Vivek is absolutely correct.
As an Indian immigrant who was (and still am) interested in STEM, focus of schoolwork and classwork was always prioritized by my parents, even when I didnāt value it. Itās how I made it to UC Berkeley to study Bioengineering.
And while thereās a long story from that time in my life to where I am today in my career as a photographer and videographer, the discipline my parents exemplified and instilled in me has continued to apply to every part of my life.
Itās why I actually read the actual studies during COVID (like the Lancet one that lied about hydroxychloroquine) rather than read the curated lies. Itās why I read the controversial bills only to find the rage online is just oppositionās deflections and projections. And thatās just a drop in the bucket.
While American millennials are too busy trying to figure out their āwork-life balanceā, immigrants work hard to build a life for themselves and their families (or future families). We didnāt have the luxury to stay home under draconian lockdowns because we donāt have generational wealth to fall back on. Many of us didnāt even have enough to cover rent or mortgage (not exclusive to immigrants btw).
We didnāt have the _privilege_ of staying home to āsave just one lifeā, then go participate in race-baiting riots just to virtue signal. We just wanted to work (FYI events made up 80% of my business before Gavin Newsom destroyed that overnight, while he was out partying it up with lobbyists).
The story of America is the story of immigrants, the story of outlaws, and the story of perseverers who sought out a better life for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. The American Dreamāoften crapped on by Democrats and progressivesāis alive and well in the hearts and minds of immigrants from across the globe. Itās alive and well in people like me, which is why so many of us support Trump and DOGE.
Regulatory capture by corrupt corporations, debanking of and lawfare against political opponents, stifling American exceptionalism and innovation, warfare profiteering, NGO control of 140-some nations⦠all these and more are the rotten fruits of an unelected shadow bureaucracy that also helped install a man with clear signs of dementia in 2020, then perpetrated elder abuse against him and basically hid him for three years from the public eye so they could run the world in his stead.
Long story short, itās time to restore our country by ending the bureaucratic nightmare that FDR unconstitutionally created (as well as its subsequent perversion into the current megalomaniacal empire), and make America great again šš¾
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ānativeā Americans isnāt 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 weāre 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 doesnāt 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 āBoy Meets World,ā or Zach & Slater over Screech in āSaved by the Bell,ā or āStefanā over Steve Urkel in āFamily Matters,ā 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 mediocrityā¦and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of āFriends.ā More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less āchillin.ā More extracurriculars, less āhanging out at the mall.ā
Most normal American parents look skeptically at āthose kinds of parents.ā More normal American kids view such āthose kinds of kidsā 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.
āNormalcyā doesnāt cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, weāll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. Weāve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trumpās 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.
Thatās the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. Iām confident we can do it. šŗšø šŗšø