To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Wed May 15 12:56:37 PDT 2013 I had not intended to make another posting today, but after receiving several remarks from readers telling me "South Asians ARE Asians!", I need to comment. (The relevant excerpt from my posting earlier today is enclosed at the end of this message for your convenience.) Of course Indians are Asians. When I pointed out that the biggest nationality among tech H-1Bs is Indian, followed by Chinese, I was basically saying yes, Feinstein is correct in saying that the H-1Bs tend to be Asian--whether that be South Asian or East Asian. So my point was not to dispute Feinstein's notions of geography, but rather to ask, Why did Feinstein bring up nationality? It's not relevant. I then speculated that Feinstein, probably unconsciously, made the remark after hearing the constant barrage of "blame the Indians" rhetoric. Speaking of Feinstein, you may find it interesting to read http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/FeinsteinBacksH1B.txt Norm Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/FeinsteinAsianRemark.txt Norm Also of interest is Sen. Feinstein's comments, reported at http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/05/14/senators-battle-over-tech-worker-visas/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA),. and several other Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Patrick Leahy (VT) and Al Franken (MN) expressed sympathy for the idea. Feinstein recalled a meeting she had in San Diego with American workers, “all above age 50, all had been replaced by H-1b workers,” Feinstein said. “You saw it clearly, they were traditional engineers, the technology had moved on,” and companies instead wanted, “young, flexible, highly qualified techies, generally Asian in California. I felt very badly for these people. If you’re above the age of 50 it’s very hard for an American to get another job.” -------------------------------------------------------------------- These are sympathetic comments, no doubt sincere. But they wrongly support the myth that the H-1Bs are hired in lieu of older Americans because the latter don't have up-to-date skill sets. I've shown in detail in the past why this argument is wrong, and in fact it is yet another distract attention from the real issues. Odd that Feinstein mentions that the H-1Bs in tech are generally Asian. (The largest nationality among the tech H-1Bs by far is Indian, followed by Chinese in a distant second place.) It's irrelevant, so I wonder what her point was, maybe yet another reflecting of the "blame the Indians" sentiment. Norm