Follow Up Report

FOLLOW UP REPORT
By Hidesato Sakakibara
April 21, 2000

I have had many people e-mailing me about my past essays and frankly, while not everyone agrees with my views, I am thankful for all of your comments. Most of the mail concerned the essays The AmeriCANS! and RQ:PQ; mainly, questions and comments concerning East-West relationships and US immigration. Many people have the same questions and concerns and I believe that readers at large will appreciate the following updates that I would like to make.

I have had more than a few people ask me about the current situation regarding immigration into the US, both for themselves as well as for their partners. Frankly, while this situation should be seen as being in a constant state of flux, it is still quite difficult to immigrate to this country. The INS has raised the number of work visas (mainly for high-tech-related jobs) to 120,000 per annum, but the demand is great and often this number is reached just a few months into the year. For other categories the situation is still difficult.

Most companies do not want to bother sponsoring people who are not in “high tech”. After all, with so many American citizens as well as those with permanent residency looking for work, why should they? With the exception of those positions that entail bilingual capabilities, such as a credit analyst at a bank who knows both English and German or Japanese, most positions are for US citizens and green card (permanent residency) holders only.

One way to get at those positions that are open to sponsorship is to contact employment agencies that deal with bilingual people. However, this process takes time and the situation is tight. There are some smaller employers that will offer to sponsor you if you work for them for a few months. My advice is to consult a good immigration lawyer about your chances to gain sponsorship before you enter into such an agreement. Many smaller employers offer the moon but have no intention of delivering. This is especially true of restaurants with their need for staff. Be careful.

A few people asked me if it was possible to “buy” their papers from a well-connected lawyer. The answer is Yes, it is. However, I have no idea as to how to locate such a person. Even if you were to do so I strongly advise that you take the utmost care in who you deal with. I am not condoning such an action, but I do understand people’s needs. Remember that these such transactions involve huge sums of cash, and if the counter-party does not live up to his/her part of the bargain you are, as they say in US lingo, ups shit’s creek.

With regards to those that want to know the current status of the proposal to allow US citizens to be able to sponsor their same-sex partners, that is still in the planning stage and I doubt much will come of it for at least a few years. I believe that gay marriage or at least a form of it will eventually come to pass, but, as I wrote in The AmeriCANS!, the US is still an arch conservative society and any such move is bound to be met with great resistance. I do currently see more tolerance of the PLUS community, especially in the media, but again, any strong legal measures on the Federal level (that would affect ALL states) is yet a long way off, I believe. The recent Vermont decision to allow a form of Gay marriage in that state is a wonderful step in the right direction, but again, I do not believe that this will have any ramifications on the Federal level for some time to come. Thus, this will have no effect on immigration policy in the US. In this regard I honestly hope that I am proved wrong.

For those US citizens (there were so many) that asked me about living in a third country with their foreign spouses, I strongly suggest CANADA. Canada is in many ways a great place to live. It has abundant land, resources, jobs (or so I have heard), and, more importantly, a very liberal immigration policy. It is also quite PLUS-friendly. The down side is that its tax system is quite predatory (and the climate a little cold for my tastes), but hey, you can’t have everything.

Of special importance to PLUS Asians is that Canada has a massive Asian population, and with the current rate of new Asian immigrants (mainly Chinese, South Asians, and Thais), can very easily become a quasi-Asian country in the not-too-distant future. I doubt that will come to pass, and expect that the Canadian government will tighten up its immigration strings long before. However, for the time being it is quite easy to immigrate to Canada, and no Asian need fear isolation there. Reports have it that Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) is now the third most widely spoken language there, and the Chinatown in Toronto alone is one of the largest I have ever seen.

Thus for PLUS Asians and others seeking a new place to live, Canada should be considered, and I advise that you start making inquiries as soon as possible. The time to get in is now, while the laws are in our favor, not years later when the government decides that it has had enough Asians and others and that it was now “time to close the doors”.

Missed opportunities, often due to fear and procrastination. This is one of the main reasons that many of us get stuck where we are. To those US guys with foreign partners without the right to live in the US, if you are really serious about being together, and if living in his/her country is not an option, then I suggest you call the Canadian consulate today and find out what it takes to become a permanent resident in Canada. I know of many Americans that are doing this in order to be with their partners. You can always move back to the US should you feel the need to do so, and can always come back for visits. Two of Canada’s largest cities, Toronto and Vancouver, are just a few minutes plane ride from New York and Portland.

As for those Asians that wrote to me regarding employment in the US, as I wrote above, sponsorship will be needed. However, regardless of what is written about the “booming” US economy, the truth of the matter is that getting a position in the US, especially one that does not involve wearing a paper hat, is quite tough. Many really talented people are getting stuck as “temps”, that is, jobs that are designated as temporary, and as such have no chance for benefits, retirement pensions, or promotion.

In fact, getting a temp job at a major US firm can itself be daunting. What is worse is that age and other discrimination, although officially illegal, is very much rampant. Thus, unless you can get sponsorship before arrival, or are sure you can get some company to sponsor you, be careful. Also, if you are planning to move to the US then better to do it while you are in your twenties rather than wait until you are in your forties, if you indeed plan to work as an employee for a living.

Many readers were very much in favor of my RQ:PQ essay. However, some, all Westerners, believe that I am against East-West relationships. I want to state that this is absolutely not the case. I am very much in favor or any relationship that is beneficial to both parties. But I still maintain that many Asians have strong inferiority complexes towards Westerners whereas many Westerners go for Asians after they are older, mainly after they are not able to attract other Westerners. This is surely not true in every case, but is so in the vast majority of cases that I have seen. I also believe that some Asians are after Westerners with the old, tired notion that they will be supported financially, and thus, putting up with an “older guy” would be worth it. In fact, I have been told this a few times as well.

There is nothing wrong with East-West relationships, but I do believe that such relationships can be harder to endure due to sharp differences in language and culture, thinking, and general way of doing things. I do believe that with the globalization of the world’s media that this will be less of a problem. However, I maintain that while we may all have on the same Calvin Klein briefs and use the same Paco Rabanne deodorant, that we are still very much different on the inside. Indeed, these differences need to be understood and thus East-West relationships may need an even greater ounce of care than East-East or West-West relationships. (In many ways exploring these differences can itself prove rewarding.)

This is not to say that all East-East and West-West relationships are easy. From personal experience I can testify to the opposite. However, from my own dealings as well as what I have heard and witnessed, East-West relationships require more care and energy. And I also strongly hold to my belief that regardless of what is said or is genuinely intended, any Asian entering into a relationship with an American had better be prepared to live in an American “family”. This is true no matter where in the world the couple will reside. Again, there are increasingly more exceptions to this and perhaps with the change in perception we Asians have about ourselves, this may not be true at all in the future. The same holds for the inferiority complex as well.

Please keep your comments coming. I enjoy reading them.

H.S.