Indians who have become symbols
of success for the Indian community are the
late Kalpana Chawla, who became the first
Indian-American to fly in a US space shuttle; Walt Disney
paid Manoj Night Shyamalan $2.5 million for the
screenplay of the movie The Sixth Sense; Amartya
Sen won
the Nobel Prize in economics in 1998, joining laureates
Har Gobind Khurana of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and S Chandrashekhar (physics and medicine respectively).
Max Niedzwiecki,
executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource
Action Center, has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times
as saying that one of the reasons for the
differences among the Asian communities is their
varied histories. "Many Southeast Asian Americans came
as refugees with less formal education
and traumatic experiences stemming from the Vietnam
War and Khmer Rouge," he said. "In contrast,
many Indians came voluntarily from a
relatively peaceful homeland and were equipped with
strong English skills to pursue higher degrees
or business opportunities. Between 1990 and 2000,
they doubled to 1.6 million and now rank as the
third-largest Asian-American group after Chinese and Filipinos."
The study also provides a brief social and
family portrait. Indians are most likely to be
married (67.4% are married) and among the least
likely to be divorced (2.4%). In a salute to their
Macaulayite education, Indians are also the most
fluent English speakers, with 10.3% saying they
spoke only English at home, and 57.6% saying they
spoke English very well even if they spoke other
languages at home. Only 23.1% said they did not
speak English well.
To conclude,
the statistics speak for themselves: Indians are
the No 1 immigrant Asian community in the US, as
far as socio-economic status goes.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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