Cultural transformation in the suburbs

FREMONT, Calif.--Peter Van Lai was a software development manager at Mongo.com until he got laid off last year. Now he is marketing director for Vietnam Orient Tours, where he organizes and leads cultural voyages to Southeast Asia.

"The American veterans want to go back to talk to people, to learn more about what happened, maybe go shopping in Bangkok," the Vietnamese native said. "The Vietnam people, the Asians, they just want to go back home to see family, to relax, to visit the towns where they were born. They work hard in the United States and want a vacation."

Despite his relatively nondescript office in a weathered suburban strip mall, surrounded by Vietnamese beauticians, Chinese restaurants and auto repair shops, Van Lai is part of one of the biggest immigration and work force trends in the United States.

The number of Asian immigrants to the United States, particularly to California, is mushrooming, fueled by lucrative jobs in the technology industry. Many come from India or Taiwan on temporary H-1B work permits, but more than half end up staying permanently as green-card holders or, eventually, as naturalized U.S. citizens. Because they often sponsor and support other family members who want to come to the United States, their population growth exceeds that of other U.S. ethnic and racial groups, such as non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans.

Along the way, these immigrants find themselves wielding tremendous influence in the country's largest tech companies and venture capital firms. Like Van Lai, many are transforming regional culture through businesses, politics and school systems by their sheer numbers and involvement.

This latest wave of immigrants is unlike the traditional American immigrants of the 20th century, most of whom arrived from Europe without much money or education, relegated to the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. They also differ from previous waves of Asian immigrants, who became a sizable group with the lifting of a 1965 U.S. ban on immigrants from Asia. That paved the way for thousands of Southeast Asian immigrants in the 1970s and 1980s to come to the United States seeking political asylum from Vietnam. Many were penniless or politically oppressed, or both.

By contrast, the newest immigrants are often highly educated and in great demand at high-paying tech companies. Here, in this San Francisco Bay Area community, where more than a third of the population is Asian, the average household income is $86,000. The average computer professional in California earned $60,580 in 1999, according to the most recent statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, the national household average for 2001 is $30,784, according to the BLS Current Population Survey.

New customs, new rules
Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison says the recent influx of Asians into the tech industry has resulted in the most dramatic demographic and cultural shift he has seen in more than two decades of Fremont politics.

"I have to learn a whole lot of different customs: where to take my shoes off, when to sit on the floor," said the 330-pound, 6-foot-5-inch mayor. "Sitting on the floor isn't as easy as it used to be. But I have to. We all have to. We're what California will become later this century, what the entire United States could become eventually."

Roughly 1 million legal immigrants a year moved to the United States during the 1990s, mainly from India and Taiwan, many on H-1B visas. H-1B visa holders must have a college degree or relevant work experience, and the government requires their employers to pay them the median wage for their job classification.

In that same decade, Fremont's Asian population went from 18 percent to 37 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing Asian enclaves in California. In surrounding Alameda, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, Asians make up a larger percentage of the population than do African-Americans or Latinos. Today, 10 percent of Fremont residents are from India, and 14.4 percent are from China, mainly Taiwan. About half work in the tech industry, usually starting off with H-1B visa permits or student visas.

The new residents' impact is apparent on a walk through Fremont's streets. There's the Hindu temple, Sikh Gurdwara, two mosques and an Islamic cultural center. Downtown, a huge eight-screen theater shows the latest top-grossing movies from India, such as the romantic crime comedy "Love Ke Liye Kuch Be Karega," or "Love x Crime = Fun."

Nearby is Town Tandoori, a deli-style Indian restaurant where owner Ranjit Singh hosted a grand opening on the Fourth of July. The restaurant is a blend of Singh's native Punjab and California. Posters of Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park hang next to a rendering of an Indian woman baking traditional flat bread and another of three sari-clad women lounging in a bedroom while men ogle them from the doorway. Next to that is a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, not far from a print of a camel herder and his four beasts.

Singh, who spent 12 years learning how to cook in Glasgow, Scotland, realizes that the décor is slightly odd. But he thinks it is the best way to display his restaurant's authenticity--and his patriotism for his newly adopted country. He has already applied for a green card to work permanently in the United States.

"I feel free and independent here in America," said Singh, who came to the United States in 1998 seeking political asylum. "I can make my life here, live comfortably, if I work hard. This is what I always dreamed about."

The H-1B visa workers have largely escaped the effect of the recent economic slowdown, which has resulted in tens of thousands of layoffs at tech companies. Most of those workers have engineering, programming and mathematics backgrounds, while the layoffs have been concentrated in marketing, sales and human resources departments.

Yet many of the newest Fremont residents often find life tough. In particular, the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is daunting for people from developing countries used to far lower prices for homes, cars, rental units and taxes. Many new immigrants send money to relatives back home, eroding their disposable income.

Even the seemingly lucrative wages do not go far in a town where the average home sells for roughly $425,000, and rent on a two-bedroom apartment often exceeds $2,000 per month. Without rent control, it is not uncommon for rents to increase as much as 20 percent at the end of a yearly lease.

Edmond Sarhadi has first-hand knowledge of locals' cash crunch. The Iranian native, who became a U.S. citizen 11 years ago, was laid off from his job testing computers for 3Com four months ago. He tried to pick up work manufacturing and repairing electronics but says he can barely pay the rent. He plans to move to Las Vegas with his girlfriend in the fall.

"I don't want to leave California, but my job and my luck ran out," Sarhadi said while shopping for juice at an Indian grocery store. "It's like they want to get rid of all the poor people, all the foreigners who don't make $100,000 a year. I'm in the technology industry and can't afford it here--it's even worse if you're not in tech. I don't understand who's going to clean the garbage after we all leave."