HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: susanc@rice.edu (susan chacko)
Subject: Re: Queries on Career Choices
Organization: Rice University
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:48:05 GMT

baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur) writes:

>This is completely counter-intuitive to me. I would suggest it is 
>getting harder to break into professional careers for South Asians 
>today precisely because there are already so many South Asians in 
>such careers, inviting hostility and resistance once their representation 
>and visibility in a certain occupational category rises above some threshold. 
>After all, what is all the noise about invisible quotas
>and glass ceilings all about ? But then one might ask, how did one 

I certainly won't argue about resistance to 'foreigners' in many
professions, but from anecdotal evidence I'm aware of a lot of
Indians in engineering-related fields who go out of their way to
hire other Indians or Indian-Americans. No such parochial network
exists in the arts. In fact, it would a real novelty to see a movie
with an Asian-American star that wasn't all about ethnicity or
immigration. In contrast, there are quite a few well-known Indians/
Indian-Americans in the professional fields. 
There's *more* social resistance to non-WASPS now than there was
in the 60s? Seems to me there's more awareness of the subtler
handicaps that can slow an Asian-American's career, and in some
places more resistance to visible groups of minorities, but people
tend to be suspicious of unfamiliar ethnicities, and I'm sure it
wasn't easy being the only Indian professional in a small town
30 years ago. At least these days most people have come into contact
with a large number of ethnic backgrounds, which *has* to contribute
to tolerance.
You may be right about the professional environment becoming less
welcoming to non-WASPs as the economy goes downwards, but I find it 
hard to believe that the mainstream art world is any better. Racial
prejudice probably increases as the economy goes down, but the
arts have never been moneymaking industries except for a few
spectacular successes. I expect it's a tossup between the supposedly
more liberal atmosphere in the arts and a Darwinian fight for a 
slice of the tiny pie.
Practically speaking, I suppose it's impossible to tell the 
difference between an increased incidence of racial prejudice
and increased awareness/reporting of the same.

Susan.
--
Mail is forwarded to susanc@helix.nih.gov
Bldg 2, Rm 316, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: rairan@ecf.toronto.edu (RAI Ranjan)
Subject: Re: Rhodes & Marshall scholarships
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 22:15:30 GMT

In article <1ihmapINNlf5@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur) writes:
>
>Well, let's be careful here, you mean *South Asians in the US* - got 
>2 of the 16 Rhodes Scholarships awarded to US students - each country 
>has a 'quota' - The quota for India is 2. So at least 2 South Asians 
>will get it every year, but they will have gone to school in South Asia. 
>There are (I think) 50 Marshall scholarships, awarded only to Americans 
>and Europeans.
>
>--Satyen

The British would not have had an empire if they did not have India.  And
now, a country of 850+ million has a quota of only 2 of these prestigious
scholarships and The United States, the colony that successfully rebeled, now
has 16.

Funny, eh?
-- 
Ranjan Rai                             <rairan@ecf.toronto.edu> 
Engineering Science 9T3                <rr@odin.control.toronto.edu> 
University of Toronto
From: mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Rhodes & Marshall scholarships
Date: 7 Jan 1993 09:24:48 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu

An interesting note: Rhodes and Marshall scholarships seem to strongly
favor students of humanities and social sciences rather than math/science/
engineering.  S.Asian students garnered 2 Rhodes and 3 Marshall scholarships
last year; only one Marshall recipient was an electrical engineer at MIT,
while the rest studied fields like politics, philosophy, health care,
medieval history, etc.

If the prestige of these scholarships is transferred to the students who
receive them and the fields they study, maybe non-technical fields will
gain respectability in the South Asian community.

Manish
-- 
She paints herself that bird, a thrush
with crimson stain across her mouth
No raspberry, a hot-sweet flush
denies the fever frocking south.         - S.K.S.
From: krishnan@pms001.pms.ford.com (Krishnan Subramaniam)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Trying to locate a friendM K M. Sastry
Date: 7 Jan 1993 18:26:52 GMT
Organization: Ford Motor Company
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pms001.pms.ford.com

Hello ,

One of my friends from PSI India has landed in US recently.
His name is M.K.M Sastry. If you know of him, please ask
him to give me a call (313-442-7486). Sastry if you are 
reading this please call me.

Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,alt.individualism
From: baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Queries on Career Choices
Date: 6 Jan 1993 22:54:11 -0500
Organization: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

In article <2708@cronos.metaphor.com> sanzgiri@bombay.metaphor.com (Ajit Sanzgiri) writes:
>In article <1id3o0INN33v@menudo.uh.edu> mba2@Jane.UH.EDU writes:
>>>4. What draws so many IAs to "practical" professions in general?
>>>(By practical I mean Eng/Comp.Sci, Law, Medicine, Accounting, etc.)
>>>
>>Upbringing.  They realize that there is more stability in a "Professional"
>>occupation then in a "Non-Professional" one.  Also MONEY.  English majors/
>>Sociology majors /etc don't make as much unless they get M.S. or PhD's.
>
>	Probably more so if they look "foreign". As an II parent of an IA

  Once you accept that it is possible - or even probable - that one may 
suffer discrimination on account of what one looks like, then it is by 
no means clear that a 'professional' career is necessarily better than 
a 'non-professional' one. After all, would you rather he get a Harvard 
PhD to find that the only job anyone has for him is in high-school 
teaching ? Or to get a Caltech PhD and be employed as a programmer - 
or even be unemployed ? Or would you rather he finish high school and 
took his knocks, let us say, in theatre, if that interested him ? 

>	kid, I feel my son would be better off training as a professional
>	(whose value in society is less likely to be questioned) than say
>	an actor, writer or fashion designer where he may find it difficult
>	to be accepted. Though these are all honourable professions and I
>	don't plan on forcing him into this or that career, I would certainly
>	advise him to go into a professional occupation (if he seeks my
>	advice, that is) and do what I can to encourage him in that direction.
>
>	Ajit Sanzgiri

One heartening feature of the occupational preferences emerging 
in South Asian immigrant society today seems to be the respectability 
that is now accorded to businessmen - independent storeowners, motel-keepers,
restaurateurs, technical contractors, anything, so long as you're your 
own boss. Physicians straddle the interface between businessmen and 
professionals - when they are in independent practice they're businessmen,
as clinical researchers perhaps not, then again there are some who do 
both. 

I believe that in the future, second and third generation IAs will turn
increasingly to independent business, and the occupational distribution 
will more closely mirror that of American society as a whole. The high 
percentage of 'highly-qualified-professionals' in the zeroth generation 
will come to be viewed as an anomaly, and the percentage of these in 
successive generations will also be the same as that in American society 
as a whole. 

 Satyen 


Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: shashi@aix3090b.uky.edu (Shashi Sathaye)
Subject: Re: Rhodes & Marshall scholarships
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
X-Path: shashi
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 10:32:08 GMT

mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:

>An interesting note: Rhodes and Marshall scholarships seem to strongly
>favor students of humanities and social sciences rather than math/science/
>engineering.  S.Asian students garnered 2 Rhodes and 3 Marshall scholarships
>last year; only one Marshall recipient was an electrical engineer at MIT,
>while the rest studied fields like politics, philosophy, health care,
>medieval history, etc.

>If the prestige of these scholarships is transferred to the students who
>receive them and the fields they study, maybe non-technical fields will
>gain respectability in the South Asian community.

>Manish
>-- 
>She paints herself that bird, a thrush
>with crimson stain across her mouth
>No raspberry, a hot-sweet flush
>denies the fever frocking south.         - S.K.S.
I happen to know one Rhodes scholar for last year. He is going into
medical school next year. He happens to be a very intellegent all round
scholar who will excell in anything he does. His parents are both physicians.
These are exceptions. All the so called uncles and aunties love to point 
these to their kids. I think that is natural. 
But not everyone can be a top 5 percentile scholar. To them one has to plan
for future a bit carefully.
--
--With best regards from Shashi
Login name: shashi | System Programmer By Profession | In real life:
                   | but heart(&SWEET-HEART) in Math.| Shashi Sathaye
shashi@ms.uky.edu	sysshash@ukcc.uky.edu  shashi@aix3090.uky.edu
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: rrp@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (rakesh.r.patel)
Subject: Re: being asian-indian/american
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:13:44 GMT

In article <VAGARWAL.93Jan4110437@dis9002.shearson.com> vagarwal@tardis.shearson.com writes:
>Why do you see European as ONE SINGLE RACE not as German,French,British,Irish,Italian,
>Swedish.....when you SEE NON-Europeans as Japanese,Chinese,Indian,Pakistani .... ?

I think the point was that other non-europeans have also experienced similar
problems in being accepted as "Americans". It is a given fact that an european
will be totally assimilated within the US within a single generation. While on 
the other hand, anyone else coming from Asia, Latin America, Africa will never
be the accepted as an "American".  

.
>Take a typical application FORM in US. It asks for your race (optional) as follows
>
>1- White 2 - Asian 3- ...   etc. 
>
>Why Non-Europeans are identified by the region or
>religion they originated from and ALL Europeans by the skin COLOR ONLY-> "WHITE" ? I have
>the walls "WHITE" washed but that does not match the COLOR of European. If you want to
>classify ALL Europeans by COLOR and not their origin then "Beige or RED/WHITE or 
>White with brown patches so called FRICKLES" will be more appropriate.
>
>I was not trying to convince of my citizenship. I was ONLY replying to a posting
>which was TRYING to convince of being AN AMERICAN.

I totally miss your  point about color. I think it is universally accepted that 
white means caucasians with the pinkish-light beige skin tone. Black means dark
brown, and so on. But if you are pointing out that the color stratification is
incorrect in the technical sense, yeah, I agree.

Rakesh Patel
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: psycho@makalu.Stanford.EDU (Mr. Knotty Sycho)
Subject: Re: Indian software in the spotlight (Was Re: Pressure)
Organization: Peace and Freedom Institute, Stanford University
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 04:27:24 GMT

In article <1igs63INN2b6@agate.berkeley.edu> mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:
>In article <shashi.726326598@aix3090b.uky.edu> shashi@aix3090b.uky.edu (Shashi Sathaye) writes:
>
>
>Bangalore said on NPR last night that the IIT grads he employs are awesome
>in their analytic capabilities, far superior to U.S. engineers, and although
>were initially employed for cheaper labor, are now supplying great design
>ideas.
>
>According to my dad, this is because the Indian Institutes of Technology
>are so single-minded in their approach to teaching engineering: one basic
>humanities class followed by straight engineering from all angles, and
>homework that combined eats up 18 of the 24 hours in the day.  Perhaps you
>net.IIT grads could comment.
>

hmmmmm, i had to take 4 classes in humanities. being a foreign 
student, i was advised by my friends to take english so that my GPA 
wouldn't fall below 5/10, that was the threshold below which we were 
put under academic probation. you see, most of my undergrad friends didn't 
have a good opinion (academics wise) of foreign students i.e. GOINs 
(Government Of India Nominees).  anyways, i didn't do too well in english.

we had to endure heavy course loads but it wasn't a pressure cooker
exactly. i had evenings free to pursue my own likings.
i don't remember being burdened by homeworks but we had lotsa tutorials
where we were shown how to solve problems by the profs themselves. 
there were lotsa quizzes so many that one could afford to ditch a couple 
of them in the heat of a game of cards! our classes started at 8am and 
ended at 4:30pm. so that was only 8.5 hours.  we did most of the studying
in class. yah, we had lotsa courses that covered engineering from all
angles. even CS people had to take 2 semesters of
workshop (lathe,carpentry,foundry,electrical wiring,welding.. what not)
no, they didn't have auto repair - alas, it would have been so useful. 
and not to mention the lethargy of taking classes in engineering drawing. 

the success of iit_ians in software industry that you mentioned, i think
most credit goes to those individuals and not iit. they were the 
cream of high school graduates (with analytical inclination)
in india and went through rough entrance exam (mind blowing so they 
use to say). that is also probably the reason why my friends doubted
the academic quality of foreign students (very few in number but more
than women!).


OM shanti,
ks



Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,alt.individualism
From: ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. Archer)
Subject: Re: = Opportunity etc.
Organization: University of Tennessee 
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:40:30 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.012705.11899@igor.tamri.com> donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
>Path: utkux1.utk.edu!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!sgigate!sgi!igor!donb
>In article <ARCHER.627.726336611@utkvm1.utk.edu> ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu
>(T. Archer) writes:
>>>We can strike a balance between suffocating overregulation and the cruelty of
>>>the free market.
>>
>>Not really.
>
>It seems to me that we have to.  

OH!  You're talking PRAGMATISM!  I was speaking of IDEALS!  Of course we 
have to compromise.  At the very least, the path to libertopia  would be in 
small steps.

>The Libertarian platform points towards a
>direction that we should be taking, IMO:  increased responsibility for our
>own lives, a government whose power to enact legislation impacting our
>life is sharply curtailed.
>
>On the other hand, I don't believe that Libertarianism in its pure form
>will ever pull a majority of the votes.  

You bet your ass.  Too many people benefit from the current system to ever 
remove it.

Heinlin said it, but he was actually paraphrasing a senator from the Roman 
Republic who said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves bread 
and circuses from the public Treasury, they will continue to vote themselves 
bread and circuses until there is no bread and there are no circuses, and 
the Republic is doomed."  He was right.  Heinlien went on to say, "Then they 
will look around for the nearest politician, a rope, and a tall tree.  
After all, THEY didn't run the republic into the ground.  It was the 
politicians,  or maybe the Jews."  Nothing like a good scapegoat.


>Hell, I voted Libertarian in
>California's Senate races but I seriously doubt I'd vote for a Lib president.

Why not?  A Lib president, with the veto, would act as an excellent check on 
congress's spending habit, but since he couldn't enact legislation, he 
couldn't move toward libertopia at a speed unacceptable to the population.

>
>We are currently a very fragmented culture; personally, I would like to see
>us move in one common direction (not every individual but overall), a
>direction where personal freedom is maximized and you succeed in life
>based on your abilities, without being held back because you're chinese/
>black/female/gay.

Or a white het male with a college education.

>
>At present, all we have is a group of societal subsets, with various groups
>trying to sharply limit the freedoms of others to control their own
>reproduction / possess the means of self defense / use the recreational
>drugs of their choice / whatever.
>
>I don't think that taxes will ever be completely eliminated.

Me neither.  But I can dream.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Vote Dempublican, it's easier than thinking.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From: baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Queries on Career Choices
Date: 7 Jan 1993 20:47:07 -0500
Organization: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

In article <susanc.726447567@keckiris> susanc@rice.edu (susan chacko) writes:
>baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur) writes:
>
>>  Once you accept that it is possible - or even probable - that one may 
>>suffer discrimination on account of what one looks like, then it is by 
>>no means clear that a 'professional' career is necessarily better than 
>>a 'non-professional' one. After all, would you rather he get a Harvard 

> [response about minorities in theater/film deleted]

>The professional world is a little more open to Indians and
>Indian-Americans, if only because there are so many already 
>there. Sure, there's discrimination there too, but it can't
>be as obvious as 'Sorry, you look Indian, we can't use you.'

This is completely counter-intuitive to me. I would suggest it is 
getting harder to break into professional careers for South Asians 
today precisely because there are already so many South Asians in 
such careers, inviting hostility and resistance once their representation 
and visibility in a certain occupational category rises above some threshold. 
After all, what is all the noise about invisible quotas
and glass ceilings all about ? But then one might ask, how did one 
end up with so many South Asians in professional positions to begin 
with ? Well, it might come as a surprize to many readers, but there 
actually was a time when the US economy was growing at what seems 
now like a gallop - upwards of 6% annually for most of the sixties 
and upto the early seventies - there really were shortages of trained 
manpower, a global Cold War was on, and a hot war in the jungles and 
deltas of South-east Asia too.  Americans were in a liberal mood, 
and even progress on racial issues seemed real. A baby boom generation 
was slowly coming of age. It was in such a liberal time that the 
Immigration laws were changed, and large numbers of South Asian 
professionals found toe-holds in the American economy. None of these 
things are true any more, or at least not as true as they were then. 
In fact, the reverse seems more true. Downward Mobility has become 
a fact of life for many Americans, both within a generation, and 
between generations, to give only one example. 

(as an aside, I wanted to add that an inadequate grasp of this 
fact has lead to some friction and hostility between 'professionals'
who settled in the early sixties and the 'hopeful professionals' 
who are trying to immigrate/settle now)

Thus, from macroeconomic, social/racial, political and generational 
trends, I feel it is going to get more and more difficult for South 
Asians to lead successful and satisfying professional lives in the 
US. I would love, of course, to be proven wrong, either on events 
and trends as they will turn out, or even on my assessment of present 
and past trends !

--Satyen
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: shashi@aix3090b.uky.edu (Shashi Sathaye)
Subject: Re: Pressure
    <1id2c9INN33v@menudo.uh.edu> <shashi.726326598@aix3090b.uky.edu> 
    <7886@dove.nist.gov>
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
X-Path: shashi
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:59:43 GMT

hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira) writes:

>Seems like you watched 'Bad Influence' a few too many times. :-)

Is that a TV show? 
After staring at the shiny screen whole day (my computer screen) I prefer 
to vegetate with a crossword in my lap these days. :-)

>|> it. Then consider a kid whose father is a professor and mother is a school
>|> teacher,one of them looks at the choices and says 
>|> "if you do your best, you can take most of these classes at AP level", 
>|> whoa that is pressuring dear uncle and aunty..

>The problem with all of the pressure arises when one is forced into 
>a profession that one has either little talent for or interest in. 
This I agree with. If I have seen a kid who is engrossed in playing
music or painting pictures, it would be stupid on my part as a parent if I push 
that kid in engineering or medicine instead of arts. 
But it would be equally irresponsible as a parent if I do not
help out or guide in making it (if I can) into a serious career in case the kid 
seems to be totally indifferent (sp?) about it.
>One has to be somewhat practical and say, well with such & such degree,
>what are my opportunities like, but that is a decision that the 
>individual has to make, not the parents.
Agreed again. But I think if parent offer information, it should not be 
translated as 'pressure'. In my opinion it is interpreted as pressure more 
often than not.
>Ron
--
--With best regards from Shashi
Login name: shashi | System Programmer By Profession | In real life:
                   | but heart(&SWEET-HEART) in Math.| Shashi Sathaye
shashi@ms.uky.edu	sysshash@ukcc.uky.edu  shashi@aix3090.uky.edu
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,alt.individualism