Sometimes a superstar reaches such popularity that he is known simply by his first name. Such status is granted to two superstars of the MAGA movement, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. Their popularity is somewhat ironic, however, considering Vivek is the son of Indian immigrants and Elon is himself an immigrant, and the MAGA movement had its origins in an effort to limit immigration to this country. Nonetheless, these two men, tapped by Donald Trump to reduce the size and scope of government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are important players in his upcoming administration. This week, however, they stepped into hot water and started a vigorous debate about immigration within the MAGA movement.
It began with an post by Vivek in which he criticized aspects of American culture, comparing it unfavorably to the culture of other countries (most people interpreted his post as referring primarily to Indian culture, although he does not mention that explicitly). It’s helpful to read the entire post:
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The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.
Vivek’s post, and then Elon’s support for that post, set off a firestorm among Trump supporters. Some were offended that he insulted American culture; others were fearful that his post indicated a softening of the anti-immigration platform on which Trump ran. It also sparked a debate about H-1B visas, which are common in the tech industry and are granted to immigrants in speciality occupations that require high-level skills and knowledge.
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It’s actually hard to disagree with what Vivek actually said, yet the post misses a major and important component of anti-immigration sentiment in America today.
At face value what Vivek wrote shouldn’t be controversial. The reality is that many immigrants from certain countries, particularly from Asian countries, are smarter and harder-working than many native-born Americans. I worked in the tech industry for 15 years and I saw this first-hand. I helped run a web hosting company in the late 1990’s and every employee we hired was American, except one. He was from China (we actually hired him when he still lived in China and later sponsored his move to America). To say he was more intelligent than the rest of us doesn’t do him justice. He was light-years smarter than any of us, and we hired some very intelligent people. But he wasn’t just smart; he outworked all of us as well. And yes, he didn’t ask for as much pay as our American employees, but we paid him as much anyway. He was the dream employee in just about every way imaginable.
This is what tech leaders like Vivek and Elon see when they are talking about Indian and other Asian immigrants coming to America through H-1B visas. They see dream employees and thus ideal citizens and “good” immigrants, as opposed to immigrants who are drug dealers or rapists or welfare recipients. To them, any opposition to these “good” immigrants is nonsensical and perhaps even suggests racism—do we just not want brown people in this country, no matter how talented and hard-working they may be?
