High-Tech Housewives

Indian IT Workers, Gendered Labor, and Transmigration

Amy Bhatt, Padma Kaimal, Anand A. Yang, K. Sivaramakrishnan

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780295743561
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft promote the free flow of data worldwide, while relying on foreign temporary IT workers to build, deliver, and support their products. However, even as IT companies use technology and commerce to transcend national barriers, their transnational employees face significant migration and visa constraints. In this revealing ethnography, Amy Bhatt shines a spotlight on Indian IT migrants and their struggles to navigate career paths, citizenship, and belonging as they move between South Asia and the United States. Through in-depth interviews, Bhatt explores the complex factors that shape IT transmigration and settlement, looking at Indian cultural norms, kinship obligations, friendship networks, gendered and racialized discrimination in the workplace, and inflexible and unstable visa regimes that create worker vulnerability. In particular, Bhatt highlights women's experiences as workers and dependent spouses who move as part of temporary worker programs. Many of the women interviewed were professional peers to their husbands in India but found themselves "housewives" stateside, unable to secure employment because of visa restrictions. Through her focus on the unpaid and feminized placemaking and caregiving labor these women provide, Bhatt shows how women's labor within the household is vital to the functioning of the flexible and transnational system of IT itself.

1 Transmigrants

Identity, Nationalism, and Bridge Building

AS A YOUNG UNMARRIED MAN IN HIS LATE TWENTIES, HARSHAD is like so many H-1B visa holders who are eager to work abroad soon after completing their undergraduate degrees in India. Having obtained a degree in computer engineering, Harshad sought admission to a master’s degree program and, upon being accepted, moved to the United States immediately after graduation. Once he finished his master’s, Harshad located a contracting job at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. When we first met, he had just completed the first three years on his H-1B visa. He was in the process of applying for a renewal in the hopes of staying with the same team. Harshad recounts how his passion motivated him—both for his chosen field of IT and also his desire to move abroad: “I was one of those blind candidates who thought of USA as the land of opportunity.” Harshad did not really know what to expect once he entered the country, but he was convinced that living in the US would be personally and professionally beneficial. In practical terms, this meant successfully trading in his student visa for an H-1B visa, even though he understood that locating a permanent position was not guaranteed.

Despite political debates about the overuse of temporary worker visas in IT, securing an H-1B visa is actually a complicated process that shuts out many eager applicants each year. Though a persistently popular avenue for Indian migration, since its reformulation as a skilled worker visa in 1990, the H-1B program has generated a hailstorm of controversy. More recently, the program has faced restrictions under the Trump administration, which has argued that reducing immigration will create more jobs for US-born workers and inhibit possible terrorist threats. In light of travel bans for people from Muslim-majority countries, reduced admittance of refugees, and assaults on undocumented immigrants, restricting temporary visa programs has become part of a partisan and populist attempt to pit “native” workers against foreign competition. The H-1B visa offers US corporations a competitive advantage by allowing them to hire the most talented workers, regardless of nationality or country of origin. These workers pay income and Social Security taxes.¹ They are granted permission to work in the US for short periods of time, but do not have the same rights as permanent residents or citizens. Supporters of the program claim that the lack of qualified labor makes hiring foreign workers necessary. Critics of the program argue that when US firms look to countries such as India and China to fill information technology jobs, US workers are unduly displaced. They argue that the program depresses wages for all technology workers and effectively shuts out women and minorities from the field who might otherwise have been hired.

However, as Payal Banerjee has argued, the importance of the program also “lies in how the visas define and construct the terms through which immigrant workers enter into relationships with employers, capital, and the state.”² Though these terms generally benefit the companies that hire temporary workers, the visa transforms foreign nationals into transmigrants who view time working abroad as pivotal to achieving career success. They also use the skills and habits they learn while in the US as a way to claim membership in a highly sought-after class of global workers. At the same time, some workers feel resentful of the restrictions placed on them, and their expectations often do not match the realities of life in the US.

Considering the debates over transnational migration as they intersect with temporary work, in this chapter I ask: How do workers position themselves as intractably valuable in the US and India, while also navigating the constraints placed on them through the US visa and immigration system? Through interviews with current and former H-1B workers, I argue that as part of a “middling transnationalism,” or the non-elite transnational middle classes, these workers embrace their liminality even when accepting relatively insecure jobs abroad.³ Once in the US, they position themselves as bridge builders between the West and the Indian nation-state. I analyze their involvement in India-oriented social welfare organizations to show how they internalize and apply neoliberal and techno-capitalist cultures of IT to volunteer development efforts in India. Through this civic work, transmigrants seek incorporation into the imaginary of their home country as ideal nationalists, even when they are dislocated from the nation-state. Transmigrant agency is undoubtedly limited by the tangible constraints of visa restrictions and job markets. However, the transmigrant narration of professional and personal aspiration adds a critical dimension to debates that go beyond exploitation or valorization to describe temporary worker programs. As the cases here demonstrate, temporary worker visas allow Indian IT workers to create a transmigrant identity that both supersedes and is closely aligned with the nation-state.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE H-1B PROGRAM

The juridical and bureaucratic backdrop to Indian IT transmigrant experiences is the H-1B Specialty Occupation Visa Program. The H-1B program has existed in its current form for nearly three decades and is a flashpoint in ongoing debates about immigration reform and the role of the US in the global economy. A central part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1990, H-1B visas dramatically expanded the number of individuals migrating to the US to work in the technology, education, health-care, and finance sectors. The 1990 law increased the cap for total employment-based immigrant visas from 58,000 (the limit since 1976) to 140,000 annually.⁴ The H-1B visa allows employers to sponsor workers for permanent residency, rendering it a “dual intent” visa with pathways to citizenship. If employees are unable to find an employer who is willing to sponsor them for permanent residency before the end of their visa period, the workers must return to their country of origin.⁵ H-1B visa holders can change jobs only if a new employer files a new petition; they can also switch roles in the same company if their current employer is willing to apply for a new visa. This regulation keeps many from changing jobs, since doing so often delays transmigrants in the process of applying for permanent residency.

The 1990s also marked the beginning of the dot-com boom, as the demand for information technology services grew at an exponential rate. Pockets of industry such as Silicon Valley and the Seattle suburbs grew quickly from sleepy West Coast outposts to centers of global technological commerce and innovation, all fueled by immigrant labor. Almost half of H-1B visas are awarded to staffing companies, or “body shops,” which provide contract workers for US-based companies. The majority of these companies, such as Wipro, Tata Consulting Services, Infosys, and Hindu Computers Ltd., are based in India or supply Indian workers to US companies. Between 1999 and 2001, anxiety about making adequate technological preparations for the turn of the millennium, or “Y2K,” accelerated US dependence on hiring foreign technology workers, as companies scrambled to update various banking, data processing, and other computing systems. After 2003, the number of new visas available was capped again at 85,000.⁶ All H-1B visas are allocated through a lottery system. In 2015, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 233,000 H-1B applications within a month. In 2016, they reached the lottery cap within six days of opening, after receiving 236,000 applications. In 2017, the USCIS received over 336,000 applications for new visas and renewals. Of these, 69 percent were for workers in computing-related industries.⁷

The H-1B visa program also created measures for family reunification through the H-4 visa, which has been used primarily for H-1B workers to bring spouses and children to the US. The spouses or children (under twenty-one years of age) of H-1Bs are issued H-4 visas. The visa restricts its holder from working formally and is classified as a dependent visa, which means that it is valid only as long as the primary H-1B visa holder is in good standing. In 2014, President Obama signed a major executive order that allowed H-4 visa holders to apply for the Employment Authorization Document (EAD), which authorized them to work legally.⁸ According to the USCIS in 2015, as many as 179,600 people were eligible to apply for the EAD in the first year alone, and up to 55,000 could apply annually after that.⁹ Although many welcomed the rule change, new backlogs also emerged, as applications poured in from eager H-4 visa holders who have been waiting for years for the chance to work. While unrestricted in terms of employment type, work authorization for H-4 visa holders is still tied to the H-1B visa holder’s legal standing. Thus, if the spouse’s work authorization is revoked, the H-4 visa holder’s authorization will very likely be rescinded soon after.

Under the Trump administration, new legislative efforts to reform the program continue to create uncertainty about the future. As of April 2017, Trump issued his own set of executive orders limiting the “premium processing” of H-1B visas, which some companies have used to fast-track certain visa applications by paying additional fees. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also has indicated that the White House will not support work authorization for H-4 visa holders, though there have not been definitive policies crafted to rescind President Obama’s executive actions. In Congress, advocates continue to argue for an increase in the numbers of available visas. They have argued for a market-based escalator and for eliminating the backlog of green card applications from current H-1B visa holders.¹⁰ In contrast, detractors play on claims that foreign guest workers are cheaper, less qualified, and are conspiring to depress US wages.¹¹ This negative perception has spilled over into the debates about the H-4 visa program, as spouses of H-1B visa holders are also seen as competitors for US jobs, if they were granted work authorization. This latter perspective has grown even more virulent under Trump, who, through his presidential campaign and subsequent policy agendas, has successfully linked globalization and terrorism with immigration as a major cause for the decline in white working-class stability and US security. Trump’s administration has signaled its intention to severely cut back the program, even though the industries that use the visa have voiced strong opposition to these plans. Trumpian logic, while not a new idea, holds that foreigners (particularly nonwhite, non-Western ones) pose a growing and insidious threat to US safety and economic growth, and must be curtailed. What has been alarming has been the backlash that workers themselves are facing daily and the attempts made by the White House to dismantle Obama-era immigration reforms, regardless of the legality of those actions. These anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and xenophobic sentiments have led to a slight waning in foreign workers’ desire to apply for the program, as news media outlets have reported anecdotally.¹² Considering the instability and potential backlash that temporary workers face, what appeal does the program hold for young Indian IT workers?

AMERICAN DREAMS AND VISA NIGHTMARES

Despite the ambivalent reception guest workers may face, H-1B applications continue to exceed the annual cap, and over 70 percent of all applications come from India. The reasons that the H-1B visa holds such sway are complex. In practical terms, the visa offers training opportunities that workers view as better than what they enjoy in India. Additionally, H-1B visas typically lead to more permanent affiliation in the US and often ensure future mobility once workers are able to establish residency or become citizens. Salaries are also generally better in the US, and even a short stint abroad allows workers to amass capital. However, workers are also motivated by additional factors, such family encouragement, the desire to experience life outside of India, and the opportunity to expand their professional networks and develop interpersonal skills. These reasons constellate beyond economic understandings of migration and shape young IT workers’ desire to become transmigrants more broadly.

PURSUING THE H-1B VISA

Soon after finishing his undergraduate degree in India, Sandeep, a twenty-six-year-old working at Microsoft at the time of our interview, was eager to migrate abroad on an H-1B. As part of a large upper-caste South Indian extended family, he had several cousins living in the US. Also, his school peers tended to viewed migration as a rite of passage and a natural extension of their training. At top universities across Indian metropolises every year, recruiters from the world’s major software and technology firms stand in partitioned booths eagerly disseminating company brochures to prospective graduates, who shuffle anxiously from table to table, clutching their résumés. These job fairs have become standard for Indian students as they transition into the working world. Indian contracting companies compete with Microsoft and Google to hire graduates for employment opportunities that range from providing technical customer support to developing new products and services. For many, the potential to travel abroad shapes their decision to join a particular firm.

After Sandeep completed his engineering degree at a regional college in Chennai, he wanted to pursue a master’s degree that would give him the training needed to access higher tiers of jobs. He had his heart set on a degree from one of India’s highly selective Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), but found the competition for admission to be too fierce. He began working for a small Indian software development firm, but continued to apply to graduate school. Sandeep felt that he had a better shot at getting into an American university, where Indians are welcomed as foreign students with strong math skills who pay higher tuition rates. Rather than join an Indian IT company directly, Sandeep first obtained a student visa, which allowed him to work immediately after graduation as part of the “optional training program.” The OTP allows students to remain in the US for up to twenty-seven months in order to gain practical skills in some fields.¹³ After that, he would have to obtain an H-1B work permit. When I asked why it was so important to him that he come to the US, Sandeep was clear that his future job prospects hinged on his ability to work here, even if only briefly:

I’d say [it’s about] the American dream, more than anything else. Also, to just get the firsthand experience of what things are like, what the real computer software game was like. I was working in, I should say, a second-tier software company in India. They aren’t, like, the core software companies in India. Whoever has a real passion for software and IT, they don’t mind leaving India if they want to, if they are really passionate. They would want to pursue what they won’t get in India. I have some friends who got some good jobs after graduation in India, but they wanted to pursue their US dream. So they got in some American university and now they are working in very good software companies here.

Here, the “American dream” is a simulacrum for economic success for transmigrants, but also a way to describe what it means to be at the center of the IT universe. Sandeep connects this dream to his “passion” for the IT field and the chance to prove himself in the more competitive environment of the US software sector. He points to the geopolitical imbalance between sites like India, which is considered an auxiliary or second-tier site for software development, and the Western countries that host the corporate headquarters and research and development branches of major IT firms. International offices tend to employ cheaper on-site labor and provide opportunities to redirect or altogether avoid corporate taxes in the US, even as they fortify foreign markets. Nevertheless, when compared to US IT sites, they are rarely considered the center of innovation, where the major decisions about design, implementation, distribution, and strategy are made.

The so-called American dream also is an expression of mobility and the key for future opportunities. In a survey of nearly 1,000 Indian graduate students in the US, Venkatesh Kumar, David Finegold, Anne-Laure Winkler, and Vikas Argod found that 53 percent wanted to work for some period of time in the US in order to gain exposure to cutting-edge technologies, research, and projects.¹⁴ Many hoped to leverage that knowledge into better opportunities in India upon their return or to find positions permanently in the US. Similarly, among Chinese nationals, Lisong Liu notes the vital role that foreign work exposure and credentialing plays for negotiating better salaries or jobs when workers return to China.¹⁵ As a result, transmigrants such as Sandeep are willing to risk insecure jobs and endure the long and often painful gyrations of the immigration process in the hopes of securing better opportunities in the future.

While conducting interviews, I also spoke via Skype to Situ, another young man from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. At the time of our conversation, Situ was in Canada, waiting to obtain a new H-1B visa. He had moved in 2008 to the US as a consultant for an India-based company that contracted with Microsoft. After a few years of contracting, he had his heart set on staying on permanently. Finding that Situ was a valuable addition, the project manager of his team agreed to hire him as a direct employee, which meant initiating a new H-1B visa application. While waiting for the H-1B visa, Situ began working at a Microsoft facility located just over the Washington State border in Vancouver, British Columbia. After obtaining a Canadian work permit, he hoped that he might qualify for an intracompany transfer, or the L-1 visa, which is used by businesses to move employees from overseas branches to the US for short-term projects. They are easier to obtain than the H-1B, as they are not subject to a lottery. Canada’s relatively less restrictive skilled worker immigration policy provides real advantages to companies such as Microsoft, which can employ foreign workers who are able to work in the same time zones as their team members and travel relatively quickly across the border between Redmond and Vancouver. For this reason, Microsoft has a growing presence in British Columbia, and, with the opening of a new engineering facility in 2016, the company anticipates doubling the size of its workforce in Vancouver. Situ described his Canadian office like a global holding pen: “There are so many people here from Turkey, Romania, Hungary, and, of course, India. There’s a big gang of people from Egypt, ...