We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic status...
It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this. It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so, instead of once-per-lifetime.
This seems like a good example of how screwed up immigration policies are in this country.
We should be running out to other countries and actively recruiting people like her to immigrate here. She's smart, she's hard-working, and she's obviously incredibly motivated. But despite all this, the process of even getting a green card took a ridiculously long time.
I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I do understand it, it's largely racism).
>> I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I do understand it, it's largely racism).
I don't know any Americans who are opposed to immigration. I know lots of them who are opposed to illegal immigration. Interestingly, the people I know most ferociously opposed to the illegals are themselves immigrants, three from China, one from India, and one from France.
And racism has nothing to do with it. They just hate the fact that they came here legally, went thru a lot of trouble to do so, add a lot of value to this country, and then see others who drain the welfare system, etc., get a free pass because they can be expected to vote the "correct" way when they become citizens.
My wife is from China and there's never a week that goes by that she doesn't tell me how wonderful America is. I've lived overseas enough to get a sense of why she says that, but it's still interesting to see the U.S. through her eyes at times.
I first met Yasmine at StartupWeekend Baltimore. She'd come down from Philly to try and recruit help for her project. She'd been working on an existing startup already, and her idea was an extension of that (but new, so as to fit within the constraints of SW).
Not finding a lot of help, she sat in a corner, by herself, for what appeared to be the entire weekend, plugging away. She would occasionally ask some of us how to get something done in Python or whatever, but single-handedly turned her project into something that was later acquired.
In short, for all the talk about 'not enough women in tech', all I can say is that they're out there, and they're awesome. Hell, half the men I know in tech can't get as much as she does.
But given that she was really motivated to master a challenge that was really hard, perhaps, just perhaps she justified her efforts by convincing herself that the results were really worthwhile.
So perhaps the policy is just, exactly right. After all, you don't see a lot of fat happy native born talking about living the American Dream (I hear them saying "you have to asleep to believe it" but as we see, there are other alternatives)
Serious question: is there a single system in the country at any level of government that works as it is intended? Can someone name a single one?
My mother recently "enlightened" me as to how backwards medication pricing is and how its shouldn't be legal what medical companies are doing (its a long, unethical, story). I retorted with: We have people who don't even know how the internet works deciding how to regulate it, and yet we have these very same people regulating countless number of other industries that they don't understand. A great many senators and congressmen don't even read what they vote on, never mind understand what they vote on (ndaa anyone?).
So getting back to the topic at hand. How is it that "we" can read this story and be disgusted. The men in power in our country have spent the last few decades (imo, perhaps longer) making our country worse and have deluded themselves in to thinking they have made it better. I am annoyed with them, but I am really annoyed with the people who know what is broken and instead of taking the initiative, sit back and talk about it. They sit back and they talk up a storm about how crooked companies are and this that and the other thing. And oh yeah, its racism , or its this or that.
And you know what? Its not even worth it to point any of this out. In the off chance you actually agree with anything I have said, your an American, a docile consumer. You will go find some company, some NPO and throw money at it. Problem solved, case closed, you accomplished your civic duty for the day. Maybe you will go the extra mile and share with your facebook friends some pointless meme that suggests they share with their friends. What a joke. If our country's forefathers saw what has become of their great nation, they would writhe in their graves. In all likelihood, you don't agree with anything I have said, you are content with people telling you what to think and what to buy. You believe this country is great and are content letting the "little" imperfections of our government programs go ignored or worse, broken further.
But yeah, totally agree. Let me know when you share a "lets fix immigration" meme on facebook so I can share it with my friends and we can fix kono 2012, -I mean whatever really important thing we were talking about. Hey, did you see my new car. I know, its banging right.
My family immigrated as well, from the former Soviet Union, but thankfully we had help and I got my citizenship only 5 years after moving to the US.
I really am thankful every day that my parents braved the incredible hardships of moving to the other side of the world to a country where everything was different from what they knew.
If it wasn't for them making this decision, I wouldn't have the incredible opportunities that I do today.
Just wanted to chime in that I recently had a very similar conversation with my parents. Thanked them and chatted about the effort they went through to uproot their entire life and immigrate.
Guess what I'm trying to say is, if you've been putting off giving thanks for something similar, now is a better time than ever.
A really cool chart on legal immigration into the United States for anyone interested in how hard it really is: http://i.imgur.com/yxTFW.jpg (posted here a few days ago, not sure who posted it though so no credit unfortunately)
Congratulations for both becoming a US Citizen and for getting involved in tech! Great to see SE PA is developing more of a tech scene, too (I'm originally from there).
It's kind of frustrating that the state department consular staff dropped the ball on informing your family about applying for citizenship -- I know of people who ended up stateless after the fall of the USSR for similar reasons.
I suspect on the west coast there would be more opportunities to go to college without an SSN for financial aid (by using state or private grants), due to the relatively larger number of non-citizen or undocumented immigrants.
Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account).
I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to immerse 15-17 year-olds from the former Communist bloc into American mentality, then send them back to their home countries and let them loose into their societies.
At the time, my former USSR republic was in chaos, the Union just collapsed a few years earlier, economy was in turmoil with ridiculous hyperinflation, food supply failures, crime rate skyrocketting, etc. Needless to say, everybody wanted to get out, and the competition to get into this US-sponsored program was crazy. To get in, you had to pass 3 rounds of testing: prove your English language skills, submit an essay in English, and finally, pass an interview. In my high school of about 1500 students, I was one of the two people who made it that year.
I then spent my last year of high-school as a senior in an American high-school out in the Middle of Nowhere, USA and lived with an American host family, who were proud "rednecks". I didn't fully understand the full meaning of that word at that time, but in those parts of the country, it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. Needless to say, I learned quite a bit about "American way of thinking" during that year.
Meanwhile, the message from my parents back home was simple and consistent: find a way to stay there FOR GOOD. Get into an American university. Oh, and by the way, we have no money for that, so figure out how to do it for free. Which I did, by the end of my American senior year.
I lucked out because I got into a graduating senior class, even though I was supposed to stay with my age group and be a junior. As a senior, I got to take SATs and ACTs, and studied hard for them, having figured out that those were an important ticket to American education. Surprisingly, my results were higher than national average, even though my English was nowhere near native. It would be enough to get into most colleges in the universities in the country.
Unfortunately, just being accepted was not an option in my circumstances, since I had no money whatsoever to pay for college. I needed a full-ride scholarship, nothing less. Fortunately, my (pretty high) GPA and test results turned out to be enough to get one at only one college out of over 200-300 applications that I sent out.
In the meantime, I was back home, back from my first year in America, wanting to go back, this time on my own, without the hand-holding by the State Department and the chaperones. To do that, I needed to learn more about a whole another side of the State Department -- the consular office, the visas, etc. With my letter of acceptance, and an offer of full scholarship in hand, I braced the throngs of my countrymen lining up at the American embassy. I did end up getting one, a student visa this time, although with a frown from the consular officer about the fact that I just came back from the US on an exchange visa. At the time, that was a minor detail I should have paid more attention to.
Fast forward several years.
I have a Bachelors and Masters degrees from US schools (both paid for by the schools themselves), have interned at cool companies, met my wife (also an immigrant, but not from my country) and married her, and switched from studying on a student visa to working on an H-1B visa. At this point I've lived in the US for over 13 years, and investigated the possibility of finally getting a green card.
It turned out that it was nearly impossible for me to get a green card without having to first go back to my country for two years and fulfilling the State Department's original goal for me -- sharing what I learned in the US as a 16 year-old kid with my countrymen. This, despite the fact that Internet erupted and connected the entire world in ways unthinkable since that time. Despite the fact that I have shared quite a bit with many of my countrymen via various online forums and discussion boards during those 13 years. Despite the fact that I have started a family with roots in the US and my wife does not speak the language. Despite the fact that my skills are better suited in the US, which is proven by high-paying jobs I held, along with similarly high taxes I paid along with that.
And so, after 13 years in America, after having received Bachelor's and Master's degrees, with respected schools completely subsidizing my tuition, and after having worked at some of the more respected companies in American tech community, I had nothing left to do but pack up and immigrate to Canada, who was gracious enough to take me, and glad enough to use my skills and take my tax dollars. For me, American Dream remained a dream. Canadian Dream is not as hyped-up as its bigger sister down south, but it has its fair share stories. This is one of them. :)
Thanks for sharing. Yeah the program was called Freedom Support Act. And you probably had a J-1 visa. That was a great program and I wish there were more of those kind of programs that would bring in kids from other regions of the world.
It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and allowance while here. It was not just a program to benefit you personally and to eventually help you integrate into the American society, but rather it was to create future leaders in your country that would support and follow "Western" ideals, and to have you spread your knowledge about the American culture in your own country. As they see it, you have failed that task since you came right back for college.
I'm frankly surprised you were able to transition away from the H1-B from the F-1.
(My partner is in a similar boat, but still on the F-1. I'm currently in his country, and we're hoping that despite him being on the F-1, the accumulated time that he spent in his country totalling two years will be enough to count for the requirement, despite it not being contiguous. The problem is it seems to be all up to the discretion of the officer handling the issue, because the rules don't seem to be anywhere.
Fascinating story that rings true to my heart, but how did you manage to send out 200-300 applications and find the full ride? I remember applications costing money($30-50) in the early 1990s.
My biggest regret in life is not having had a good advisor in choosing which colleges to apply to. Upon applying to college, I was being given reasonable advice as an American high-schooler in California when in fact I was in a very similar situation to yours(ex Soviet, exchange student, and so on).
In the early 90s when I applied it cost money for college applications. I applied to Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley,UCLA and UCSB, because everyone else I knew was applying (I did not have access to Usenet just yet and there really were no other sources of information).
I got accepted at UCs and got confronted with the fact that college would cost a small fortune for an out of state student that UCs considered me(and I was already working part time as a programmer for UCSB).
There were some smaller colleges which were sending me spammy letters, which I ignored, but actually they were quite decent colleges in retrospect (Harvey Mudd for one).
To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had managed to get a reasonable scholarship to one of the lesser known colleges.
I'm assuming people have suggested this to you, but in case they haven't, I've heard of people getting a lot of traction by contacting (and having their citizen friends contact) their senator/congressperson.
What's the content management system you're using for this site? It's rather obnoxiously blocking me from reading your article because I don't have javascript enabled and it's telling me I need to turn javascript on for mobile safari (there's no copy of safari in this building). I can see the content formatted fine under the warning. It seems to be related to that toolbar up the top - it's not on the homepage and I don't get the error message there.
I was interested, so I looked -- the CMS appears to just be Wordpress.
I'm guessing (without having done much research) that it's Cufon that's pushing the JS requirement. I also saw FB Connect, so I guess it could be that, but I've never seen it do that before (but I've also never looked.)
The "push" factors for emigration are probably strong in many non-democracies, but it's it possible that the "pull" factors for immigration could be weakened by the internet?
Some people don't seen to care about moving to the US to live "the American dream" or whatever.
It's incredibly disheartening when anyone who lives in the United States believes that they are poor. Too many people born with the privilege of being American citizens choose to blame their life on outside circumstances, when the reality is they've been given the best outside circumstances anyone could ask for. Many people want to redefine the American dream as some kind of struggle for subsistence, but you've perfectly exemplified the true American dream: if you're willing to set goals and work your ass off, then you can choose what kind of life you will live.
Actually the hardest to legally immigrate to. It is not that difficult to get across the border (and you can properly walk across the Canadian undetected).
Which is a real shame, you have the option of a real boost in the economy if you those who want to work get into the country.
[+] [-] famousactress|14 years ago|reply
We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic status...
It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this. It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so, instead of once-per-lifetime.
[+] [-] jacques_chester|14 years ago|reply
Out of the several billion people I could have been, I was born in Australia, to intelligent and kind middle class parents.
Really. My biggest single stroke of luck was to be born where I was born. Everything else is going to deeply path-dependent.
[+] [-] autarch|14 years ago|reply
We should be running out to other countries and actively recruiting people like her to immigrate here. She's smart, she's hard-working, and she's obviously incredibly motivated. But despite all this, the process of even getting a green card took a ridiculously long time.
I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I do understand it, it's largely racism).
[+] [-] miked|14 years ago|reply
I don't know any Americans who are opposed to immigration. I know lots of them who are opposed to illegal immigration. Interestingly, the people I know most ferociously opposed to the illegals are themselves immigrants, three from China, one from India, and one from France.
And racism has nothing to do with it. They just hate the fact that they came here legally, went thru a lot of trouble to do so, add a lot of value to this country, and then see others who drain the welfare system, etc., get a free pass because they can be expected to vote the "correct" way when they become citizens.
My wife is from China and there's never a week that goes by that she doesn't tell me how wonderful America is. I've lived overseas enough to get a sense of why she says that, but it's still interesting to see the U.S. through her eyes at times.
[+] [-] bmelton|14 years ago|reply
I first met Yasmine at StartupWeekend Baltimore. She'd come down from Philly to try and recruit help for her project. She'd been working on an existing startup already, and her idea was an extension of that (but new, so as to fit within the constraints of SW).
Not finding a lot of help, she sat in a corner, by herself, for what appeared to be the entire weekend, plugging away. She would occasionally ask some of us how to get something done in Python or whatever, but single-handedly turned her project into something that was later acquired.
In short, for all the talk about 'not enough women in tech', all I can say is that they're out there, and they're awesome. Hell, half the men I know in tech can't get as much as she does.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|14 years ago|reply
But given that she was really motivated to master a challenge that was really hard, perhaps, just perhaps she justified her efforts by convincing herself that the results were really worthwhile.
So perhaps the policy is just, exactly right. After all, you don't see a lot of fat happy native born talking about living the American Dream (I hear them saying "you have to asleep to believe it" but as we see, there are other alternatives)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Influence
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
The US almost did in a way at the end of WW2 and we more or less got a space program out of it.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chives|14 years ago|reply
My mother recently "enlightened" me as to how backwards medication pricing is and how its shouldn't be legal what medical companies are doing (its a long, unethical, story). I retorted with: We have people who don't even know how the internet works deciding how to regulate it, and yet we have these very same people regulating countless number of other industries that they don't understand. A great many senators and congressmen don't even read what they vote on, never mind understand what they vote on (ndaa anyone?).
So getting back to the topic at hand. How is it that "we" can read this story and be disgusted. The men in power in our country have spent the last few decades (imo, perhaps longer) making our country worse and have deluded themselves in to thinking they have made it better. I am annoyed with them, but I am really annoyed with the people who know what is broken and instead of taking the initiative, sit back and talk about it. They sit back and they talk up a storm about how crooked companies are and this that and the other thing. And oh yeah, its racism , or its this or that.
And you know what? Its not even worth it to point any of this out. In the off chance you actually agree with anything I have said, your an American, a docile consumer. You will go find some company, some NPO and throw money at it. Problem solved, case closed, you accomplished your civic duty for the day. Maybe you will go the extra mile and share with your facebook friends some pointless meme that suggests they share with their friends. What a joke. If our country's forefathers saw what has become of their great nation, they would writhe in their graves. In all likelihood, you don't agree with anything I have said, you are content with people telling you what to think and what to buy. You believe this country is great and are content letting the "little" imperfections of our government programs go ignored or worse, broken further.
But yeah, totally agree. Let me know when you share a "lets fix immigration" meme on facebook so I can share it with my friends and we can fix kono 2012, -I mean whatever really important thing we were talking about. Hey, did you see my new car. I know, its banging right.
[+] [-] lionheart|14 years ago|reply
My family immigrated as well, from the former Soviet Union, but thankfully we had help and I got my citizenship only 5 years after moving to the US.
I really am thankful every day that my parents braved the incredible hardships of moving to the other side of the world to a country where everything was different from what they knew.
If it wasn't for them making this decision, I wouldn't have the incredible opportunities that I do today.
[+] [-] yan|14 years ago|reply
Guess what I'm trying to say is, if you've been putting off giving thanks for something similar, now is a better time than ever.
[+] [-] citricsquid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fierarul|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|14 years ago|reply
It's kind of frustrating that the state department consular staff dropped the ball on informing your family about applying for citizenship -- I know of people who ended up stateless after the fall of the USSR for similar reasons.
I suspect on the west coast there would be more opportunities to go to college without an SSN for financial aid (by using state or private grants), due to the relatively larger number of non-citizen or undocumented immigrants.
[+] [-] throawa|14 years ago|reply
I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to immerse 15-17 year-olds from the former Communist bloc into American mentality, then send them back to their home countries and let them loose into their societies.
At the time, my former USSR republic was in chaos, the Union just collapsed a few years earlier, economy was in turmoil with ridiculous hyperinflation, food supply failures, crime rate skyrocketting, etc. Needless to say, everybody wanted to get out, and the competition to get into this US-sponsored program was crazy. To get in, you had to pass 3 rounds of testing: prove your English language skills, submit an essay in English, and finally, pass an interview. In my high school of about 1500 students, I was one of the two people who made it that year.
I then spent my last year of high-school as a senior in an American high-school out in the Middle of Nowhere, USA and lived with an American host family, who were proud "rednecks". I didn't fully understand the full meaning of that word at that time, but in those parts of the country, it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. Needless to say, I learned quite a bit about "American way of thinking" during that year.
Meanwhile, the message from my parents back home was simple and consistent: find a way to stay there FOR GOOD. Get into an American university. Oh, and by the way, we have no money for that, so figure out how to do it for free. Which I did, by the end of my American senior year.
I lucked out because I got into a graduating senior class, even though I was supposed to stay with my age group and be a junior. As a senior, I got to take SATs and ACTs, and studied hard for them, having figured out that those were an important ticket to American education. Surprisingly, my results were higher than national average, even though my English was nowhere near native. It would be enough to get into most colleges in the universities in the country.
Unfortunately, just being accepted was not an option in my circumstances, since I had no money whatsoever to pay for college. I needed a full-ride scholarship, nothing less. Fortunately, my (pretty high) GPA and test results turned out to be enough to get one at only one college out of over 200-300 applications that I sent out.
In the meantime, I was back home, back from my first year in America, wanting to go back, this time on my own, without the hand-holding by the State Department and the chaperones. To do that, I needed to learn more about a whole another side of the State Department -- the consular office, the visas, etc. With my letter of acceptance, and an offer of full scholarship in hand, I braced the throngs of my countrymen lining up at the American embassy. I did end up getting one, a student visa this time, although with a frown from the consular officer about the fact that I just came back from the US on an exchange visa. At the time, that was a minor detail I should have paid more attention to.
Fast forward several years.
I have a Bachelors and Masters degrees from US schools (both paid for by the schools themselves), have interned at cool companies, met my wife (also an immigrant, but not from my country) and married her, and switched from studying on a student visa to working on an H-1B visa. At this point I've lived in the US for over 13 years, and investigated the possibility of finally getting a green card.
It turned out that it was nearly impossible for me to get a green card without having to first go back to my country for two years and fulfilling the State Department's original goal for me -- sharing what I learned in the US as a 16 year-old kid with my countrymen. This, despite the fact that Internet erupted and connected the entire world in ways unthinkable since that time. Despite the fact that I have shared quite a bit with many of my countrymen via various online forums and discussion boards during those 13 years. Despite the fact that I have started a family with roots in the US and my wife does not speak the language. Despite the fact that my skills are better suited in the US, which is proven by high-paying jobs I held, along with similarly high taxes I paid along with that.
And so, after 13 years in America, after having received Bachelor's and Master's degrees, with respected schools completely subsidizing my tuition, and after having worked at some of the more respected companies in American tech community, I had nothing left to do but pack up and immigrate to Canada, who was gracious enough to take me, and glad enough to use my skills and take my tax dollars. For me, American Dream remained a dream. Canadian Dream is not as hyped-up as its bigger sister down south, but it has its fair share stories. This is one of them. :)
[+] [-] rdtsc|14 years ago|reply
It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and allowance while here. It was not just a program to benefit you personally and to eventually help you integrate into the American society, but rather it was to create future leaders in your country that would support and follow "Western" ideals, and to have you spread your knowledge about the American culture in your own country. As they see it, you have failed that task since you came right back for college.
[+] [-] ebiester|14 years ago|reply
I'm frankly surprised you were able to transition away from the H1-B from the F-1.
(My partner is in a similar boat, but still on the F-1. I'm currently in his country, and we're hoping that despite him being on the F-1, the accumulated time that he spent in his country totalling two years will be enough to count for the requirement, despite it not being contiguous. The problem is it seems to be all up to the discretion of the officer handling the issue, because the rules don't seem to be anywhere.
[+] [-] sireat|14 years ago|reply
To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had managed to get a reasonable scholarship to one of the lesser known colleges.
[+] [-] peripitea|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madina_a|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorgem|14 years ago|reply
Compare to comments elsewhere (not the same article, but immigration related):
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/historic-wave-...
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] philiphodgen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myasmine|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rollypolly|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] option_greek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmelton|14 years ago|reply
I'm guessing (without having done much research) that it's Cufon that's pushing the JS requirement. I also saw FB Connect, so I guess it could be that, but I've never seen it do that before (but I've also never looked.)
[+] [-] jacobr|14 years ago|reply
Some people don't seen to care about moving to the US to live "the American dream" or whatever.
[+] [-] pinchyfingers|14 years ago|reply
It's incredibly disheartening when anyone who lives in the United States believes that they are poor. Too many people born with the privilege of being American citizens choose to blame their life on outside circumstances, when the reality is they've been given the best outside circumstances anyone could ask for. Many people want to redefine the American dream as some kind of struggle for subsistence, but you've perfectly exemplified the true American dream: if you're willing to set goals and work your ass off, then you can choose what kind of life you will live.
[+] [-] westicle|14 years ago|reply
"I can speak out against the government, if need be, without fear of being prosecuted, imprisoned, or killed".
Probably pays not to take that sentiment too far however. This is still the USA we're talking about.
[+] [-] rickmb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bearmf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
Which is a real shame, you have the option of a real boost in the economy if you those who want to work get into the country.
[+] [-] read_wharf|14 years ago|reply