It is emphasized by human capital theory that people migrate to those countries where the expected returns from their education and skill are the greatest (Sanderson, 2010). In other words, migration is a strategy to maximize returns to the migrant’s stock of human capital (Borjas, 1989; Sanderson, 2010). In contrast, social network theory posits that the decision to migrate is often shaped by the individual’s family members and friends who decide to immigrate and settle in particular places (Sanderson, 2010). Social networks supply migrants with
information and resources that lower their costs and maximize the returns to moving (Sanderson, 2010).
It can be argued that both theories overlook the contextual factors involved in the decision to migrate. For instance, Sunil Bhatia (2008) contends that before the 9/11 attack, many Americans did not regard Indianness as “foreign” and some Indians also considered themselves as “White Americans.” After the incident, Bhatia notes that Indians were increasingly suspected,
stereotyped, and treated with prejudice. To make matters more difficult, U.S. immigration laws became more stringent (Bhatia, 2008). Indians became less comfortable assimilating with non-Indians and wanted to be secluded (Bhatia, 2008). Sadly, the heinous attack of 9/11 gave birth to an atmosphere of suspicion. Many South Asians were stereotyped and discriminated against (Bhatia, 2008). For example, Bhatia (2008) documents the increasing discrimination against Sikhs (an ethnic community from India) because of their appearance and ethnic features (having turbans and beards).
Stark and Bloom (1982) posit that the decision to migrate may not always be based on economic maximization. In fact, in the Indian context, Western education is always viewed as superior. Having a degree from a Western university adds to the prestige of the family (Helweg,
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1987). The problem is enhanced by the fact that families of emigrants tend to underplay the failures and disappointments of their relatives and highlight their success stories (Helweg, 1987).
Thus, it can be hypothesized that Indians are often tempted to migrate for the sake of enhancing their family prestige and are often not fully aware of the adversities existing in the host country. I contend that both of the aforementioned theories fail to fully address the context of migration and the specific factors enabling or hindering the migration of Indians in a particular time period.
Therefore, my research examines the following set of questions:
1. What are the specific facilitating or discouraging factors that Bengali immigrants
encountered during the time of their migration? What was the contextual situation in India and the United States that prompted Bengali immigrants to migrate to the United States?
India has shown remarkable progress in the field of education in the recent years. For
example, the premier Indian educational institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have produced highly qualified students, who, in turn, have greatly contributed to the prosperity of the Indian economy (Sahay, 2009). Further, the education offered at the IITs is highly subsidized and the present tuition fee of 22,000 rupees ($440) per year is hardly comparable with the tuition of an elite American engineering school, which is forty or fifty times higher (Sahay, 2009). The selection process at the IITs is extremely competitive with an acceptance rate of less than 2 percent. Further, Bhatia found that many of the graduates believed that they received a high quality education at the IITs (Bhatia, 2007).
It has also been noted that with the recent technological advancement, Indian cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, have become hubs of IT services and the software industry by attracting large corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Infosys, Wipro, Texas Instruments, and Digital Equipment Corporation (Sahay, 2009). However, even with such career avenues and
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facilities being offered by the Indian government, few Indians have swapped their six-figure salaries in United States to initiate new ventures in India (Sahay, 2009).
Additionally, in order to attract the Non-Resident Indians back to India, the government of India offers special privileges to them (Helweg, 2004). For instance, the Indian state of Gujarat’s iNDEXb program provides individualized investment portfolios with market analysis and
investment opportunities to entice immigrants to return (Helweg, 2004). Also, the organization offers returnees privileges like avoiding the waitlist to obtain immediate telephone lines, admission of children to good schools, and purchases of vehicles (Helweg, 2004). The
Government of India is planning to issue the “Persons of Indian Origin” (PIO) cards for those Indians residing abroad and possessing foreign passports (Sahay, 2009). The PIO Card would benefit Indians abroad by extending a visa-free regime and conferring special economic, social, and cultural benefits (Sahay, 2009). Such economic and educational benefits should serve as a pull factor to induce Indian emigrants to return to India. These programs have thus far had little overall effects in prompting the return of Indian professional workers from the U.S. Therefore, my study examines the following question:
2. What are the factors influencing Bengali immigrants to not return to India?
Richard Florida (2002a) suggests that technological innovation can only flourish in a supportive social milieu. He posits that by offering lifestyle choices and facilities, a ‘creative setting’ can attract creative people, thereby leading to innovation and economic growth (Florida, 2002a). Florida’s (2002a) interviews with members of the creative class revealed that they have turned down job offers in places that did not offer entertainment on a “just-in-time” basis. In this context, Florida (2002a) also discusses the importance of “third places,” like coffee shops, bookstores, art galleries, and cafes where one meets less formal acquaintances. The significance
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of such places stems from the fact that they provide a platform for human interaction and acquaintance (Florida, 2002a).
Florida (2002a) also underscores the importance of heterogeneity and diversity of a place in attracting the creative class. Florida (2002a) defines diversity in terms of the presence of people of various racial and ethnic groups, different ages, sexual orientations and with alternative appearances (e.g. those with body piercings and tattoos). Additionally, Florida (2002a) observes the desire of creative people to be involved in their community affairs and posits that such involvement can be interpreted as the desire of the creative class to establish and validate their own identity in places where they live.
Similarly, Glaeser, Kolko, and Saiz (2004) in “Consumers and Cities,” contend that the future of the cities depends upon their ability to provide attractive places for increasingly rich workers, who are less inhibited by choices of employment locations. He talks of four urban amenities that are critical in attracting the creative class: offering a variety of services and consumer goods, having an attractive aesthetic and physical setting, the availability of safe neighborhoods with lower crime rates, and functional transport and communication facilities (Glaeser et al., 2004).
Glaeser et al. (2004) further note the importance of large urban markets in increasing the welfare of consumers. This is mainly because entertainment options (like baseball, opera, art museums, ethnic restaurants) require large audiences to be successful.
Challenging Florida’s (2002) argument, Michael Storper and Allen Scott (2009) in their work,
“Rethinking Human Capital, Creativity, and Urban Growth” (2009) claim that in the absence of internal economic dynamics, cities would be no more than basic service hubs. Though Storper and Scott (2009) agree with Florida that human capital and skills are indispensible for urban growth, they don’t accede to the view that human capital is the primary factor responsible for
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urban growth. In other words, Storper and Scott’s (2009) contention is that skilled workers do not move unless they can capitalize on their personal talent. In order to address these debates, my study will examine the following research question:
3. What are the factors that made Bengali professionals choose the Kansas City Metropolitan Area over any other city as their place of settlement?
After reading the existing literature and borrowing from Florida’s (2002a) contention that creative people want to be involved in their community and establish their identity in places where they live, I felt that it would be interesting to examine the urban amenities preferred by Bengali professionals in Kansas City. Many Bengali professionals can be viewed as creative workers that add to the diversity of the urban social milieu. Therefore, I address the following set of questions in my research:
4. What are the urban amenities preferred by Bengali professionals residing in Kansas City Metropolitan Area? Further, what goods, services, and lifestyles appeal to Bengali
immigrants in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area? What types of these amenities could be considered ethnically oriented versus those preferred by the cultural mainstream? How important are these amenities as a factor inducing Bengali professionals to migrate to a city in United States?
Previous research emphasizes that ethnic associations serve to maintain ethnic solidarity and help meet needs of the ethnic community (Rangaswamy 2000; Rayaprol, 1997), Dhingra (2003) found that Indian ethnic organizations provide a networking platform for Indian professionals and help to further the image of Indian immigrants as “model minorities.” Thus, such
organizations provide an institutional means of facilitating the social mobility of Indian
immigrants while helping them to retain their cultural heritage and ethnic identity. Therefore, my study explores the following question:
5. What purposes do ethnic associations serve for Bengali professionals in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area?
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Assimilation theory states that Asian immigrants are more likely to choose suburban residential locations and they experience little or no residential segregation from the White majority (Nee and Sanders, 1985; Khandelwal, 1995; Alba and Nee, 1999). Khandelwal (1995) notes that Asians Indians typically do not move to their suburban residence in their initial years of settlement in United States. They migrate to suburban areas only when they have become acclimated to life in the United States and they generally prefer middle-class, upper-middle class or affluent residential areas, which are predominately populated by White Americans
(Khandelwal, 1995). Khandelwal (1995) interprets the move as an attempt of the educated, economically well-off Asian Indian population to assimilate amidst their counterpart White Americans in their equivalent economic class. Furthermore, research indicates that Asian Indians are the only immigrant group that does not display high levels of residential concentration with fellow Indians (Alba and Nee, 1999). Therefore, my study explores the following set of
questions:
6. Do Bengali immigrants in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area primarily live in suburban areas? If so, why? When do Bengali immigrants start living in suburban areas? In other words, does their movement to suburban areas take place in the initial or later years of their arrival to United States? In suburban neighborhoods, are the Bengalis residentially dispersed or clustered in close proximity to other Bengalis?
As immigrant workers residing in a foreign country with a different culture where they are socially defined as minorities, Bengali professionals and their family members are faced with the issue of assimilating the culture of mainstream American (i.e. White) society. The ability to assimilate such culture would be important, not only for successfully negotiating the workplace, but also the social sphere of life in America for the immigrant and his/her family members. It is important to note that it would be a mistake to consider the broader Indian ethnicity as a
monolithic category. For instance, in her study of Bengali-Hindus, Niyogi (2008) takes note of their “progressive” and “liberal” values compared to other Indian ethnicities. She also notes that
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Bengalis appreciate and encourage education at elite institutions. For them, education is a virtue in itself (Niyogi, 2008). An important issue is whether such values influence their ability to assimilate mainstream American culture? Further, does a path of assimilation that includes economic success inculcate a perception by Bengali professionals that they represent ‘model minorities’ in American society? My study explores the following set of questions:
7. What is the nature and extent of the assimilation of Bengali professional immigrants to mainstream American society? What factors promote or inhibit their assimilation chances?
As part of the assimilation process, do Bengali professionals view themselves as ‘model minorities?’
The existing literature provides evidence of the incompatibility of second generation Indians with the cultural traditions of their parents. For instance, Min Zhou (1997) describes the confusion that second generation immigrant children experience about their cultural belonging.
While they do not fit into the frame of reference provided by their American friends, they are also confused by their parents’ effort to get them socialized to traditional Indian customs (Zhou, 1997). Zhou (1997) also talks about the anxiety of Indian parents that their children will become like American youths and forget about their Indian cultural heritage. This problem is further enhanced when Indian parents try to impose their own medical, scientific, and engineering profession on their children and choose marital partners for them (Rangaswamy, 2000). The younger generation then complains that they have to spend the rest of their lives with a stranger who comes from a different cultural background (Agarwal, 1991; Ghosh, 1995).
Dhingra (2003) poses the interesting proposition that while the first generation maintains their ethnic heritage and creates ethnic organizations to preserve them, the third and higher
generations rarely join ethnic organizations because they learn little about their ancestry from their parents (Dhingra, 2003; Tuan, 1998). Therefore, if the third and higher generations join organizations, they tend to be pan-ethnic organizations instead of being specifically ethnic. The
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uniqueness of second generation immigrants stems from the fact that they are positioned between the first and the third generations, and they maintain attachment to both ethnic and mainstream cultures (Dhingra, 2003). Dhingra (2003) draws on the existing body of literature to claim that second generation immigrants care about their parents’ native language, customs, and the values of prioritizing family and community over the individual (Kibria, 1999; Min and Kim, 1999;
Thai, 1999). Based on this literature, my research examines the following set of questions:
8. What are some of the issues of intergenerational dissonance in the families of Bengali professionals? Do Bengali parents allow the assimilation of their sons and daughters to American culture?
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