Is Settling in USA worth it for Indians.?
By Venkat Ankam.!!- QUORA Q & ALives in Fairfax VA.!!
Let me portray the typical life cycle of Indians in the USA with their living
conditions and then I will let you decide whether settling in the USA is worth
or not.
As an Indian immigrant in the USA, I have been asking myself this question for
a quite long time. The reality is 95% of the Indian immigrants are settling in
the US and only 5% of the immigrants are going back to India. I wondered if the
“Major chunk(95%) of people settling in the US are making a wise decision or
the small chunk(5%) of people going back are making a bad decision?” So I asked
this question to my friends and colleagues from the 95% category but I could
not get any subtle or profound answers. It looked like people are just
following the crowd or falling into the trap, and not be able to go back later
in life. So I did my own research asking specific set of survey questions to
different age people. So let me share my findings.
First of all, why do Indians migrate to the US? One single answer for this
question is scope for higher income, savings, low stress and a happy life
without any common issues we experience in India. Now let's see how these
objectives are met during the life cycle of these Indian immigrants. Let me use
the word NRI to describe them better.
My survey was limited to NRIs in the field of science and technology who are
mostly in working class and also to a few business class NRIs as well. I took
ratings on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 is low and 10 is high) for earnings, savings,
stress levels, family relationships and happiness from different age categories
with their typical activities in their life cycle. I realized that not every
NRI in the US opens up because of ‘private space’ concept. So I chose people I
have good relationship with and who are really open and can share feelings of
their life. The Survey was conducted with a casual talk/discussion rather than
a professional way of conducting surveys.
Based on the survey results and experiences shared by participants, I
categorized the life cycle of immigrants into four different generic phases
(Transform, Settle, Growth and Suffer) as shown in the graph below. Every
person’s life is different so the depicted life cycle or living conditions may
not apply to every NRI. It may vary for few people and life events may overlap
between phases. This might be totally different for the new NRIs coming to the
US because of longer green card wait time and ever changing immigration
policies.
Now let me describe these phases with typical life events.
Transform Phase (21 to 28 years): This an excitement phase which starts right
from India after getting the US visa. One tries to get to know the culture of
the US, what to do before and after entering the US and starts living the
American Dream. Parents feel proud of this great achievement by their kids and
start making big expectations and hopes. Starts sharing this news to neighbors
and relatives and throw a big party as if their kid already succeeded in life.
Arrives in the US without the awareness that he/she broke generations of living
together and unity in their families. Typically nobody think or care about how
life will be in the US after 40s, 50s or 60s in this stage. One gets really
amazed with the best infrastructure of America and starts loving it. Gets used
to American life style with few hiccups. Starts making some money and will have
parties, shopping, vacation trips and realizes that life is very comfortable in
the US. Transfers money to India to support family and talks to relatives and
friends and shares the greatness of America. Parents will start looking for a
bride/groom. Starts green card process to continue living in American dream.
NRIs are very happy in this phase with lots of excitement and joy that American
life brings in.
Settle Phase (28 to 40 years): After a couple of trips to India, gets married
and spouse arrives in the US. Couple is very happy in the beginning with
vacation trips and parties. Realizes that expenses are higher than living as a
bachelor. First baby arrives and parents and in-laws visit America. Advances in
green card process, switches jobs and moves to new locations. Second baby
arrives and then visits India with kids. Realizes that their parents are not
quite happy staying alone in India. Also realizes that India has changed a lot
and quite expensive than ever. Thinks that they may not be able to fit in India
and also India is not a right fit for the kids. NRIs usually decides to go on
the path of settling down in the US with a backup plan of going back. Buys Town
Home/Condo and switches to luxury cars. Realizes that single income is not
really sustainable in the US. Wife decides to do a job instead of getting bored
at home. So Income doubles, savings doubles but stress levels go up.. Green
card arrives and they feel relaxed of immigration issues. Vacation trips
becomes hard with little kids so no big vacations.
Happiness level comes down due to missing family relationships and not able to
take care of ageing parents.
Growth Phase (40 to 50 years): Moves on career ladder and starts making big
bucks and also start making big bucks from secondary sources of income like
stocks. Some might start a startup company or any business. Usually pretty busy
with kids school and extra curricular activities. Buys a single family home and
moves to a bigger home. Kids are grown up now so vacations are back. Parents
are not able to visit because they don’t like to stay in the US. Also parent’s
health will become a big concern. Makes few arrangements for parents in India
but they are always temporary. Few realize that their friends in India have
made more money in India than them. Realizes that they need to focus more on
health aspects so starts some physical activities to keep their body fit.
Higher income, higher savings and most successful phase (professionally) for
most people but happiness level further comes down because of lack of
relationships.
Suffer Phase (Above 50 years): Kids usually finish their high school and go to
a college.. All savings will vanish in kids college education. Kids finish
their education and start their job at a different place in the US. The couple
is alone at big home away from parents and away from kids. They cannot think of
going back because of kids and setting up everything from scratch in India
would be a daunting task. Whenever they visit India they clearly see that
family relationships are faded away because of settling in US. Most people
thought that early in growth phase would have been an ideal situation to go
back to India before kids enters middle school with a mind set of going back in
settle phase.
Most people expressed that “We got everything we wanted in life, but we lost
all relationships”. Some people expressed concern like “I wish I knew the
downsides or effects of immigration later in the life”.
Starts indulging deeply in social and charity activities to keep them busy and
also for social recognition. Usually takes up American citizenship in this
phase while some takes up in growth phase only.
Works until 65 years of age to pay off mortgage and retires at the age of 65.
After 65 years they start getting social security and healthcare benefits from
government. But they continue to work in some retirement jobs to keep them busy
or to earn some extra income for unknown expenses.
Just to summarize, life is happy in the beginning but happiness tends to fade
away and brings suffering to life after 50s. Materialistic culture of America
makes you a successful person professionally and materialistically, but deserts
your life. One interesting observation during this study — most of the people
who immigrated to America had no plans to settle in the US and most of the
settled ones said, “We are not sure we might go back”.
Every NRI looks like a happy person from outside but everyone has a dark side
story to tell from inside of their heart.
Life in the US rotates around profession, immigration process and kids. NRIs
tend to “sacrifice their life for kids of next generation.” Kids seems to be
happy with no complaints about life as they are in young age; the second
generation, Indian-Americans, will have friends but might not have family
relationships too? So they might end up in the same boat after 50 years age?
Needs further research…
Thanks to my friends, colleagues and elders from community who humbly shared
their deep thoughts from life for this small write-up and also helping me to
make a strong decision to go back to India.
Hope this helps. Everybody’s requirements are different. So just a make a firm
decision to settle here or to go back based on your own requirements and
priorities, not based on what other NRIs are doing.
People who expressed negative sentiment are still in transform phase in US or
few youngsters in India (Probably with American dream)
Interestingly this was found to be true for other immigrants/expats too, not
just Indians.
Most of them expressed a feeling that this is a problem for the first
generation of immigrants. Later generations will not have such problems. Need
to research this further.
Many people who expressed positive sentiment felt that situation might be
similar in India as well. Need to research more in this
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