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Decades ago, I’d show up weekly to clean the Philadelphia apartment of a California transplant. Daughter of a Hollywood executive, Jacqueline confessed she had to escape California because “California women are too beautiful.” To save her self esteem, she had to flee to Philadelphia.
Ah, California as the perfect state with the most beautiful people! In spite of mud slides, wild fires and many blase places like Bakersfield and Fresno, California still captures the imagination of not just Americans, but foreigners. With its elaborate landscaping, it imitates Hawaii, even as Hawaii mimics California by laying on strip malls and freeways. Much of California, though, is no tropical paradise but a desert that’s running out of water, and its fresh water crisis has become so severe, it has made salient a hushed up concept, namely the fact that there are limits to growth, and that all resources can become scarce if not run out completely.
Newly condemned and mocked for their swimming pools and golf courses, Californians are lashing back by charging, rightly, that other Americans are no less profligate. Though less than 5% of the world’s population, Americans burn up 26% of its oil and 27% of its natural gas. Our houses are larger than anyone’s and still expanding. We have more cumbersome cars than fat drivers. So what, I can hear some of you saying. If we can afford it, then it’s no one’s business, but the problem is we haven’t been able to afford any of this for a while now. We are the world’s biggest debtor nation, lest you forget.
Coming into the Bay Area this month, I saw mostly prosperity, however. From San Francisco down into San Jose, there is one affluent city after another, while on the East Bay, there are a few pockets of destitution and squalor, but nothing compared to the hundreds of miles of decay that mark the Rust Belt, for example. Even Oakland is rapidly gentrifying, and becoming very expensive, with the average rent for a one bedroom going for an astounding $3,078! That’s more than three times what I must cough up, with much anxiety and bile, in Philadelphia, and I get two rooms. In this sinking economy, how does the Bay Area become ever more spiffy?
Two years ago, I talked to Hung, a Vietnam-born Chinese living in Milpitas, and he dismissed my grim assessment of the US economy as nonsense, “The Chinese and Indians are coming over. They have money and skills. They will keep this economy going.”
“What about the locals?” I asked. “Won’t an influx of rich foreigners hurt the poor here?”
“No, these Chinese and Indians will create jobs.”
“But they will also jack up real estate prices!”
“Which is good!”
“Not for a renter, though. It’s already too expensive to live here. I mean, look at all the homeless in the Tenderloin.”
“You will always have bums. In every society, there are winners and losers. Those bums should be put in work camps and made to be productive.”
We were standing in a two-story extension Hung was adding to his home. In the main house, Hung’s aging parents sat mostly in silence on matching recliners. The Mexican construction crew was out to lunch.
It is estimated that nearly 20% of the homes being sold in the Bay Area are being snatched up by foreign buyers, paying cash, with about half of them Chinese. In Palo Alto, one of the toniest Bay Area cities, Chinese alone are responsible for more than a quarter of real estate sales. In adjacent Los Altos, the most expensive housing market in the entire country, Chinese buyers don’t shy away from mansions that cost several million dollars, and instead of haggling down, they often pay more than the list price, sometimes six-figure more, just to get what they want. Sometimes a Chinese buyer would buy without having seen the property in person, and he might leave his new home empty for months after purchase. In China, the land under each house cannot be owned outright but only leased from the government for 70 years, with terms for renewal uncertain, and it wasn’t so long ago that private property was seen as the ultimate evil. To protect their wealth, then, the richest Chinese are buying in California. Ken DeLeon advertises in China, then guides visiting Chinese on a tour to inspect palatial homes. To move them around, he has bought not just a Mercedes van but a plane, on which two number 8’s in Chinese have been affixed for luck. To appeal to Chinese buyers, realtors have also asked municipalities to remove the number four from certain addresses. In Chinese, four sounds like death.
When the Chinese first came to California in the mid 19th century, they weren’t so feted. Though welcomed by white bosses for their cheap labor, they were despised by the white working class for taking away jobs. Groups such as the Anti-Coolie Association and the Supreme Order of the Caucasians sprung up to oppose the Chinese presence. Organized labor was their sworn enemy. In 1887, Denis Kearney of the California’s Workingmen’s Party gave this address:
“Our moneyed men have ruled us for the past thirty years. Under the flag of the slaveholder they hoped to destroy our liberty. Failing in that, they have rallied under the banner of the millionaire, the banker and the land monopolist, the railroad king and the false politician, to effect their purpose.
[…] They have seized upon the government by bribery and corruption. They have made speculation and public robbery a science. The have loaded the nation, the state, the county, and the city with debt. They have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought a crisis of unparalleled distress […]
[…] Land monopoly has seized upon all the best soil in this fair land. A few men own from ten thousand to two hundred thousand acres each. The poor Laborer can find no resting place, save on the barren mountain, or in the trackless desert. Money monopoly has reached its grandest proportions. Here, in San Francisco, the palace of the millionaire looms up above the hovel of the starving poor with as wide a contrast as anywhere on earth.”
Sounds like, well, today, so the playbook hasn’t changed, but whereas the American working man now rails against illegal immigrants from Latin America and cheap “slave labor” in Asia, poor white Americans back then felt threatened by the Chinese that were employed all over the West in every sector, mining, railroad, construction, agricultural and domestic help. Kearney:
“To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave. It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to meet the free American in the Labor market, and still further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white Labor.
These cheap slaves fill every place. Their dress is scant and cheap. Their food is rice from China. They hedge twenty in a room, ten by ten. They are wipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things. They have no wives, children or dependents.
They are imported by companies, controlled as serfs, worked like slaves, and at last go back to China with all their earnings. They are in every place, they seem to have no sex. Boys work, girls work; it is all alike to them.
The father of a family is met by them at every turn. Would he get work for himself? Ah! A stout Chinaman does it cheaper. Will he get a place for his oldest boy? He can not. His girl? Why, the Chinaman is in her place too! Every door is closed […] We are men, and propose to live like men in this free land, without the contamination of slave labor, or die like men, if need be, in asserting the rights of our race, our country, and our families.
California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?”
Fueled by such sentiments, a host of laws were passed against the Chinese that forbade them to become citizens, testify against whites, bring their wives over, marry white women, carry goods using a shoulder pole, live in a crowded room or even dig up the bones of their dead to send back to China. Chinatowns were burnt down and Chinese killed. In 1877, the Chico Enterprise, a newspaper still publishing, warned that eaters of produce picked by Chinese might contract leprosy or diphtheria since these fruit and vegetables had been fertilized by Chinese excrement.
The Grass Valley Union, also still extant, warned against hiring Chinese domestic helps, “After establishing himself, the China boy goes to making up his wages. He steals a little every day, and packs his plunder off to his bosses or his cousins. The sugar does not last as it used to, and the tea disappears rapidly. Pies and chops and pieces of steaks have the same course; yet that young heathen looks so innocent and is so saving when he is watched that he is never suspected.” How unfair that white girls had been bumped out by these devious aliens! “He underbids the girls, ruins their reputations as workers, robs his employers to make up his wages and is a cheat and a fraud from top to bottom.”
One of the Chinatowns that were burnt down by white arsonists was in Pacific Grove, just over an hour from San Jose. In 1978, I saw a spectacle there that was so strange, I’d keep doubting myself with each remembrance. As the entire town of 15,000 people, nearly all of them white, sat on a beach after dusk, half a dozen white girls dressed as Chinese fairies danced on a barge. All around them, Chinese lanterns bobbled on the darkened sea. Dance over, there was a fireworks show. Writing this Postcard, I researched and found out, finally, that it’s called the Feast of the Lanterns, and this festival was started at exactly the same time Pacific Grove chased out, very violently, all of its Chinese more than a century ago. Whites got rid of the Chinese so some of them could become somewhat Chinese once a year.
In the Bay Area, many whites are becoming Chinese in earnest. In San Francisco, there are no less than five Chinese immersion pre-kindergartens, with most of their pupils non-Chinese speakers at home. At Presidio Knolls, for example, only 25% of the students are Chinese-Americans. Paying a dizzying $23,150 annually, students start as young as 2.4 years old, and for those enrolled in kindergarten to second grade, it’s $23,500. At the ChineseAmericanInternationalSchool, tuition is $25,800 for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. There, half the school day is taught in Mandarin, the other half in English. Nineteen percent of its students are Caucasians, with 41% more multiethnic. Hispanics and Blacks make up 1% each. At the ChineseImmersionSchool at De Avila, the aim is to have its students become fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. To compete in the Pacific Century, it’s best to speak two Chinese languages, ni ting dong ma? If you can only tweet in withered English, ur fck.
California’s orientation towards the East has its basis in trades. If China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are counted as one unit, then greater China is California’s biggest customer, to be followed by Mexico, Canada, Japan and South Korea. Each year, the Chinese increase their purchase of California computers, electronics and agricultural products, but it’s not all good thanks to the crippling drought that may only get worse. You see, it takes a gallon of water to produce a single California almond, and 25 gallons to make a bottle of NapaValley wine. The Chinese are in love with both. CNN quotes Linsey Gallagher of the Wine Institute, “Even in remote parts of China, people know about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Baywatch, the Golden GateBridge, and it’s always a positive association.”
The Chinese aren’t just guzzling California wines, they’re buying California wineries. Yao Ming leads the way. From his company’s website, “In November 2011, Yao Ming, global humanitarian and recently retired NBA star, announced the establishment of his new NapaValley wine company: Yao Family Wines.” Forced to take brief showers, leave their cars unwashed or even swapping their beloved lawns for cacti, tumbleweeds, snakes and scorpions, many locals are grumbling about depleting the state’s precious water so Chinese can munch on roasted almonds and sip an aromatically oaky cabernet sauvignon from the golden state. In a recent article, the Anderson Valley Advertiser points out that 70,000 acres in SonomaCounty are allotted to wine grapes, with only 12,000 for all other food crops. Such a mono culture is a disaster, it warns, “If California’s drought continues, famine may follow.”
For some, California’s water crisis would be instantly solved if the state curbed or even banned such water intensive crops as almonds, alfalfa or tomatoes, etc. All over the Central Valley, millions of acres already lay fallow, however, with thousands of workers idle. Unless heavens’ floodgates were to swing wide open really soon, then, a mass exodus will certainly commence. Will Californians be the first American climate change refugees? Anticipating an influx into the Pacific Northwest, a University of Washington professor of atmospheric science, Cliff Mass, jokingly suggests that a fence be built around Oregon and Washington. This will also keep out other Americans fleeing intensified hurricanes, hellish heat waves and sea water flooding into their living room. Speaking of fences, commentator Fred Reed has also predicted that as Hispanics become ever more dominant in California politics, its southern border will be patrolled even more laxly, resulting in a de facto merger with Mexico.
On my recent California trip, I had neither the time nor money to stray beyond the Bay Area, and so I encountered mostly happy, confident people. A friend in Fremont even insisted that this whole drought business is but a scare tactic to jack up his water bills. “See those hills,” Giang pointed to Pleasanton Ridge. “Are they green?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone water them?”
“No.”
Giang laughed with deep satisfaction. The fact that it rained hard during two of my five-day stay further proved, in his mind, that this drought brouhaha is nothing but a Jerry Brown con game.
“I should have taken a photo of you all dripping wet from walking in the rain!” Giang added, still laughing. In his defense, I can only speculate that my friend’s not all there thanks to a recent, drawn out divorce, loss of home, suicide attempt and a three year spell of unemployment that, mercifully, has just ended.
It is all too easy to be upbeat in the Bay Area, however, especially if you’re in the Silicon Valley. Trekking through Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Fremont and San Jose, I saw mostly neat, beautiful homes with well-kept landscaping. Cheery Cupertino High School contrasted so sharply with the grate windowed, prison-like complexes common to Philly, I had to stop and stare. With an average SAT score of 1832, it’s not even the best public high school in town. By comparison, the average score for South Philadelphia High, the one closest to me, is 1045. Cupertino is 63.3% Asian, and the star of Cupertino High’s basketball team is 6’4” junior Ajaypal Singh. He’s averaging 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game.
At the East West Bookshop in Mountain View, there are notices for lectures with names like “I’m Not Dead, I’m Different” and “My View From Heaven: Life After Death.” Like California itself, some Californians are smirking at physical limits. We’re not dying of thirst, we’re different. With its posh restaurants and cafes, downtown Mountain View exudes wealth. At Scratch, which advertises “comfort food,” a “Midwestern meatloaf” goes for a mere $19. Outside Xanh, an upscale Vietnamese joint, I spotted a notice in Spanish offering a kitchen job.
Help wanted signs are all over the SouthBay, in fact, especially at fast food outlets. At Ike’s Love and Sandwiches in Santa Clara, the large “NOW HIRING” poster features a vaguely Asiatic Uncle Sam, with “WE WORK FOR TIPS, AND PHONE NUMBERS!” Plus “Medical/Dental Benefits.” The California minimum wage is $9 an hour, and since most of these jobs only start out at that or a tad more, they have a hard time attracting workers. With competition for diners so fierce, however, bosses can’t offer better. Immigrants tend to open restaurants, and the SouthBay is carpeted with reasonably priced Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian and Mexican eateries.
Coming from a city that’s 44% black, I also noticed the scarcity of blacks in the Silicon Valley. The largest ethnic group in Santa Clara County is Asian, at 34.1%, to be followed by white at 33.9% and Hispanic at 26.8%. Blacks make up only 2.9%. As in every other place across this entire country, Hispanics claim the more physical jobs that once went to blacks, just as Chinese used to bump out the lowlier whites. As for the tech jobs, they are dominated by Asians and whites, which makes perfect sense, since these are also the best engineering students anywhere. At super competitive ThomasJeffersonHigh School for Science and Technology in suburban Washington, 70% of the class of 2019 are Asians. In a mixed-race society, the vocational aptitudes of each ethnic group become sharply contested, then delineated against each other. Of course, individuals should always be judged singly, and these larger patterns are not etched in stone. In San Francisco, Tibetans and Central Americans are said to make the best nannies.
Americans remember well that nightmarish time when just about every American company outsourced its customer service to India, which gave rise to the term “cyber coolies.” If one had to ask one’s bank or cable company a question, one would be routed to a “Stephanie” or a “Beth” who was actually a Nisha or a Jyotsna in Bangalore. Though Jyotsna was trying her best to sound Midwestern, the conversation would quickly turn awkward, if not aggravating for both sides. “Excuse me, but can you repeat that?” Less conspicuous was the hiring of Indian engineers, and that too ran into problems. The challenge of having Americans and Indians working together in different time zones proved too much of a hassle, thus many outfits tried to send American managers overseas, but since few were willing to go, it was decided that Indians IT workers would be brought here.
Ultimately, the reason why so many Indians are thriving in the Silicon Valley is because of their unmatched computer prowess. The CEO of Adobe and co-founder of Hotmail are Indians, as is the Google executive overseeing Android, Chrome and Google Apps. Outside California, the top man at Microsoft is also Indian. One morning I went to Fischer Park in Fremont and saw that nearly all of the tennis, basketball and volleyball players were Indians. At the jungle gym, all the kids were Indians. Mostly draped in saris, their grandmoms and moms stood nearby. A couple blocks away, there’s Bombay Pizza House, “Home Of The Curry Pizza.”
With no college degree, no science, no math, no coordination, no rah-rah team spirit, no charm, no looks, no nothing, I wouldn’t last half a second in the Silicon Valley, and hiking all over, I also spotted quite a few souls who had been spat out by this sunny, mild yet merciless environment. The Jungle, a massive tent city in San Jose, has been cleared, but each night, there are around 5,000 San Joseans sleeping outside, though they are scattered at roughly 200 spots and less visible. California itself has more homeless people than any other state, and 4.3% of its school children, incredibly, don’t have stable or adequate housing. These kids must sleep in a shelter, a single room with their parents and siblings, a garage, a car or a tent. Fully ten percent of school kids in Sunnyvale, in the heart of Silicon Valley, fall into this miserable category. Needless to say, they aren’t likely to be immersed in any subject, much less Chinese.
Meanwhile, luxury condos and homes keep springing up, for besides the infusion of Chinese money, our inflated stock market is benefiting, especially, the many high profile, sexy companies that dot the Bay Area such as Apple, Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, FaceBook, PayPal, Yelp, Netflix and Twitter, etc. Outside of Manhattan, no other region has gained so much from the banksters’ quantitative easing. When this stock mania crashes and burns, the Bay Area will also be charred.
Meanwhile, everything seems to be improving, and Twitter has even moved its headquarters into the Tenderloin, San Francisco’s most wretched neighborhood. Located right downtown, in the shadow of City Hall, it’s inevitable that this pocket of transient hotels, urine reeking sidewalks, thousands of homeless, bodegas and cheap Vietnamese eateries would be gentrified. One night, I found myself in The Basement, a hip, happening new bar at Taylor and Turk. It’s co-owned by Lieu, someone from my same high school in East San Jose, although we didn’t know each other then. Though roughly my age, 51, Lieu looks so young, he’s probably carded at every bar not his own, and with my white hair, I’m like his granddad.
The Basement used to be occupied by Club 222, with the legendary Black Hawk right next door. (It’s now a parking lot.) Musicians from Miles to Dizzy used Club 222 as a green room before they exited it through the back to enter the jazz club. At The Basement, all the beers are microbrews, with nothing under $5. Lieu doesn’t want the Tenderloin’s riffraff to wander in to order a can of Bud or Miller. “This neighborhood is moving up,” he said.
“Ah, man, won’t you miss people defecating on the sidewalks?”
“Get that shit out of here!”
This night, there was a comedy open mike. I asked Lieu if the poetry slam crowd had approached him.
“Yes, but I turned them down.”
“Why?”
“Poets don’t drink enough.”
That’s a sure sign of a collapsing society! The two bartenders were young, pretty women, with one white, one Chinese. The Basement also has a hunky Swedish guy to attract the ladies. Leaving The Basement, I reentered the Tenderloin proper and promptly saw a young yet haggard white woman, in tight jeans and no shoes, just socks, flashing for a black man leaning against a frail, half dead tree. Seeing me, she smiled most crookedly, ran up, turned around, pulled down and leaned over to display her cheeks. Trying to panhandle from me, an older black woman screamed at this exhibitionist to shoo her away. With yuppies and hipsters invading the Tenderloin, it’s hoped that scenes like this will gradually disappear from San Francisco, but if the economy collapses, and it will soon enough, you will see this spread all over.
Ah, California, you will turn bone dry and shirk off your weeping children by the millions! Announcing the state’s first ever mandatory restrictions on water usage, Governor Brown reminded us, “For over ten thousand years, some people say twenty thousand years, people lived in California, but the number of those people were never more than 300,000 or 400,000, as far as we know, and they lived much simpler, and they were able to move when a drought occurred, or fires occurred. They could cope. Now, we’re embarked upon an experiment that no one has ever tried, ever, in the history of mankind, and that’s 38 million people, with 32 million vehicles, living at a level of comfort that we all strive to attain.” Weaned from abundant resources, we will have to strive to attain less.
In a country where political speeches, elections and even terrorist attacks are but elaborate theatrical productions, California is the longest show running, designed to convince everyone everywhere, and even Californians themselves, that here is the epitome of the American Dream, and that it’s surfing along just fine. Just outside the spotlight, however, are all sorts of frightful omens. The next act will be a scream.
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. He’s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, Postcards from the End of America.
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Ah California, the land where what ain’t fruits is kabuki theater of the obscenely absurd.
1887.
& the doomsayers never get tired of repeating the same old crap.
Most of this is spot-on, but I wouldn’t weight the homeless population very strongly as a factor in assessing the overall condition of California. Homeless people respond to incentives too. The homeful can always keep out the elements, but if you’re going to be homeless, it’s best to be homeless in a state with nice weather year-round.
…promptly saw a young yet haggard white woman, in tight jeans and no shoes, just socks, flashing for a black man leaning against a frail, half dead tree. Seeing me, she smiled most crookedly, ran up, turned around, pulled down and leaned over to display her cheeks.
That is the US of A. Right there, in all its glory. A complete analogy. Soon America/haggard white woman will be metaphorically gagged and blindfolded, lying naked on the sidewalk, while passersby sodomize it with whatever strikes their fancy.
“The Chinese and Indians are coming over. They have money and skills. They will keep this economy going… these Chinese and Indians will create jobs.”
We have cultivated a fetish for immigrants since 1965, and there has pretty much been an inverse correlation between that and economic performance. Now the Chinese and Indians are on their way to re-create the land of their fathers while the rest of us get to go quietly into the dark night.
Nice read, but overly pessimistic in my view. California has two bumper industries: farming and hi-tech. Decrease in water supplies affect the former, and a sharp decrease could even sound its death-knell. But hi-tech ought to continue to thrive. Unless I am missing something.
Your observations on the evolutions of bringing the IT professionals in California time zone instead of leaving them in Chinese or Indian time zone perfectly capture the essence of the problem. High value immigrants or low value immigrants are welcomed by the society that is not migrating anymore for resources but is trying to fork itself into classes,castes and hieracrhies . Internal segregation and separation forces the top tier to consolidate a powerful aristocratic position for itself . This is what White America has done to itself . But it is nothing new or unique . Poor cousins don’t make good servant or nanny or chauffeur or landscaper . This explains the arrival of Mexican and Tibetian or East European. It’s not the IQ but the collectove identity and the history that elevate some of them ( East European,Chinese,Indian) to move up the ladder while other like Tibetian or Black or Mexican gravitate downwards . It also pays to bring doctors,engineers,and technical staff from abroad for it saves money and eliminates the poor white family from challenging the new white elite. How does it work? Engineering education is not affordable in US . Computer skill isn’t available ,science and biology or math are not encouraged,neither funded . So it remains dependent on private funding . Some state universities do have the good program but the teacher student ratio eliminates large number of otherwise capable and intelligent children . Here again its the poor white who suffer and slide down. Practically ,its the money that drives the growth of the opportunities and access to the opportunities . If education were available ,America won’t need engineers and doctors and math teachers . But to make that possible ,America has to give up some of the core false philosophies of post WW1 .
How this internal break up within white will play out? One is the result of gradual removal of Chritian celebration from the Christian society . Christian and Muslim are vulnerable to the spread of the science while Jews ,Hindus,and Buddhist aren’t . The latter don’t use religion as binding force .they use the ritual ,events and celebration much more to reestablish identity and cohesion and keep the group loyalty intact . An atheist Hindu or atheist Jewish arent oxymoron or internally inconsistent. This is why the old ideas bordering on racism and ethnocentricism are still so powerful behavioral modifier among Indian atheists or superficially religious diaspora . They take care of their extended network. This means that a really egalitarian ,just,and forward looking society embracing melting pot as an aim isn’t possible. So America will see more polarization from rich outsider immigrant from China and India while it will experience splintering from within the White and from Black but for a different reason.
1887.
& the doomsayers never get tired of repeating the same old crap.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”
One difference is that we heeded Denis Kearney’s advice back in 1887, and we had a pretty good run.
Now we are embracing the opposite, and the architects of the latest plan have to send bossel onto internet message boards to help sell their plan.
The origin of anti-Chinese violence in California followed a careless Tong who shot white bystanders while carrying out an in-group hit.
I’m inclined to see labor xenophobia as thoroughly vindicated by history. There is a hilarious travelogue in a Harper’s in which the author discovers Mexicans who hate Chinese people for taking their American jobs.
The Chinese takeover of Vancouver real estate was characterized by massive fraud and other problems; it would be interesting to establish that California is different.
Well written and spot on. I lived there for a few years and still visit for work, so none of it is too surprising. But people from other parts of the country are largely unaware of what Silicon Valley has become, in terms of ethnicity and housing prices. This should be mandatory reading for college seniors thinking about where to work – once you get past the allure of the weather, you realize that most of your time is actually going to be spent in office parks and on freeways. Also, the gender ratio is almost as skewed as the Chinese coolies had it. If you want a woman, you better bring her with you, and none there are going to be impressed with anything short of a social media stock market winner. Heck, even Zuck is married to a dumpy Chinese.
You wrote:
” It’s not the IQ … ”
Can you elaborate to show the reasons for this opinion ?
USA IS THE 3RD MOST POPULOUS NATION ON EARTH, AFTER CHINA AND INDIA.
THE MOST INSANE THING ABOUT AMERICA IS–IMMIGRATION!
Thanks for the great article, Sir.
First of all, the US is the third most populous nation on earth, after China and India. Still, the US govt. not only issues more visas (6+ Million per year) than any other country (probably more than the rest of the world combined), but also lets in more people illegally than the rest of the world combined. Immigration fraud involving bogus job offers, phoney marriages and phoney documents is rampant.
Water shortages are spreading. America is becoming a third-world country, where people will have to stand in line for hours for water. Starvation and hunger, diseases and depravation will run rampant. Immigrants are bringing plague, AIDS, West Nile, SARS/Swine Flu, dengue fever and TB which kill thousands every year. Mexican and other 3rd world gangs are flooding our neighborhoods with drugs, attacking poor innocent women and killing people with impunity. Alien gang violence, crime and corruption are spreading like wild fire. Terrorist attacks such as 9/11, Christmas and Boston bombers, etc. were carried out by aliens.
Aliens are bankrupting social security and Medicare/Medicaid, while millions of Americans remain uninsured, and unable to afford basic healthcare. Hospitals are closing down. Foreigners are getting jobs under affirmative action and then stealing secrets for their foreign govts.
So the most rational thing the 3rd most populous country should do is to ban all immigration. China and India, both 3rd world countries crushing under the burden of large populations, have almost zero immigration, because they care about their own people. Never ever has a nation had so many people and remained rich–and neither will the USA, which is on its way to becoming a 3rd world country. The most criminal thing our govt. is doing is allowing immigration.
Please contact your Senator/Congressman and call radio-stations and stand up against the 3rd world war on USA/EU/AUS/Canada–immigration. Join numbersusa.com. Amend constitution to allow national referenda to let people ban immigration directly. See: ncid.us
You also wrote:
“Engineering education is not affordable in US.”
Education of lawyers or of MBAs, or of medical doctors: is it more affordable in US,
as compared to education of engineers ?
Respectfully, F.r.
This reads like a beggar’s travelogue of California. Mexicans are a lot wealthier than they used to be. Some Chinese are rolling in the dough. Nothing to see here. People change. Technology changes. The electron takes care of us. Listen to the electron, study it, eventually see it.
Desalination was invented in California 60 years ago. Ya think California’s brainiacs haven’t been on top of the drought issue?
.
The high tech will continue to thrive – but who will reap the benefits? Profits in high tech are extremely concentrated. A tiny software company that comes up with some silly “app” that the circus-crazed plebs latch on to can sell for hundreds of millions, money basically spawned out of thin air, and pocketed by a handful of people (the authors of the app and the “investors”).
What do those outside benefit? Nothing.
Also, I’m not quite sure what white Americans are trying to do with Silicon Valley. I’m not sure if they are thinking ahead. Because they won’t be able to just hang on to management and marketing positions and let the Asians do the work forever. The Asians will eventually take control of companies – as the authors mentions, the guys in charge of Adobe and Microsoft are Indian.
What happens then?
Drop out rate is way high in hard science courses . Not in the business or finances or economics . Drop out rate is much lesson medicine and law . Students can take loan and and dream and finish business courses hoping for job . Science. Engineering is not run by the loan so much as as by the degree to which the students could cope . A science or engineer is also more likely to payoff the loan. Medicine and law cost but by that time they enter the discipline ,very few are constrained by lack of resources .
About IQ , I would like to tell you I don’t believe that IQ differ that much country to country.
If a person with IQ 100 can understand the complex science devised and calculated or invented by some one
with IQ 140 ,then I believe some one with IQ 90 can also understand a lot of stuff that’s out here with help and patience .
Thanks for your reply.
Interesting take, but pessimistic. The Hindu, Jew, and Buddhist haven’t built civilizations that compare to what the northern European Christian has created.
The parasitoids are in ascendance, and we can’t have nice things.
The Asians will eventually take control of companies – as the authors mentions, the guys in charge of Adobe and Microsoft are Indian.
What happens then?
They will continue to hire their co-ethnics and expand their demographic footprint, as any reasonably self interested group should do.
It is high, because the way such subjects as math and physics (more like the storytelling ABOUT physics) are taught in schools.
Dropout rates have historically been high in hard STEM courses, but nowadays two new problems have arisen to plague native (and reasonably close to native) students in STEM programs.
First, the public school system in North America seems to be in decline. Lunatics and incompetents have taken over the academic education racket, and they are pushing various crazy ideas that are damaging the quality of education delivered at the schools. I attended a conference in Canada a year ago, where the representative from the top mathematics department in the province mentioned that his department has had to revise its honors courses, because the quality of the incoming students has been falling for quite a few years, and the newer batches are unable to cope with the material their predecessors were taught.
The province I mention is by no means unique – I am certain that professors at most American states and other Canadian provinces can make similar reports.
On a different level, STEM is becoming less and less sexy. As Steve Sailer pointed out a few weeks ago, back in the day IBM was respectable and sexy. It was not bad to be an engineer.
Nowadays, the STEM programs at the universities are filled to the brim with Asians who are ultra-competitive and pushy when it comes to grades, do not shy away from cheating, are often painfully nerdy, and frequently barely speak English and avoid association with non-Asians.
STEM is no longer sexy. It’s not merely nerdy, it’s worse that. It is now a hard slog through material high school did not prepare you for, in an environment full of people who will go to great lengths to get ahead, and who do not have all that much in common with you.
For example, if you search around, you’ll find a weird article from a major Canadian newspaper, quoting some white Canadian kids who do not want to go to Canada’s flagship university because it is “too Asian.”
Yikes. California hate’n cockroaches comin’ out of the woodwork.
Zuck is from the East Coast and met his wife in college in Boston before he became wealthy.
Cheating, it’s a major problem among Asian students, they take to it like a duck takes to water. I knew several CS teachers who pulled their hair out dealing with Chinese and Vietnamese students who continually cheated in their CS courses. It’s a cultural thing – get ahead at any cost including by lying, cheating and stealing.
Competitive? Yes to the point of being rude and obnoxious. But worse they don’t take pride in what they do, so quality goes out the door.
It’s not just here either. In China, academic fraud of all sorts is rampant, at Beijing U. you can buy any sort of degree you want including a MD, complete with transcripts if you have say $4k.
They have doctors in China who can’t read blood panels or X-Rays because they bought their degree and opened up a clinic in some backwater area where they can’t be caught.
In general I don’t think STEM is the way to go anymore for young smart white men. With Silicon Valley and high tech companies in general importing H1-b workers by the millions to replace American workers – the handwriting is on the walls – we’re slated for extinction by the corporate and political elites.
And as the high tech companies become more populated with Asians, they will make life very hard on the gwai lo’s(whites) in the company.
And at some point most of these companies will cease to innovate and die as they get filled up with engineers who can only do copy cat and ripping off others IP.
Hi-tech industry is not just some code-writing and, however important, semi-conductors production–it is, and even primarily so, energy generating, machine-building, yes, military-industrial, aerospace, advanced materials and other fields. Without these fields all those “millions” of highly overrated Indian programmers will have no job. Producing some sh.ty iPhone crap for wasting people’s time updating their bowel movements on FB and producing modern CNC 6 axes machine are two different universes, and so is, as an example–producing and deploying constellation of satellites for navigation. Yeah, producing advanced jet engines is also a REAL thing–I can count nations doing this on the fingers of my one hand. That is the real STEM, not some IT BS.
Thoroughly enjoyed this. That is all.
“Even Oakland is rapidly gentrifying, and becoming very expensive, with the average rent for a one bedroom going for an astounding $3,078.”
Uh not really. Knock about 1k off that (http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eby/apa?). Still, point taken.
I’ve been to The Basement during one of their comedy nights. It was so sparsely attended I regretted making my way down there, because I was totally noticed making my way back out.
California does not have that many good places to live in. It is a harsh environment. The best areas have already been taken, massively developed, and now builders are working in marginal real estate locations that are steep, unstable, and prone to fire danger and flooding. There are going to be some catastrophic failures along the way, though there will always be people who want to live in such a great climate amid spectacular beauty.
“& the doomsayers never get tired of repeating the same old crap.”
Go back to Ho Chi Minh City and tell us how much better it is there.
No more of this loser. He’s the Ta nesi Coates of Asia.
I don’t agree with this. My siblings & I are Indian-Americans (born and raised here) and we’ve interviewed in tech, finance, and strategy consulting (they work in large-cap tech in SV and Seattle and I work in the northeast in consulting).
In our collective interviewing experiences with top firms in these three sectors, Indians/Indian-Americans (i.e. our supposed co-ethnics) were the hardest/most confrontational/annoying interviewers. The easiest and most friendly were white gentiles.
Atleast in my experience it doesn’t seem like I received a handout from indian-americans. In fact, even with networking, white gentiles have been more helpful in professional experience.
No, they have already realized that the soulless cheaters do their companies no good.
Smart native born, well 3rd gen + off the boat, STEM grads will always have a job, they are more balanced and ethical. The drones can code in the back room.
Global change causing the draught? Doubt it! Southern and mid-California were always dray and barren until huge dams and sluiceways delivered water around the state. The sluiceways enabled water run-off straight to the sea with little effort to conserve it for future predictable water shortages.
California is a planners nightmare! Construction on the San Adreus Fault for one! Misuse of huge water resources another! Massive home construction on slopes ill suited for even trees. The joke is on Californians.. You live in a desert or what once was a desert and only the cactus and snakes survive. Plenty of California snakes for everybody..
This article was so long winded it was hard to tell what the point was. Yes foreigners drive up the price of real estate, and natives are often driven out.
But this dynamic happens everywhere. Just look at the expats going into Thailand and Mexico and driving up the prices for locals there. Should Americans be banned from living overseas?
Also whites may lament Asians coming in and pricing out whites, but how do you think blacks feel when they are gentrified out of their own neighborhoods?
Snort. We don’t have to speculate that, someday, America might become a declining sewer. It is that now. I’m sure you, Bryan Caplan, and the rest of the Asperger’s Patrol are very happy with your Amazon Prime and last mile fiber subscriptions, though. Just think how great it’ll be when it’s all delivered by drone!!!1!
It is a hard fact that among the best Ph.D. students and researchers at the US universities are the hard-working and well-educated Asians and Indians.
American teens prefer to head for financial sector, for obvious reasons. In the US (that has become the Empire of Federal Reserve) one can lie and cheat on a grand scale and still make billions of dollars. The screwing of the US legislature was not done by the nerdy engineers of a brownish/yellowish tint, but by the pompous and verbose predators of Morgan/Greenspan/Summers stock.
The US has been producing an undereducated population AT ALL LEVELS. As a rule, a quality of classes in physics and math and chemistry at the US high schools is laughable; moreover, these classes are not even obligatory. The US kids en masse do not know the History of the US and they are totally ignorant about the world history. What else one could expect from an educational system in a country that cherishes financiers above everybody else?
To annamarina, SmoothieX12:
I somewhat disagree with your statement about “physics and math and chemistry at the US high schools is laughable”.
AP courses in Calculus-AB and -BC were reasonably good for our kids; same with AP Chemistry and Biology. Sure, Physics in former USSR was better.
What is really great in the USA, my family’s new country, is the _ __freedom__ _ to choose (other side of your _valid_ statement “these classes are not even obligatory”.) Our two kids were allowed, even still in high school, not only to take AP ahead of time (for our son), but also courses in nearby University as “dual enrollment” students (for both.) That is something we even could not imagine in former USSR. We even did not have to pay for these courses. This is to be contrasted to subsequent college tuition. The main remaining problems were schedule and transportation: kids did not have driver licenses at the time of HS, we did not have spare car, and HS schedule was a must.
Robert Weissberg’s “Bad Students, not Bad Schools”,
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Students-Not-Schools/dp/141281345X/ ,
covers this topic well.
AP courses are mostly for kids from a very narrow strata of ambitious, mostly well-off, students, among which Asian kids (India, China etc.) occupy a very large share. Overwhelming majority of the kids from both public and home school environments are subjected to the process of preparation for SAT (ACT) which are based not on the knowledge of the subject but mostly on the ability to “critically” think. That is why such courses as AP are introduced and that is why those courses are mostly for a very few. Then comes the comparison issue and that is where US public education in precise sciences gets blown out of the water. Studying partial derivatives or linear integrals in the 11th grade in some very few selective schools DOES NOT make education competitive, when the rest, which is an overwhelming majority of nation’s students, is performing on the level of math (SAT and ACT) which is best described as the 9th grade of European or Asian public schools. And then comes that very and most important thing–a SYSTEMIC education and that is what US public school system simply does not provide.
I mostly agree with you. Here is some very interesting observation even from such a neo-liberal monetarist outlet as WSJ. Speaks volumes.
http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/daily-news-article/help-wanted-on-factory-floor/
I congratulate you on giving your kids an excellent education. My observations show that the former Soviets are religious about their children’ education, hence the AP classes and the expensive private music lessons.
My point was, the teens in the US are not motivated to become engineers and the majority of them are not equipped to compete with the better educated (in sciences) Asian and Indian students.
Perhaps, the solution is the German system of hierarchical education, the perceived racial bias be damned.
I would agree. In modern America, I think science/engineering is a very questionable career choice. At least with law and medicine, you have a government license that protects you from foreign competition. As an engineer, however, your job can be off-shored at any time. Failing that, the company can just H1-B in some guys from Asia to do your job. It’s a real racket.
Oh, come on! Like you’ve never complained about America yourself. Isn’t that our favorite pass-time here at Unz.com? Complaining about the US of A? That’s why I come here!
Is California still cool?
I mean I think about the place, but have no real reaction to it at this point.
The California of the Mammas and Pappas, Beach Boys, the Summer of Love, heck Perry Mason, sure.
But modern California? It doesn’t have any of my headspace.
And to be honest I have never really thought it was terribly beautiful except along the coast. Too many of the wrong kinds of trees. You need Oaks, Hickories to make the place feel right.
Come to think of it, whole west coast has too many conifers.
I am US bred/born from CA, now in WA. I have 2 kids with very different outcomes. One is on her way to a successful career, the other is one of the many who are just not cut out to be an engineer of any kind, and her life will be a bit trickier, in spite our our best efforts. This is surely the case in the former USSR as well as Asian countries. There is a select group that comes to the US, generally from privileged backgrounds, as others mentioned.
In addition, my wife and I both work with Asian immigrants that are well described in the article and the comments here. There is clearly in-group solidarity among them, and sometimes contempt that tech workers often have for Americans in general, if not outright revulsion at what they see of the American culture. And IMO their fears for their kids’ education is justified. After a generation or 2, they will see the same problems we see in the kids, from drugs, sexual confusion, crime.
We have also seen that the highly vaunted schools in our area are not delivering an education product quite as good as what we got back in the day. While our first kid was very bookish and likes being challenged, the other was not. Our first had teachers that inspired her, the second, none.
It’s an open question as to how a society like the US will cope when the majority of the native born kids just are not cut out to be software developers or mechanical engineers, especially when the bottom line message is that they just aren’t needed and will be undercut anyway (though the WSJ article mentioned above points out an alternative path for them).
In modern America, I think science/engineering is a very questionable career choice.
I think this is nonsense, and you are doing a disservice to smart young American kids by promoting such a view. There is a lot of alarmism based on a handful of cases of people being laid off and their jobs contracted off to firms with a preponderance of H1B workers. Find out the actual numbers on how many native born STEM graduates are unable to find a job and remain unemployed. The number would statistically be identical to what you would get if zero foreign workers were allowed. Now, one area in which there does seem to be discrimination is in laying off some older workers (those older than 50) in favor of younger ones. Since such older workers are almost all Americans, and many of the younger workers are H1B, rumors spread that natives are being replaced. Now, if there were no H1Bs, these older workers would still lose their jobs to younger native graduates, such seems to be the nature of the IT industry today. There is much to criticize about the operations of software companies, but your laments are completely unwarranted.
Two points:
1)There is no economic case for race-replacing The Historic Native Born White American Majority…tech field included.
2)Asians should not be allowed into America for they are a highly racialized nonwhite Democratic Voting Block enthusiastically voting Whitey into a racial minority on Nov 3 2016.
3) The very nasty Giant Snakehead Fish now destabilizing the State of Virginia’s Riparian Ecosystems….quite capable of ripping your Family Jewels off if you fall out of your kayak on the bucolic Potomac River.
Your comment about asians not taking pride in their work applies to the H1-B Indians in the tech field x1000. I work with hundreds of them, mostly nice folks, easy to get along with, but they see the tech field as a means to an end – a “respectable” position in management. I have yet to meet a single Indian contractor with any enthusiasm for technology. Their work clearly reflects that lack of engagement.
Although I must say, many of the Asians I have worked with do very, very good work. Some of them on par with the best American programmers. I have never experienced dishonesty from my asian colleagues either, but 5 or 6 examples does not prove a point one way or the other.
In my opinion, it’s not a genetic or racial thing, it’s almost totally cultural. White, nerdy guys like me build the best software because we eat, sleep and breathe the technology. Make fun of us if you must, but if you want your software to work properly, we’re your boys.
the claim that a one bedroom apt. rents in Oakland for over 3000 dollars is ridiculous. maybe in a couple high rent joints.
close to the heart of Silicon Valley, a one-bedroom will rent for maybe around $2500, in a good upscale neighborhood like palo alto or menlo park. average.
the Peninsula is the garden spot of the universe. And the Chinese are getting hatred from whites i talk to who are much less concerned about mexers. The mexers are friendly and the chinks are rude, per everybody I talk to. And they are heavily into what used to be quaintly called conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen…
Vulgar and money grubbing, lie cheat steal….that is the chink norm, not by my experience as I do not work, but by nice middle-upper whites I talk to. They are not reluctant to complain about the chinks. I only see their rudeness on the streets. When You are a pedestrian…watch out for the chink SUV, espec the female variety.
Cuddihy wrote the book on the Jews, The Ordeal of Civility, about the rude East European jews let loose on the streets of the East Coat. Apparently Jews have calmed down a bit. I dunno, but the chinks never will….look where they come from…Oriental Despotism, whether confucius, communist, or capitalist/communist. all tyranny and money. Name one “humane” cultural artifact of Chinese denomination. I even see jews mumbling about ’em.
Joe Webb
Greedy Cheating Class White Liberals open and deliberate policy of low wage labor markets drives the very rapid race-replacement of The Historic Native Born White American Majority and the wiping out of America’s endemic and endangered species in the San Gabriel Valley and San Gabriel Mountains. Mexicans,Iranians and Asians packed in tight up to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Colonization will continue into the San Gabriel Mountains….surely this is much more important to talk about -discuss than the new SAT Test-and another round of PISA test scores….
The Battle for Blair Mountain never should have ended……..
“Greedy Cheating Class White Liberals”
Wow!
How come then that the red states of Arizona and Texas (anti-women, anti-union, anti-social programs) have become inundated with the cheap illegal laborers? Plutocrats of all stripes love cheap labor and eagerly replace American law-wagers with the even cheaper and docile migrants.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/02/map_illegal_immigrant_population_by_state.html
I wouldn’t worry too much about that:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/
Pretty much it.
Wanting our own country to be free of swarms of predatory foreigners is apparently bordering on calling for the burning of witches.
But “somehow” our laws only seem to destroy whites who dare to do the same thing. Heinous crime for us; commendable common sense for them.
Has there ever been a people as weak and stupid as we are?
Anti-woman? Oh, puhleez. Give it a rest.
Texas cares very much about fracking (never mind that the pollution generates miscarriages and birth defects) and other “freedoms.” But when women’s freedom is concerned, the Big Brother steps in and wants to handle the intimate females’ issues.
“…the budget for the Family Planning Network was drastically cut. Soon after … the Women’s Health Program in Texas came to an end. … those programs provided the vast majority of access for women in east Texas to get basic health.. Well-Woman exams, birth control and cervical cancer screenings.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/anti-choice-group-moving-planned-parenthood-clinic-closed-texas-abortion-restrictions
Now one of the Planned Parenthood’ office serves for anti-choicers’ praying to God about fetuses. Sweet. Instead of demanding free prenatal care and universal health care for children, the Texan Christians have been eliminating affordable women clinics in Texas. Fracking and other kinds of poisonous pollution are of no concern for them, mind because it is easier to humiliate poor women than to confront the hypocritical well-connected corporatists.
The Texan legislating men (the loud mouth of X-tian persuasion) love their lavish health plans paid by taxpayers, and none of the legislating men wants to solve their health problems by praying to God. In the matters of health, the wealthy Christians do not trust God and prefer instead an advice of an expert atheist at a medical doctor’s office.