Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future (13 page)

NOTES

1. “Sergey Brin,”
Biography.com
,
http://www.biography.com/people/sergey-brin-12103333

 (accessed October 22, 2013).

2. “Alumni Profiles: Omid Kordestani, Google Inc. Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development,”
Engineering @ San Jose State University
,
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/alumni/profiles/omid-kordestani
(accessed October 22, 2013).

3. Arash Norouzi, “Omid Kordestani: Educate People about Iran,”
The Mossadegh Project
,
http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/omid-kordestani/
(accessed October 22, 2013).

4. “World’s Most Innovative Companies: Google,”
Forbes.com
,
http://www.forbes.com/companies/google
/ (accessed October 22, 2013).

5. Jennifer Viegas,
Pierre Omidyar: The Founder of eBay
(New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2007).

6. “Pierre Omidyar, Academy of Achievement,”
Achievement.org
,
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/omi0int-4
(accessed July 17, 2013).

7. General Books, LLC,
eBay Employees: Meg Whitman, Pierre Omidyar, Randy Wigginton, John Donahoe, and Rajiv Dutta
(Memphis, TN: General Books LLC, 2010).

8. Marty Gitlin,
eBay: The Company and Its Founder
(Edina, MN: ABDO Publishing, 2011).

9. Viegas,
Pierre Omidyar
.

10. “Omidyar Group: Pierre and Pam Omidyar,”
Omidyar Group.com
,
http://omidyargroup.com
/ (accessed July 17, 2013).

11. “Pierre Omidyar (Founder of eBay): 20 Fascinating Fun Facts,”
People with Impact.com
,
http://www.peoplewithimpact.com/pierre-omidyar/f67e77
/ (accessed July 17, 2013).

12. “Pierre Omidyar,”
Tufts Now
,
Tufts.com
, October 23, 2013,
http://now.tufts.edu/commencement-2011/pierre-omidyar
(accessed July 22, 2013).

13. “Management Team,”
Chegg.com
,
http://www.chegg.com/managementteam
(accessed July 17, 2013).

14. Rituparna Chatterjee, “How Silicon Valley’s New Indian Entrepreneurs Are Blooming in All Hues,”
Economic Times
, July 31, 2011,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-31/news/29835690_1_indian-entrepreneurs-sramana-mitra-serial-entrepreneur
(accessed July 17, 2013).

15. Steven Carpenter, “TC Teardown: Chegg Is a Money Machine,”
TechCrunch .com
, June 5, 2010,
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/05/teardown-chegg/
(accessed July 17, 2013).

16. “H1B Visa Cap and H1B Quota 2013 (FY2014) System Explained—Latest H1B 2013 Status for Quota, Cap, News Updates—H1B 2012 Cap Count and Tracker—USCIS H1B Quota Filing Updates and Cap Numbers Count—H1B cap 2011, h1b cap 2012, h1b quota 2012,”
h1base.com
,
http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/H1Bvi
(accessed August 18, 2013).

17. John Shinal, “Tech Firms Go Abroad to Hire,”
USA TODAY
, June 5, 2013,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/MONEY/usaedition/2013-07-05-Silicon-Valley-not-waiting-for-US-immigration-reform_ST_U.htm
(accessed August 18, 2013).

9

How Did He Get Here: Salomon Garay

I
n 1981, Hector Salomon Garay was twenty-five when he crossed the Rio Bravo from Mexico into an unknown small town in southern Texas. Although the United States and Mexico share water from the same river, the different perspectives on life in America is exemplified by the two names of this river. South of the border it is called the Rio Bravo, which means “furious” or “agitator,” while in the United States it is called the Rio Grande or “big.” Depending upon where you were born, your experience with the same river is entirely different.

Salomon was born in El Salvador, and with the idea that he could find steady work in the United States, he saved up the $1,200 needed to pay the “coyote” to take him in a group of thirty-four across the border in the middle of the night. His ultimate destination was the Washington, D.C., area, where his older sister already lived. From beginning to end, his journey took him nineteen days to complete.

He and his group had to walk and swim through the river and hide in bushes and behind trees until a prearranged Toyota pickup truck took all thirty-four of them piled up like sardines on an hour-long ride to Corpus Christi, where they were again unceremoniously dumped in the bushes in the middle of the night. Trash of empty gallons of water and bread bags littered the area, making it obvious that they were not the first to come this way.

By 9 a.m., another vehicle pulled up to take the ten women in the group to Houston, but it took another eight hours for someone to come check on the men. This person left only some yellow cheese and bread for the remaining men. After dividing the provisions up among themselves, they waited out the night in the pouring rain until 2 a.m., when they decided to try to find some kind of temporary shelter. By daylight, they had come across a building in an oil field, and the man inside greeted them with a “Cómo estás?” They asked if they could stay awhile, and he responded in the affirmative, under the condition that they not smoke.

The group was stranded here for three days, taking turns each day to walk the five miles to a small grocery store run by a local Chicano woman. They politely asked to use the phone, and it wasn’t until the third day, when the woman told them they could no longer use her phone for free, that they told her of their plight. She told them not to worry, as she had seen this happen many times before. The next morning, she showed up with some food and clean clothes for them, and it wasn’t long until the man taking them to Houston showed up and relocated the group to a nearby barn.

One morning, around 3 a.m., three men with guns woke the group members and took them through the countryside, ensuring through whistle commands that they hid in bushes from the roving helicopter lights above. They were passed off to two women driving a green Chevy van, where they sat huddled for an hour, hoping to eventually make it to Houston. They finally arrived safely to a small, basementless house, which provided living conditions that were only a little better than the original pickup truck. Salomon and his fellow group members, now totaling sixty-four residents, had to take turns sleeping sitting up against the walls. Now stuck in Houston, Salomon was forced to pay an additional $400 to arrange for transportation to D.C. and into the safety of his older sister’s apartment.

Soon he was given a false Social Security number to use so that he could apply for jobs, and he quickly and easily found work in construction. As long as he worked hard and did a good job, nobody looked too closely at his documentation. Early the following year, his sister received her U.S. citizenship, and she took him to apply for his own Social Security number. Even though the office personnel noticed he did not have a visa to be in the country, they were lenient and allowed him to apply, and within four weeks, he was working legally and paying taxes.

Eight years after arriving in this country, Salomon started his own house painting business, while also doing a few related small jobs as needed. In the beginning, he employed solely family members and friends, but he soon found that consistently getting good work out of family members was tricky. Now, he only hires family members whom he trusts will be able to competently complete the job. A perfectionist, Salomon values strong customer service and thorough work. While serving clients, he not only paints their houses but also completes minor maintenance work that he feels needs to be done. As one of his clients, I can attest to the superb job Salomon does with every task. For example, one time, when he was painting a room in my house, the wood of a doorframe was loose and broke off. Even though it was not stipulated in his contract, he took it upon himself to fix the doorframe. This occurrence is just one example of the numerous times Salomon has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Through his hard work and ambitious nature, he truly exemplifies the common characteristics of many successful immigrants.

Of the ten immigrant groups in the United States with the largest number of new business owners per month from 2007 to 2011, five of them were from Central America. With the highest number of new business owners per month first, the countries were Guatemala, Cuba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Honduras. (Mexico had the highest number of new business owners who were immigrants, but the country is located in North America.) 
¹

In 2005, he finally became a U.S. citizen, and while today he has to turn down work, he recognizes it is not so easy for new immigrants. In fact, a number of his friends back in El Salvador have asked for his advice and assistance in coming to the United States. They often relay stories of the daily lines, full by 7 a.m., for a visa at the U.S. Embassy. Even with the $125 application fee, there is no guarantee. Salomon truthfully tells them it is now very hard to find work in the United States, and that while he will do his best to help them, he cannot assure them of their fate. He wishes that the immigrants already in this country could be given their papers. He is also involved in raising funds through a church picnic for a family who has been detained and needs $10,000 for legal fees to attempt to stay and continue working.

Salomon also says that unfortunately the president and Congress cannot understand what it is like for poor people, and he thinks they are too old and don’t really care. They have been raised in “good hands,” whereas, for people from Central America, everything is different—probably as different as the two names of the same river that border Texas and Mexico.

NOTE

1. The Partnership for a New American Economy, “Open for Business: How Immigrants Are Driving Small Business Creation in the United States,” August 2012,
www.renewoureconomy.org/sites/all/themes/pnae/openforbusiness.pdf
(accessed July 20, 2013).

10

Paying It Forward to the U.S. Economy

I
n our time of economic stagnation, attention on the part of many political figures is turning to the question of immigration.

The most recent academic research suggests that, on average, immigrants raise the overall standard of living of American workers by boosting wages and by lowering prices. One reason is because immigrants and U.S.-born workers generally do not compete for the same jobs; instead, many immigrants complement the work of U.S. employees and increase their productivity. Similar to education levels, the skill levels of immigrants are also bimodal, so they take the low- and high-skilled jobs; whereas U.S.-born citizens typically take the middle-skill jobs. Another reason is because businesses adjust to new immigrants by opening stores, restaurants, or production facilities to take advantage of the added supply of workers; more workers translate into more business.

Because of these factors, economists have found that immigrants raise average wages slightly for the United States as a whole. Estimates from opposite ends of the academic literature arrive at this same conclusion and point to small but positive wage gains of between 0.1 and 0.6 percent for American workers.
¹

By affecting the prices of the goods and services they purchase, immigrants also have an impact on the well-being of U.S. workers. Recent research suggests that immigrant workers enhance the purchasing power of Americans by lowering prices of “immigrant-intensive” services, such as child care, gardening, and cleaning services. By making these services more affordable and more widely available, immigrant workers benefit U.S. consumers.