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[starfleet_grad]

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,49506.0.html

Taking as my starting point the above discussion currently in progress on the Job Search board, I have on repeated occasions made an observation about immigrants in academia that I wonder if others might share.

As I have said before on these boards, I am an immigrant, born and raised in a different culture and language. While in grad school in the U.S., I have noticed that there is a subset of immigrant graduate students and faculty members who sport an attitude that can be summed up as follows:

"My experience as an immigrant is the norm, the genuine article, the real deal. I speak for all immigrants, and my experience reflects everyone's experience. If other immigrants disagree with me on this, they are trolls/racists/bigots/just plain stupid/whatever, and their supposed experience is not authentic. As a result of their culture/language/race/skin color/whatever, they were never able to feel what being an immigrant is REALLY like."

I had a professor in grad school like that, too, who, to his/her credit, was gracious enough to allow me to disagree with his/her description of the immigrant experience, but at other times, classmates have become irate not because their experience was invalidated but because it was not celebrated as the norm.

Has anyone else experienced such attitudes and reactions?

[magimax]

Not personally, no, being as I am not an immigrant.  I find it fascinating though that this elite section of immigrants believe that theirs is the "real deal".  I'm sure the many thousands more who are trying to scratch out a living in the US (whether here legally or not) while juggling resident status would disagree. 

Besides, are these folks *truly* immigrants?  Have they chosen to stay in the US after they graduate?  If not, then I would argue that they are NOT immigrants, they are visiting students.  If they have, then once they graduate from school and realize that their status changes significantly, they will sing another song. 

Another question - these students, do they participate in the community that hosts them?  Do they connect with others from their country of origin OUTSIDE of academia?  Do they have any idea what "real life" is like outside the campus?

(My opinion based on knowing several immigrants, from academia and elsewhere.)

[dundee]

I am an immigrant in academia and I have never met or encountered any immigrants like the ones the OP describes.

[unspoiled]

I am an immigrant in academia and I have never met or encountered any immigrants like the ones the OP describes.

Second. 

[windchimes]

Has anyone else experienced such attitudes and reactions?

Yeah. All the time. And coming from white Americans. In academia.

In fact the biggest reason why people get PhD's and pursue professorial positions is to get power and social status. To feel intellectually superior against the "other". And whatever particular angle they might have -- they will try to sell it to you as authentic. As "real deal.

[paperclip]

In fact the biggest reason why people get PhD's and pursue professorial positions is to get power and social status.

Cite your source for this "fact," please?

[orgtheorygeek]

In fact the biggest reason why people get PhD's and pursue professorial positions is to get power and social status.

Cite your source for this "fact," please?

Sweeping generalizations never need citations on the internet.  Besides, windchime's statement may not be the "TRUTH" but it is one of many possible truths (small-t, as in made-up).

Of course,  I left a management position in the oil & gas sector to do my PhD and slug it out as an impoverished grad student for several extra years because I too crave power.  Truly I did.  Really.  *yawn*

[magimax]

Of course,  I left a management position in the oil & gas sector to do my PhD and slug it out as an impoverished grad student for several extra years because I too crave power.  Truly I did.  Really.  *yawn*

Ouch, I bet you're regretting that move now!  ;-)

[amador]

I am an immigrant in academia and I have never met or encountered any immigrants like the ones the OP describes.

Second. 

I second, too.  I tend to define myself as a "deluxe immigrant" [*chuckle*].  I mean that I've had my struggles, even the occasional trouble with INS/USCIS, but that I know other people have had it way worse.

Of course, maybe the OP would mistake this as "attitude" and "real deal" posse,  but frankly his tone sounds to me more like nativist victimism.  I have realized, after leaving the hyper-protective environment of an Ivy League school, that this victimism runs as rampant in American academia as it could in white Southwestern suburbs or up in the rustbelt.

[jonesey]

Yeah. All the time. And coming from white Americans. In academia.

So speaketh the white American trying to get into academia.

[locutus]

Yeah. All the time. And coming from white Americans. In academia.

So speaketh the white American trying to get into academia.

Zing!

[starfleet_grad]

Of course, maybe the OP would mistake this as "attitude" and "real deal" posse,  but frankly his tone sounds to me more like nativist victimism. 

See, this is exactly the attitude I am talking about, that as an immigrant I am expected to have a certain tone, that I am supposed to close rank behind other immigrants, and when that tone doesn't meet muster among certain others, then I have got to be "nativist." This is the name calling that I was alluding to; this is an example of someone in effect saying that my attitude could not possibly be that of an immigrant, that I must be a pretender of some sort. QED.

[amador]

Of course, maybe the OP would mistake this as "attitude" and "real deal" posse,  but frankly his tone sounds to me more like nativist victimism.

See, this is exactly the attitude I am talking about, that as an immigrant I am expected to have a certain tone, that I am supposed to close rank behind other immigrants, and when that tone doesn't meet muster among certain others, then I have got to be "nativist." This is the name calling that I was alluding to; this is an example of someone in effect saying that my attitude could not possibly be that of an immigrant, that I must be a pretender of some sort. QED.

I should pay more attention about the OP's names.  Had I known it was you, I wouldn't have bothered to answer.  But since you insist...

I don't know whether you're American or immigrant... And for the time being I don't care. It's about your statement, not about you.  Whether you can accept it or not, immigrants or minorities can adopt "nativist" attitudes.  American cultural history lesson: the slur "kikes" was coined by established Manhattan Jews against Eastern European Jews fleeing Tsarist persecution.

[jonesey]

Can't we please stop all of this immigrant on immigrant violence?

[ajarn]

"I don't know whether you're American or immigrant"

Why use "or" instead of "or/and" ?