Immigration and Culture

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 𝕏 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:

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 𝕏 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.

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?

But Vivek and Elon are missing something important. Vivek wrote that the key difference between some immigrants and Americans comes down to “the c-word: culture.” He’s right, but not how he thinks. He is only referring to the differences in culture that come out in the work world, but he (and Elon) are ignoring larger, and more important, aspects of culture. Building successful tech companies is not the goal of the American project; building a successful unified American culture is. Which means we have to look at what makes a culture successful, beyond success in the technology field.

Most opponents of H-1B visas don’t dispute that Asian immigrants are typically smarter and harder-working than Americans. What they fear is that these immigrants from foreign lands will come to this country in large numbers, group together and refuse to assimilate into American culture. They picture an Indian family moving into a neighborhood, and then that family’s friends and extended family also moving onto the same street, then the whole neighborhood becoming Indian, and continuing to live according to their Indian culture.

The common response to this concern is to cry racism. How dare you oppose these people moving here and wanting to live near each other and continue to live out their culture. We are a multicultural country—you must just hate brown people! Yet think about this for a minute: Indians (or whatever ethnic group) want to live with others who are part of their culture so that they can continue to practice their culture. Isn’t that just what Americans are asking for? It’s not racist to love one’s culture, to desire to live among others who love that culture, and to want to see the culture continue to thrive in one’s homeland. The racist epithet is used simply to shut down any debate about the issue. It’s reasonable to ask that people who become citizens of a country live out that country’s culture (without asking them to extinguish their love for their homelands). It’s reasonable to ask that people who become citizens of a country live out that country’s culture.Tweet This

But there is a problem. What exactly is American culture? After all, we have built-in diversity based on our history, although it is primarily European and African in origin. What values represent American culture, as opposed to Indian or Chinese or some other culture? What exactly should an immigrant assimilate into? 

At the very least, the English language should be a starting point. If you come to this country, you should learn to speak the language and should teach it to your children. Indians, at the very least, do speak English and so that’s clearly not enough for those who opposed Indian enclaves forming in America. So what else? The most powerful force in a culture is religion, and the religion of American culture has always been Christian, even if in recent decades the influence of Christianity has waned. So do we require immigrants to be Christian before they are allowed in? I can see many benefits to this policy, but then what brand of Christianity is acceptable? America is a Protestant country with a history of anti-Catholicism, so Catholics might be excluded in a “Christians only” immigration policy. Or should we settle for more generic moral cultural norms, such as an acceptance of the Ten Commandments (which is not part of Asian cultures)? 

Those who want to defend American culture from immigrant groups that will undermine it are fighting a valiant battle, but it seems to me that we first must establish what exactly is American culture before we can impose it upon those who immigrate here. I would say that speaking the English language, embracing the natural law tradition of Christian Europe, and respecting Christian customs is the minimum required for an immigration policy that respects and fosters American culture. But I’m sure many others who want to restrict immigration as I do might have different requirements.  

That being said, we should be realistic about what is possible in political terms. My own minimum requirements would never be supported by the majority of the political class; we’ve already seen that Vivek and Elon wouldn’t support them. In today’s immigration debate, we need to shoot a lot lower. Just securing the border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed a crime since coming to America would be a huge step in the right direction, yet even those small goals will be difficult to achieve. If we can do that, however, then perhaps we can move on to a broader discussion of what matters in American culture and how to preserve it (without labelling anyone racist who brings the topic up). 

Having successful tech companies is nice, having a successful culture is essential. Vivek is right, it does come down to the c-word: culture. But just not how he thinks it does.