Silicon Valley's
Lead Role in Idea Economy Relies on Immigrants
By George Koo
Silicon Valley is back," proclaimed
the organizers of a State of the Valley conference
that examined the economic health of the world-famous
wellspring of technology. That's good news. But
the bad news is that our fear of immigrants could
threaten the valley's resurgence.
The conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Joint
Venture: Silicon Valley Network, celebrated the
reversal of a negative trend: Every year since
the dot-com bust in 2000, the valley's total employment
had declined. Last year the Silicon Valley payroll,
however, showed an increase of about 2,000 jobs,
or some 0.2 percent of a work force of 1 million.
From peak to trough, the valley actually had lost
more than 200,000 jobs. The minuscule gain was
seen as hopeful sign that the hemorrhage has stopped.
Nonetheless, industry leaders and pundits at the
event were quick with self-congratulations and
applauded Silicon Valley's ability to reinvent
itself and remain the world's center for new technologies.
First, it had broken through in innovation on
integrated circuits, then in information technology,
then the Internet and life sciences and now as
the world leader in an idea economy.
Beneath the thin veneer of good news, however,
there's food for thought that can cause indigestion
and keep one up at night -- at least for those
worried about the future of this country. It's
about our shortsighted policies on immigrants
and education.
According to the survey released, Silicon Valley
made up 1 percent of the nation's population but
filed 11 percent of the patents and soaked up
over 25 percent of all the venture capital invested
in the United States. By any measure, this was
a confirmation of the innovative and unique character
of the valley.
This uniqueness can be attributed to demographics
that are different from anywhere else in the country.
Here, whites are already a minority, at 40 percent
of the population. Asians make up 33 percent and
are the second-largest ethnic group.
The foreign-born make up 38 percent of the denizens
of Silicon Valley and account for 53 percent of
the engineers and scientists working there. One
can only conclude that the Silicon Valley spirit
of innovation and enterprise is inseparable from
the presence of immigrants.
Without immigrants there would be no Silicon Valley.
Yet since 9/11, our national policy has been to
keep foreigners out. This policy is indiscriminate
and affects our ability to attract the talent
that the valley needs. Some would even argue that
the anti-immigrant policy has been used to keep
out foreign students coming from China and India.
This country's past greatness, built on the backs
of immigrants, is frequently forgotten. There's
even the thinking that raising the barrier for
foreign entry would lower the bar of entry to
the industry for native-born Americans. Unfortunately,
technological excellence cannot be wrung from
those with mediocre credentials.
At every unveiling of the past year's scorecard
for Silicon Valley, leaders complain about the
inadequate quality of K-12 education in this country
and publicly wonder where the next-wave-entry
engineers will come from. Were it not for foreign
students who came to study and decided to remain
and work in the valley, there would have been
no horses to drive innovation.
This country is not just leaving any child behind.
A whole generation is being left behind. A recent
international math test of 15-year-olds ranked
the United States 29th out of 34 nations tested.
This is just one of a stream of indications. We
should be frightened out of our wits, but we've
been hearing these kinds of results for much too
long.
Out of the 300 semifinalists at the prestigious
Intel Science Fair this year, a national competition
for high school students, 67 have a Chinese surname.
That's roughly 10 times higher than pro-rata share
based on the Chinese population in the United
States.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there were nine
semifinalists, two with surnames from India and
four from China or Taiwan. One can't tell by their
surnames if the other three came from immigrant
families.
Instead of talking about white flight from Asian-dominated
high schools in Cupertino, Calif., we should be
worrying about how to motivate more kids of any
ethnic group to take an interest in math and science.
We don't teach our kids to be good in math and
science. Yet we don't want immigrants who are
highly trained and motivated to be too formidable
a competition for native-born American kids.
What does this say about the future of the United
States? How long can we continue to ring the gong
of good news in Silicon Valley?
- Pacific News Service
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