1. Introduction

Silicon Valley is a fifty-mile long corridor of land in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Northern California. The area is home to more than seven thousand electronics and software companies and it is seen as the main hub of the global information technology (IT) industry. The relentless economic growth of the area is based on the existence of several major transnational IT corporations, the constant flow of engineering talent from universities such as University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, and the thousands of small-to-medium-size start-up firms, driven by money from the area’s venture capital firms. There is a considerable body of literature on the historical development of Silicon Valley and the workings of the system today (Saxenian 1994).

However, much of the dynamism of Silicon Valley in the last forty years has not come from new firms or technologies, but from the significant numbers of highly skilled foreign-born immigrants settling in the area. The influx of immigrants to the area was initiated by the Immigration Act of 1965 – known as Hart-Cellar Act – which allowed immigration based on the possession of scarce skills, such as those in engineering or computer science. The Immigration Act of 1990 further favoured the immigration of engineers to the United States by almost tripling the number of visas granted on the basis of occupational skills from 54,000 to 140,000 annually (Saxenian 1999, 10). Indians have been one of the most significant immigrant groups to Silicon Valley. According to 1990 census data, Indians made up 23 percent of the region’s Asian-born engineers (Saxenian 1999, 12). With a generally good command of English and highly developed technical skills, Indians are an especially important part of the software industry in Silicon Valley. In 1988, almost 43 percent of Indian immigrants in the United States held managerial or professional positions, and another 36 percent held technical, sales and administrative support jobs (Lessinger 1992, 60). In addition, Indians in Silicon Valley are highly entrepreneurial: 23 percent of e-commerce companies in Silicon Valley were started by Indians (Taylor 1999).

Another aspect crucial to the functioning of Silicon Valley is its social networks. Saxenian concludes that opportunities for career mobility in Silicon Valley are critically shaped by participation in social structures and institutions that transcend the boundaries between firms and sectors (Saxenian 1999a, 1). In addition, knowledge about new products and technologies circulates rapidly in Silicon Valley, and many start-up firms are based on the social ties and relations which bring groups of engineers together to start a new firm.

Social networks are highly important to Indian immigrant communities in three main ways. First, the process of migration to the United States appears to be a highly social process. It is expected that Indians wishing to migrate will have family or friends already in the United States who can act as sources of information and advice on the immigration process. The most prestigious universities and technical colleges in India have close links with multinational firms in India as well as alumni groups in the United States. This social aspect to immigration is identified by Lessinger, who comments that ‘quantities of information about the educational and employment strategies for migration now circulate within the middle-class kinship circles of every large Indian city,’ and that ‘virtually every family at a certain social level has at least one member living abroad in Europe, North America or the Middle East’ (Lessinger 1992, 60).

The second important aspect of social networks to Indians exists within the Indian community in Silicon Valley. In a culture and environment that is so different to India, it is expected that these networks are highly developed. Portes notes that immigrant social networks display two characteristics that those linking domestic workers do not have. First, they are simultaneously dense and extend over long physical distances. Second, they tend to generate solidarity by virtue of generalised uncertainty. Exchange under conditions of uncertainty creates stronger bonds among participants than that which takes place with full information and impartially enforced rules (Portes 1997, 8). Indian immigrant social networks are particularly interesting; one would expect them to be very tight as they collectively adapt to a new economic and social life in Silicon Valley.

The third and perhaps most interesting aspect to immigrant social networks is the ties and social relations which immigrants build and maintain with their home countries. This concept of fostering ties with more than one country is explored in the literature on transnationalism. ‘Transnationalism’ is defined as ‘the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement…many immigrants today build social fields that cross geographic, cultural and political borders…an essential element is the multiplicity of involvements that transmigrants sustain in both home and host societies’ (Basch et al. 1994, 6). In the case of Indian transnationalism, this may involve flows of monetary and non-monetary resources, skills, knowledge, commodities and cultural values between India and Silicon Valley. Indeed, Lessinger comments that ‘the overall impression, therefore, is of an immigrant population in the United States of which a sector is still closely tied to daily life ‘at home’ and maintains a stake in Indian society’ (Lessinger 1992, 62).

Aims and organisation of the study

This dissertation investigates these three aspects of immigrant social networks. It will analyse various aspects of the migration process and show whether the Indian immigrant experience equates with other literature on Indian immigrant groups and immigrant communities more generally.

First, the dissertation aims to assess Indian migration to the United States: the motives of immigrants, the geographical distribution of immigration in India and Silicon Valley, the immigration process and the role of social networks in the migration process.

Second, I analyse the social networks which exist within the Indian community in Silicon Valley. This involves identifying the characteristics of Indian networks, and assessing how these networks provide economic and social support structures to the community, which operate on a range of scales.

The third aim is to analyse the social networks which exist between Indian communities in Silicon Valley and communities in India, and to assess how applicable comments on skilled migration in the literature are to the Silicon Valley Indian community. By analysing and quantifying whether Indians are involved in the flow of resources and knowledge back to India, and whether they physically want to return to India in the future, the dissertation aims to assess how India can capture the resources, skills and knowledge of the Indian community in Silicon Valley. Traditionally, the impression of immigrant groups in the United States is that they are fixed and generally do not wish to return home. This dissertation aims to test whether this hypothesis is the case, and examine what reasons push Indian immigrants to move back to India or pull them to stay in Silicon Valley.

2. Literature Review

Although there exists an extensive body of literature covering globalisation and international labour markets, much less work has been done on the local scale process of skilled labour migration and transnational communities. As Salt notes, ‘despite the obvious importance of migration by the highly skilled to the development and management of the international economy, knowledge of the patterns and processes of their movement is poor’ (Salt 1997, 8). Analysing the processes of Asian-Indian migration to the United States and the communities Indians establish on a local scale will hopefully provide some insight into how such communities fit into economic and social processes acting at the global scale.

The first issue critical to understanding the Indian community in Silicon Valley is the process of migration. The patterns and processes of skilled migration are analysed by Salt, who argues that employers are proactive in their approach to recruiting abroad. He says that ‘modern industries and services increasingly rely upon the acquisition, deployment and use of human expertise to add value in their operations. Where this expertise is not available locally, employers search for it abroad’ (Salt 1997, 4). This view is confirmed by Portes who notes that ‘contrary to widespread perceptions, immigrants come to the wealthier nations less because they want to than because they are needed’ (Portes 1997, 5). He further notes that ‘the fundamental point is that contemporary core-bound immigration is not an optional process, but one driven by the structural requirements of advanced capitalist accumulation’ (Portes 1997, 7). Capitalist accumulation is scarcely more advanced than in hi-technology industry in Silicon Valley. As Salt notes, ‘electronic engineering companies, almost by definition, are highly organic, changing their character to take advantage of new products and technologies. They need international labour market structures that provide them with maximum flexibility to respond to new staffing requirements’ (Salt 1997, 18).

Thus, the relentless process of capital accumulation, the pursuit of profit, and the presence of multinational firms have resulted in the demand for labour being greatest in areas where capital accumulation is greatest. Salt notes that ‘flows of highly skilled labour occur within a new global division of labour which has resulted from the restructuring of the world economy. New technologies have revolutionised both processes and products, altering the equation between capital and labour’ (Salt 1997, 9). Salt further notes that ‘as the speed and reliability with which people and goods could be moved between regions has increased, so has the geographical distribution and complexity of industrial organisations able to exploit the newly accessible territories’ (Salt 1997, 9).

Consideration of how labour fits into the institutions and processes of global capitalism has led to the development of the term ‘transnationalism’ or ‘transnational communities’. These terms are approached with caution by Portes, who notes that ‘the concept of transnationality, like that of globalisation itself, threatens to become part of one of those passing fads that grip social scientists’ attention for a while only to fade into oblivion’ (Portes 1997, 3). However, Portes does believe that there is substance to the term and that if successful, ‘the concept may actually perform double duty as part of the theoretical arsenal with which we approach the world system structures, but also as an element in a less developed enterprise, namely the analysis of the everyday networks and patterns of social relationships that emerge in and around those structures’ (Portes 1997, 3). As noted earlier, transnationalism is defined as ‘the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement’ (Basch et al. 1994, 6)

Smith and Guarnizo (1998) note that our attempt to differentiate between the local from the national and the global political organisation of transnational spaces points to the growing interdependence of geographic scales. This means that the boundaries limiting people cut across the politically instituted boundaries of nation states. However, Smith and Guarnizo note that transnational actions are bounded in two senses – first, by the understandings of ‘grounded reality’, socially constructed within the transnational networks that people form and move through; and second, by the policies and practices of territorially-based sending and receiving local and national states and communities. Smith and Guarnizo conclude by saying that ‘a main concern guiding transnational research should be the study of the causes of transnationalism and the effects that transnational practices and discourses have on pre-existing power structures, identities and social organisation’ (Smith and Guarnizo 1998, 29).

Transnationalism is based on social networks, which form the building blocks for economic and production networks. These networks require a level of trust; as Granovetter argues, ‘…social relations, rather than institutional arrangements or generalised morality, are mainly responsible for the production of trust in economic life’ (Granovetter 1985, 491). One of the most remarkable aspects of Silicon Valley is its networks. Immigrant groups that might be considered to be transnational communities in Silicon Valley should therefore have some of the strongest personal networks, both within Silicon Valley and with their home countries. This is linked to the concept of ‘social capital’. According to Portes, ‘social capital refers to the capacity of individuals to command scarce resources by virtue of their membership in networks or broader social structures’ (Portes 1995, 12). These scarce resources include employment tips, advice on business conditions, or interest-free loans. However, Portes notes that these resources themselves are not social capital, the concept refers instead to the individuals’ ‘ability’ to mobilise them on demand.

Saxenian examines the role of immigrant networks in Silicon Valley, noting that Silicon Valley’s immigrants, and especially immigrant entrepreneurs, ‘rely on a diverse range of informal social structures and institutions to support their entrepreneurial activities’ (Saxenian 1999, 27). Saxenian further notes that ‘Chinese and Indian engineers have created a wide range of professional and technical associations that facilitate job search, information exchange, access to capital and managerial know-how as well as the creation of shared ethnic identities’.

At the same time, Indians in Silicon Valley are building ties back to communities in India. These ties are built on social networks and often lead to the development of economic ties, for example through Indians abroad investing in firms at home. Saxenian notes that Indians, and especially Indian entrepreneurs, ‘are creating transnational communities that provide the shared information, contacts, and trust that allow local producers to participate in an increasingly global economy’ (Saxenian 1999a, 44). Lessinger also comments that skilled Indians abroad seem to offer ‘a reservoir of capital, skills and entrepreneurial zeal which might be of great benefit to India’ (Lessinger 1992, 55).

Skilled labour migration is closely connected with the concept of ‘brain drain’ in the literature. Salt notes that ‘the economically most developed countries routinely exchange high level skills, while increasingly the less developed world is being brought into skill exchange and ‘brain drain’ networks’ (Salt 1997, 4). The issue of Indian immigrants returning home is addressed by Lessinger, who notes that ‘immigrant guilt and ambivalence is on weekly view in the United States in the Indian immigrant press, a tremendously important forum for debate and soul-searching within the community…they debate the virtues of staying, of going home, or of trying to create some kind of bicultural, bi-continental existence for themselves’ (Lessinger 1992, 61). These links between immigrant communities in Silicon Valley and communities at home are identified by Saxenian, who notes that Silicon Valley’s immigrant engineers ‘provide the critical contacts, information, and cultural know-how that link dynamic – but distant – regions in the global economy’ (Saxenian 1999b, 46). Furthermore, Lessinger notes that ‘significant numbers of first-generation Indian immigrants, primarily residents of the United States and Britain…have become investors in India’s newly opened economy. These expatriates, known as Non-Resident Indians, or more popularly, NRIs, invest their savings – accumulated overseas from professional salaries, business enterprises and profitable domestic investment – in Indian industrial ventures and Indian banks’ (Lessinger 1992, 54).

Saxenian observes that recent research suggests that ‘brain drain’ may be giving way to a process of ‘brain circulation,’ as talented immigrants who study and work in the United States return to their home countries to take advantage of promising opportunities there. Johnson and Regets claim that less than half of the foreign students who earned doctorates in 1990 and 1991 were working in the U.S. in 1995. However, 88 percent of Chinese and 79 percent of Indians stayed in the U.S. This compares with only 13 percent, 11 percent, and 42 percent from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, respectively (Johnson and Regets 1998, 3). Whether or not Indians in Silicon Valley wish to return home, and the reasons surrounding this decision, are examined in this dissertation. Another key aspect is the economic and social networks established by Indian communities in Silicon Valley. For as Cohen notes, ‘a world economy is propelled by many social and economic actors, including states, international organisations and transnational corporations. These may be the sinews binding the ends of the earth together, but the flesh and blood are the family, kin, clan and ethnic networks that organise trade and allow the unencumbered flow of economic transactions and family migrants’ (Cohen 1997, 176).

3. Methodology

Much of the existing research on immigrant communities focuses on analysis of secondary sources of information and subject interviews. Little work has been done which assesses the characteristics and attitudes of Indian immigrant groups in the United States. To try to go some way to address this, this dissertation will draw on a range of quantitative and qualitative field material, but will be primarily based on a questionnaire with follow-up interviews. It is hoped that while this will result in a quantitative assessment of the Indian community in Silicon Valley, these numbers can be validated and enriched by the personal opinions and experiences of Indians themselves.

Internet Questionnaire

One of the major difficulties with research in Silicon Valley is access to people and information. While mailing questionnaires is expensive and may have limited results, securing time in the schedules of people working in Silicon Valley is even more difficult. Using an online questionnaire on the world wide web is a means of getting around this problem. First, Silicon Valley is based on computers, so the target population of the questionnaire is likely to be regular users of computers and the internet. Second, the use of an online questionnaire has the potential for a higher response than a post-based questionnaire. Third, online questionnaires are easy and convenient to complete, and it is likely that the majority of the target population would be comfortable using an online questionnaire.

However, the use of the web for collecting information has a number of problems associated with it. In respondents’ minds, confidentially is perhaps more of an issue than with traditional methods, as many users of the internet are reluctant to divulge personal information about themselves. Second, it is much more difficult to keep tight control on the composition of the sample population, as the questionnaire is available to everyone connected to the internet. Third, while gathering information on the web is not inherently difficult, there are many technical issues and problems which need to be overcome.

The web questionnaire I constructed includes 45 questions, in three main sections: Migration to the U.S.A, Links with Home Country, and Personal Information (for copy of questionnaire, see Appendix). The questionnaire was published on the web using Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML). The site was housed on a computer server at Jesus College that could then be accessed by anyone connected to the internet. Once the form is completed, a ‘Submit’ button allows respondents to send their information to the server, which processes the results and stores them in a comma separated value (CSV) file.

One of the main issues was deciding how best to publicise the questionnaire within the Indian community in Silicon Valley. It was decided that the best way to achieve this was to use established mailing lists of Indians in Silicon Valley and to post a notice to an Indian discussion group on the internet advertising the site. These are set out in Table 3.1. In total, 130 Indians completed the questionnaire.

Table 3.1

Indian mailing lists to which the questionnaire was advertised

Community name		Community characteristics
Silicon Valley Indian Professional Association (SIPA)
	Venture Capital Mailing List	Mailing list for SIPA members interested in venture capital activity
	Web Interest Mailing List	Mailing list for SIPA members interested in web technologies
	Investment Mailing List	Mailing list for SIPA members interested in investment issues
Oracle Corporation Indians Mailing List		Mailing list for Indian employees of Oracle corporation
Sun Microsystems Indians Mailing List		Mailing list for Indian employees of Sun Microsystems
Internet discussion group: alt.clture.indian		Internet newsgroup for Indian cultural affairs
Publicity at meeting of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE)		Questionnaire publicised through a brief presentation at a TIE meeting

Personal interviews

The final section of the web questionnaire contained a question on whether the respondent would be available for an interview to explore some of the issues raised in the questionnaire in more depth. Willing respondents were asked to complete their names and contact details. Interviews were then held with those respondents. The questions asked in the interviews were tailored to each individual, with reference to the knowledge gained from the questionnaire results. Nine Indians were interviewed in the period 12/9/99-24/9/99.

Email interviews

Some respondents to the questionnaire were willing to participate further in the research, but were not able to give the time for a face-to-face interview. These respondents were sent a list of ten open-ended questions by email, which could be answered and returned. Although this research method is limited in terms of the amount of interaction possible with the respondent, it was possible to gain a good number of responses to a set of standard questions. Six Indians participated by email.

Online interviews

It was hoped that the use of internet chat, where two parties can interact though typing text messages in real time in a ‘chat room’, would provide a means of conducting interviews with a number of people, regardless of their geographical location. Another use of internet chat would be to hold a focus group, where a group discusses questions raised by the researcher. Unfortunately, only one online interview could be carried out online, due to the current technical limitations of the technology. Chat session proved to be problematic to set up and cumbersome to use.

Participant observation

In addition to gathering both qualitative and quantitative data from Indians living and working in Silicon Valley, it was also possible to carry out a limited amount of participant observation at a meeting of The Indus Entrepreneurs and by travelling around Silicon Valley using public transport. These two examples perhaps demonstrated most vividly the power of the networks which exist within Indian communities. It would have been even more interesting to investigate Indian residential communities in Silicon Valley but, sadly, this was not possible given the amount of time available.

Problems with methodology

Although using an internet questionnaire allowed a much larger sample group to be achieved, there were several unforeseen problems. First, several respondents to the questionnaire did not live in Silicon Valley, or had never lived in the United States. It was decided to include all respondents who had lived in any part of the U.S. during their lives, whether or not they were currently living in Silicon Valley. It would be expected that the attitudes and opinions expressed by those living in Silicon Valley would not be significantly different from those living in other parts of the U.S. Those respondents who had not lived in the U.S. at any time were excluded.

Using a questionnaire on the internet also demanded that the questions were as clear as possible. Unlike a paper questionnaire, where respondents can add additional information easily, or a face-to-face interview, where interviewees can expand on their answers, it is much more difficult for respondents to provide additional information on a website. At the same time, it is much easier for respondents to give feedback on a questionnaire on the internet through email. A small number of feedback emails was received from respondents pointing out omissions in answer categories or other small mistakes.

As one of the aims of this dissertation is to explore the role of new technologies in linking communities, the methodology has a technological slant. This should allow collection of representative qualitative and quantitative information, and explore how technologies such as the internet can be used for research purposes.

4. Migration to the United States

Motives for moving to the United States

What is it that makes Indians travel halfway around the world to settle in a land that is economically and culturally poles apart from their home? It appears that the primary motive for moving to the United States is economic: while there are jobs in the hi-tech industry available in India, moving to the United States offers Indians better paid jobs and opportunities to build up savings and possibly send money back to their families in India. “Money is a big motivator for coming to Silicon Valley,” said one Indian interviewed, while another noted that Silicon Valley “is the place to be for making a large amount of money and to be in the midst of leading edge technology” [Interview 1 – See Appendix for interview schedule]. Professional reasons also feature in the decision to move. The high number of technology firms in Silicon Valley is a major attraction, giving Indians an opportunity to expand their experience and work in a different environment. In addition to these reasons, Indians interviewed said that they were also drawn by friends already living in California and the region’s favourable climate and lifestyle.

The flow of Indians to the United States

The Indian population in the United States has soared from 32,000 in 1970 to over 800,000 in 1990 (Kotkin 1992, 208). According to Saxenian, there were 28,529 Asian Indians in the Silicon Valley region’s workforce in 1999 (Saxenian 1999b, 9). Asian Indian communities based on agriculture were first established in Northern California earlier this century. Kotkin notes that ‘Sikh farmers in the region, working first as day labourers, have developed one of the last successful bastions of family-owned farming in a state dominated by large-scale agribusinesses’ (Kotkin 1992, 207-8). In the Bay Area today, Asian Indians also play a major role in the small motel industry, as they do in the rest of the United States (Varadarajan 1999).

More recently, the development of Silicon Valley has increased the demand for engineers, and especially software engineers. One Indian interviewed noted that “twenty years ago, people just wanted to come to the U.S. to further their education…there was demand for university teaching assistants…but more recently, the demand for engineers has risen…there is no need for an advanced degree” [Interview 2]. A significant number of Indians in Silicon Valley come from one of The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), India’s most prestigious technical universities. In 1998, 30 percent of the graduating class headed to the U.S. for graduate degrees and better job opportunities (Kripalani 1998, 120). IIT graduates have a strong presence in Silicon Valley, and a number of IIT alumni groups exist.

Methods of migration to the United States

For those with the motives to move to the United States, there are several strategies which migrants adopt to make the move. Analysis of questionnaire results and information gathered through interviews suggest that the two most important methods at present are applying to study in the United States and securing a job, either directly through a U.S. firm or through a recruitment contractor/consultant. Silicon Valley is endowed with a number of prestigious universities including the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco, Stanford University and San Jose State University. Analysis of the 130 questionnaire respondents revealed that 39 percent of respondents came to Silicon Valley primarily for further education. The overwhelming majority of respondents had an undergraduate degree (98 percent) and a large number also had some form of post-graduate qualification (78 percent). The vast majority of respondents had completed their undergraduate degree in India (96 percent); while 32 percent had gone on to complete their post graduate degree in India. Forty-six percent of respondents had completed a post-graduate course in the United States. Thus, we can conclude that the Indian community in Silicon Valley is very highly educated and that further education is an important motive for moving to the United States.

A second important method of migration to the United States is by securing a job with a firm in Silicon Valley. This can be achieved in one of two ways. The first is by applying to a firm directly. Silicon Valley’s firms are relentlessly searching for new recruits with the appropriate skills and qualifications. The larger firms are willing to meet the expense of bringing prospective recruits to Silicon Valley – “one of them offered to fly me out for an interview,” noted one Indian interviewed – while they are also proactive in searching out talent in India – “an American multinational came to Mumbai looking for people and I attended the interview,” noted another Indian. Many such recruits come from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses in India (Luban 1999). The second means of securing a job with a firm in Silicon Valley is through an intermediary firm – referred to as recruitment consultancies or contractors – which hire out contractors with the relevant skills to Silicon Valley firms. These organisations – colloquially known as ‘body-shoppers’ – can range in size from small, informal networks of skilled professionals to large multinational consulting firms. While most projects Indians are assigned to in Silicon Valley firms are relatively short term (ranging from several months to a year or more), they may be offered other jobs during that time, or their contracts may be extended. Analysis of the questionnaire results showed that 42 percent of Indians moved to Silicon Valley as a result of a job offer with a U.S. firm.

The other methods of moving to Silicon Valley include intra-company transfers, whereby the Indian subsidiaries of large multinationals reassign staff to offices in Silicon Valley. In these cases, which accounted for 9 percent of the respondents to the questionnaire, the transferee may only have a small say in the decision to move to Silicon Valley. In other cases, the methods behind the move to Silicon Valley may involve family already in the U.S., who act as sponsors in the immigration process. One respondent to the questionnaire reported that her father migrated to the United States based on his brother’s sponsorship, which allowed her mother and younger sister to migrate after six months as dependants. Finally, she migrated with her brother, who, like her, was over the age of 18, in the immigrant category of ‘unmarried adult children’.

Working with visas and immigration law

A major part of the immigrant strategy for Indians is securing the correct visas. Analysis of the questionnaire results shows that the majority of respondents were on temporary working visas (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1

Current visa status of respondents (N=130)

Visa type	Description	Percentage
H-1B	Temporary specialist work visa	59
Green Card	Permanent residence visa	25
U.S. citizen	Full citizen status	8
F1	Academic visa	3
B1	Temporary business visa	1
Tourist	Visiting visa	1
No response		3
Total		100.0

The H-1B visa ‘applies to persons in a speciality occupation which requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialised knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education’ (United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs). The H-1B program was expanded in 1999 from 65,000 to 115,000 visas; from October 1998 to March 1999, Indians made up 46 percent of the visa recipients (Frauenheim 1999, 12) Indians moving to work in Silicon Valley will most often work on an H-1B visa first, and then apply for renewal of this visa or a Green Card as they spend more time in the United States.

The provenance of immigrants from India

The respondents to the questionnaire came from a range of Indian states, but the majority came from four states: Tamil Nadu (20 percent), Andhra Pradesh (16 percent), Karnataka (15 percent), Maharashtra (15 percent). Tamil Nadu is home to the city of Chennai, which in addition to receiving inward investment for research and development facilities from American companies such as Cisco Systems, is also home to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. Andhra Pradesh is home to one of the fastest growing hi-tech centres in India, Hyderabad. The city has attracted international investors including Microsoft, Oracle and Baan, the Netherlands based enterprise resource planning software group (Taylor 1999). Karnataka is home to Bangalore, which Taylor describes as having the biggest concentration of both indigenous software groups, such as Infosys and Wipro, and foreign investors such as Oracle, Motorola and Siemens. Maharashtra is home to Pune and Mumbai, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Taylor notes that Mumbai - India’s financial capital - plays host to a heavy concentration of software and computer services companies. A number of respondents had also migrated from other states containing centres of hi-technology industry such as Delhi (6 percent) and West Bengal (5 percent), also home to IITs. The provenance of Indians is shown in Figure 4.1.

Characteristics of the Indian community in Silicon Valley

Results from the questionnaire sample population suggest that the Indian community in Silicon Valley is generally young, male-dominated, well paid and employed in the hi-tech industry. The respondents to the questionnaire were generally clustered in the corridor of land between Redwood City and San Jose (Figure 4.2). The sample was male dominated: 85 percent of the respondents were male, 13 percent were female, while there was a 2 percent non-response rate. The mean age of the sample was 31.0 years old. The age distribution is shown in Figure 4.3. The graph shows an age distribution skewed to the left, with 39 percent of respondents falling into the 25-29 age group and 29 percent falling into the 30-34 age group.

Figure 4.1 – The States of provenance for respondents and numbers from each state

Figure 4.2 – Silicon Valley and geographical distribution of respondents

Figure 4.3 – Age distribution of Indian respondents

Single and married people dominated the sample. Single people accounted for 37 percent of respondents and married people for 59 percent, while 2 percent were divorced and 2 percent did not give a response. In terms of religion, 83 percent of respondents were Hindu, 6 percent were Christian, while the remaining 11 percent consisted of small numbers of atheists, Muslims, Jains and Jews.

Occupationally, individuals working in computing or related fields dominated the sample population. Occupations involving computers and communications accounted for 26 percent of respondents, software for 56 percent and semiconductor/equipment for 6 percent, while 12 percent were in other fields. Most significantly, the results of the questionnaire showed that 82 percent of respondents worked in hi-tech related fields and the overwhelming majority of respondents were in professional fields. It must be noted, however, that these findings do not reflect the entire Indian population in Silicon Valley: significant numbers of Indians also work in agriculture and the hotel/motel industry. The web questionnaire results in a bias towards Indians work in hi-technology industry. However, as this study is most concerned with Indians in this industry, the sample is suitable, if not entirely representative of the whole Indian community in Silicon Valley.

Figure 4.4 shows the salary distribution of the sample. The respondents to the questionnaire are clearly well paid, with 87 percent having a salary of over $50,000 per year. Most respondents (32 percent) fell into the $75,000-$99,999 salary bracket. It is important also to note that these figures may not reflect the total net worth of respondents. This point is especially relevant in hi-tech industries, where employees are often offered stock options in place of a higher salary.

Figure 4.4 – Salary Range of Indian respondents

The size of the firms in which respondents are employed is set out in Figure 4.5. The graph shows that while the majority of respondents worked in firms with 5000 people or more, significant numbers worked in much smaller firms with fewer than 50 people. A speculative explanation for the relatively small numbers of respondents working for mid-size firms might be that while large multinational firms have the resources to recruit abroad and many of the smaller start-up firms may attract Indian employees from the larger firms, the mid-size firms do not have the resources or need to recruit abroad, and are less likely to attract employees from the larger firms. From this, we can hypothesise that the majority of Indians migrate to the United States though securing jobs with large firms, and as they spend longer in Silicon Valley, there is more chance of them moving to smaller firms.

Figure 4.5 – Organisation size of respondents’ employers

It is possible to test this hypothesis by using data collected on the amount of time each respondent had spend in the United States. The results from the questionnaire showed that the mean number of years the respondents had spent in the United States was 6.98, while the median was 5 years. In total, 80 percent of the respondents had spent ten or less years in the United States. There was a weak negative correlation between the number of years respondents had spent in the U.S. and the size of the organisations they worked for, suggesting that as the respondents spend more time in Silicon Valley, they tend to work for smaller companies (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient = -0.182, P = 0.042).

5. Indian networks in Silicon Valley

The Indian community working in hi-technology industry in Silicon Valley is highly educated and well paid, and Indians appear to be migrating to the United States to secure a well-paid job, expand their skills, and experience a new culture and working environment. The role of social networks, both in the migration process and the development of Indian communities in Silicon Valley will now be examined.

The economic and social networks of migration

Indians do not migrate to Silicon Valley without the encouragement, support and assistance of others, be they migrating at the same time, or already living in Silicon Valley. There is a strong social aspect to their migration. This hypothesis can be tested by looking at a range of the responses Indians in Silicon Valley made to questions regarding their move to the United States.

Indians migrating to Silicon Valley appear to have strong links to the area before their move. The questionnaire results showed that 57 percent of respondents had friends in Silicon Valley prior to migrating, 43 percent had family contacts, and 9 percent had business contacts already established. Of the total respondents, 25 percent had no contacts before their move. This finding is backed up by accounts of individual experiences. “We knew a friend who ran a recruitment consultancy in India and they forwarded résumés to companies in the U.S.,” said one Indian interviewed, who migrated to Silicon Valley with his wife. “Without the social networks of the friends in the recruitment consultancy, we would probably not have come to the U.S. because we didn't want to be separated,” he continued [Interview 3].

The majority of Indians migrating to Silicon Valley do not come on their own. The questionnaire sample showed that 57 percent of Indians migrating to the United States came with either friends and/or family: 29 percent of the Indians migrating to Silicon Valley came with friends, while 34 percent of the Indians came with family. The numbers of friends and family moving with migrants varied widely. Of those Indians who migrated with friends, half migrated with one to five friends and the other half migrated with five or more. Of those Indians who migrated with family, 80 percent came with one to two family members, while the remaining 20 percent came with three to ten family members. In addition, the questionnaire results also indicate that 60 percent of Indians living in Silicon Valley have in turn encouraged friends, family or employees to move to the United States.

The Indian network in Silicon Valley for new arrivals

Indians appear to have remarkable networking skills. These networking skills are put to good use in Silicon Valley, as Indians build up extensive webs of friends, associates and business contacts. In a system in which Saxenian notes that ‘the region and its networks, rather than individual firms, became the locus of economic activity’ (Saxenian 1994, 37), these networks of affiliations which the Indians cultivate can have significant power and influence when they are mobilised.

Individual networks appear to be immediately mobilised when Indians first arrive in Silicon Valley. As already stated, the majority of Indians either have friends or family in the Silicon Valley before their move. Thus, many of those Indians interviewed said their own network of friends and contacts was very important during the first few months in Silicon Valley. “A large group of people came to see us at the airport,” noted one interviewee, “friends provided support, places to stay, lifts, even money…everyone would fit into our schedule,” he said [Interview 3]. “It is definitely a great help to new arrivals,” said one Indian. “Others help you go through the formalities, find a house, furniture and go through the whole setting up process. Usually one does not get that much help from the locals on arrival” [Interview 4].

Characteristics of the Indian network

So far, the networks of Indians in Silicon Valley have been referred to as a homogenous entity, with a unity of purpose and similar characteristics. In fact, there appear to be several layers to the Indian community.

It is possible first to identify an overall collective identity to the Indian community in Silicon Valley. There appears to be a distinctive and strong Indian community in Silicon Valley with strong ties between people of Indian origin. However, personal Indian networks in Silicon Valley appear to be much stronger than professional Indian networks. Tables 5.1 and 5.2 show the percentages of Indian personal and business contacts for the 130 respondents to the questionnaire. The tables show that Indians make up a large proportion of the personal contacts of respondents. Seventy percent of respondents answered that over half of their personal contacts were Indian. However, the converse seems to be true for business contacts: as would be expected, nearly half of respondents said that Indians made up 0-24 percent of their business contacts.

Table 5.1

Proportion of business contacts that are Indian (N=130)

Percentage	Percent
0-24 percent	48.5
25-49 percent	21.5
50-74 percent	19.2
75-100 percent	10.8
Total	100.0

Table 5.2

Proportion of personal contacts that are Indian (N=130)

Percentage	Percent
0-24 percent	15.4
25-49 percent	14.6
50-74 percent	30.0
75-100 percent	40.0
Total	100.0

Apart from providing a sense of collective identity for the Indian community in Silicon Valley, this macro-scale network can be mobilised for other causes. A recent example of this mobilisation was the cyclone that hit the state of Orissa in India on October 30 1999. One of the major Indian networking organisations in the United States, the India Network Foundation, launched an appeal to fund relief work in the state.

The macro-scale Indian network in Silicon Valley provides a sense of collective identity and belonging. However, it appears that the social and economic networks established between individuals on smaller scales, through affiliations at work, professional organisations and cultural groups are much tighter and are of most benefit to the Indians themselves.

Professional Indian networks

Professional Indian networks in Silicon Valley form in a number of ways. Perhaps the most immediately obvious are the networks of Indians that exist within the major Silicon Valley firms. As noted earlier, 43 percent of respondents worked for firms with five thousand employees or more. Several of these firms have email lists of Indian employees, which act as fora for discussion for Indian related issues.

There are also two main organisations of Indian professionals in Silicon Valley: the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association (SIPA) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE). Membership of these organisations was about equal among respondents: 15.4 percent of respondents were members of SIPA, while 14.6 percent were members of TIE. Both organisations hold regular meetings and seminars dedicated to specific hi-tech issues, Indian entrepreneurship and networking. At a TIE event I attended, the vast majority of the 300 or more attendees were Indian. Specifically billed as a networking event, the meeting allowed individuals to make a ninety-second presentation to the rest of the attendees. Most presentations consisted of entrepreneurs looking for people to fill job vacancies in their companies, or individuals looking for jobs. In addition, a presentation was given by the chief executive of Logistix, a fast growing Silicon Valley company with a strategic alliance with a supply chain management company in India. As well as providing the opportunity for Indians to network easily, such events also encourage and foster entrepreneurship within the Indian community.

Indian networks in Silicon Valley are also of great benefit to entrepreneurs, who use their own personal and professional networks to help raise capital, find management expertise and recruit employees. One Indian interviewed said that in starting his own company, “a network of angels and venture capitalists was very important…people offer investment and advice” [Interview 2].

In addition to networks that form though the workplace and through organisations such as SIPA and TIE, professional networks are also being constructed electronically, through systems such as electronic mailing lists. One example of such a list is the SIPA Venture Capital Mailing list. According to SIPA, the list is “an effort to bring together SIPA members with similar business and technical interests in the area of Venture Capital”. Having subscribed to the list for several months, it appears to be most commonly used by start-up companies looking for people to fill particular jobs, or by individuals advertising their skills to the group. Postings by entrepreneurs looking for venture capital funding or business partners are also common, as well as others seeking advice on particular aspects of starting a company. The group does not entirely consist of individuals living in Silicon Valley, however. A significant number of messages are posted by companies in India, looking for potential tie-ups and contracts with American firms. Such links between Indians in Silicon Valley and firms back home will be analysed next.

Local community organisations

The proliferation of Indian community groups demonstrates the sub-communities that exist within the overall Indian network in Silicon Valley. A sample of these groups is shown in Table 5.3. Many of the organisations were established in the 1970s and 1980s, when Indian migration to Silicon Valley burgeoned, and the electronics industry took off. The organisations exist along religious, linguistic, and regional lines and bring together people of the same culture, through events such as picnics, camping trips, and festival celebrations. One Indian noted that “the individual cultural organisations are stronger than the general Indian community” [Interview 5].

Table 5.3

Major Indian community organisations in Silicon Valley

Name	Membership	Year Founded	Website
Bay Area Tamil Manram	400 families	1980	www.indsangh.com/tmanram
Bay Area Telugu Association (BATA)	Over 300	1975	www.bata.org
Gujarati Cultural Association of Bay Area	3060	1979	www.gcabayarea.com
Indo-American Community Service Center (ICSC)	5000-7000	1988	www.indo-american.org
Jain Center of Northern California	500-550 families	1980	www.jcnc.org
KannadaKoota	Unknown	1973	www.kannadakoota.org
Maharashtra Mandal, Bay Area	350 families	1982	www.mmbayarea.org
Malayalee Association of Northern California (MANCA)	Over 500	1983	www.manca.org
Prabasi (Bengali)	700	1974	www.prabasi.org
Rajasthan Association of North America (RANA)	20	1986	www.rana.org

Overall, Indian networks and communities in Silicon Valley are strengthened by the existence of local professional organisations, as well as community groups. Indians do have a sense of collective identity and difference from the rest of the Silicon Valley population. This is demonstrated by the observation of one Indian interviewed, who noted that most Indians drive either a Toyota or Honda car. “It’s not too cool to buy an American car,” he said, “you would be an outcast” [Interview 5].

But it is at the micro level of analysis where the bonds between Indians in Silicon Valley are strongest. This was made apparent to me while on a bus in the area. Two Indians – who were strangers – boarded the bus and sat together. The computer books each was carrying sparked off conversation, first in English, and then in their native language. They parted, exchanging email addresses. Bonded by a common origin and interest in technology, exchanges like this day by day strengthen Indian networks in Silicon Valley.

6. The links between Silicon Valley and India

The following section analyses the links between Silicon Valley and India, and quantifies the extent of these links. Further, this section explores Saxenian’s finding that ‘some U.S. educated Indians return home and stay, but, on balance, the “brain drain” of skilled workers to the United States continues unabated though the 1990s’ (Saxenian 1999, 65). At one time or other during their stay in the United States, the question of whether to return home appears before migrants. As the wealth of discussion and information available on the issue within the Indian community demonstrates, it is no easy decision.

Social links Indians establish with their homes

Portes notes that ‘during the first generation [of immigrants] at least, a typical pattern is the attempt to juggle two different social worlds. Although this is a difficult and expensive task, many foreign professionals actually succeed in it’ (Portes 1996, 20). This appears to be the case with the Indian community in Silicon Valley: immigrants appear to have very strong social links with family and friends back home in India. In total, 78 percent of respondents to the questionnaire return to India every other year or more often (Table 6.1). But it would be expected that Indians make the most number of trips during their first few years in the United States and as time passes, make fewer and fewer trips. This hypothesis can be tested by comparing the frequency of trips home with the number of years respondents have spent in Silicon Valley. Statistical tests suggest that the hypothesis does hold true. Those respondents who make trips home least often have been in the United States significantly longer than those who make more frequent trips home (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square: 13.307 on 3 df, P= 0.004).

Table 6.1

Frequency of trips home (N=130)

Trip frequency	Percent	Mean No. of years in US
Once every 3 years or less	21	9.9
Every other year	38	7.5
Once a year	35	4.8
Twice a year	5	7.0
No response	1
Total	100

The level of contact Indians in Silicon Valley have with friends at home is also high: over half of the respondents made one to two communications with friends at home per week, while twenty-one percent made three or more communications per week (Table 6.2). Although statistical tests comparing the frequency of contact with friends at home and number of years respondents had spent in the United States suggested that contacts decreased over time, the results were not statistically significant (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square: 5.521 on 2 df, P=0.063). However, to the question whether respondents’ links with friends and family in India had increased, decreased or remained constant, 38 percent said that their links had decreased, 38 percent said that they had stayed constant, while 21 percent said that they had increased.

Table 6.2

Frequency of contacts with friends at home (N=130)

Frequency of contact with friends	Percent
3 or more per week	21
1-2 week	51
1 every two weeks	17
One every month	5
One every year	5
No response	1
Total	100

Economic links Indians forge with their homes

One of the most important economic linkages Indians have with their homes is through sending money back. Of the respondents to the questionnaire, 65 percent send money home, while the remaining 35 percent do not. Of the 65 percent who send money home, the mean percentage of income sent was 13.2 percent, while the median and the mode were both 10 percent. A significant number of respondents send considerably more than 10 percent, however: over a quarter of respondents remitted twenty or more percent of their income.

Comparing these findings with data on the number of years respondents have spent in the United States and their salary further reveals how the economic links change with time. Statistical tests reveal that whether Indians send money home is not related to how long they have been in the United States (Mann-Whitney U =1566.000, P = 0.849). However, statistical tests show that as the number of years respondents have spent in the United States increases, the percentage of their income sent home decreases (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = -0.304, P = 0.01). A similar negative correlation is noted between respondents’ salary and the percentage of income sent home: as salary increases, the percent of income sent home decreases (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = -0.351, P = 0.01). Therefore, these two findings suggest that the actual amount of money sent home by Indians remains stable, regardless of the amount of time respondents have spent in the United States and their salary. However, the percentage of income sent home decreases, as the salary and number of years respondents are in the U.S. increases.

The frequency of business communications Indians in Silicon Valley have with home suggests that business ties with India are significantly weaker than personal ties. Sixty-nine percent of respondents had only one business contact with home per year or less (Table 6.3). Statistical tests indicate that there is no correlation between the frequency of business contacts with India and the number of years Indians have lived in the United States (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square: 8.516 on 4 df, P=0.074).

Table 6.3

Frequency of business contacts home (N=130)

Frequency of business contacts	Percent
No contact	56
One every year	13
One every month	14
1 every two weeks	7
1-2 week	6
3 or more per week	4
Total	100

Nonetheless, half of all respondents have links with businesses back in India. Twenty-two percent of respondents are private investors in firms in India, 16 percent act as consultants to firms in India, 10 percent have some link to a family business and 2 percent are part-time employees of firms in India. Several respondents acted in two or more of the above roles simultaneously.

With these data, it is possible to test one observation by Lessinger, that ‘in general the rich and more successful maintain stronger and more extensive ties with India than do the poor and unsuccessful’ (Lessinger 1992, 65). Comparing respondents’ salary and frequency of business contacts with home does not reveal any significant relationship for the sample group (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient = 0.132, P = 0.145). But looking at the salaries of those respondents who have close business contacts with home backs up Lessinger’s point. Of those respondents who said that they make one business contact with home per fortnight or more, 41 percent earn more than $125,000 per year and 14% earn more than $100,000 per year. Thus, while statistical tests do not prove Lessinger’s point absolutely, it does appear that those respondents with frequent business contacts with home were the best off.

7. Staying or returning home?

This analysis of the business and social ties which Indians build with their homes indicates that the Indian community in Silicon Valley is a transnational community. Indians are maintaining ties with their homes, they are interested in and keep up with news from India, many send a significant proportion of their incomes home, and many also encourage family and friends to move to the United States. But will these links with India encourage Indians in Silicon Valley to move back home? Is the constant flow of highly skilled, highly talented Indians to Silicon Valley a one-way ‘brain drain’ process? A number of factors are at work in this complex question. Furthermore, considering the future development of the Indian hi-tech industry and economy in general, is the question of whether Indians return home even the most relevant one?

The results from the questionnaire showed that a significant number of Indians do indeed plan to return home after living in Silicon Valley. Out of the 130 respondents, 49 percent said that their long-term aim is to return home, 18 percent said that it was not their long-term aim to return home and 32 percent said that they did not know. The notable aspect of these results is the high number of ‘don’t know’ responses, making it difficult to assess whether respondents generally do want to return home. However, if the number of years respondents have spent in the United States is taken into account in this analysis, the decision to return home is clearly one which changes over time. Statistical tests reveal that respondents who said that they want to return home have been in the United States significantly less time than those who want to stay (Kruskal-Wallis Test: chi-square: 7.304 on 2 df, P = 0.026). This suggests that as Indians spend more time in Silicon Valley, their desire to return home decreases.

Looking more closely at the data, it is also possible to analyse where those that answered ‘don’t know’ fit in to this situation. Table 7.1 shows the mean ranks for the number of years respondents have spent in the U.S. for those who answered ‘Yes’, ‘Don’t know’, and ‘No’. The table shows that for the ‘Don’t know’ category, the mean rank is much nearer to the mean rank for ‘No’ than ‘Yes’. We can therefore infer that the ‘Don’t knows’ are more similar to those who answered ‘No’.

Table 7.1

Mean ranks for length of stay for Yes, Don’t Know and No respondents (N=130)

	Return	N	Mean	Kruskal-Wallis Mean rank
Number of years in the U.S.	Yes	60	5.12	53.17
	Don’t know	33	7.85	69.61
	No	41	10.55	71.89
	Missing	7
	Totals	130

Calculating the average number of years Indians have been in Silicon Valley for each response to this question confirms these findings. For respondents who said that they wish to return home, the average number of years they had been in Silicon Valley was 5.12; for those who said that they did not know whether they would return, the average number of years was 7.85 and for those who said that it was not their aim to return home, the average number of years was 10.55.

Another important factor in determining whether Indians in Silicon Valley are likely to return home is the ties which they maintain with home. The frequency of trips which respondents made back to India has a significant effect on whether their long-term aim is to return permanently. Statistical tests show that the more frequently trips are made home, the higher the likelihood that respondents want to return permanently (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square = 15.753 on 2 df, P = 0.000). The frequency of contacts which respondents have with friends at home is also a determining factor in the decision to return home permanently. The higher the frequency of contacts with friends at home, the higher the chances were of the respondent having the long term aim to move back to India (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square = 9.125 on 2 df, P = 0.010).

The decision whether to return to India is also affected by the type of visa which respondents possessed. Table 7.2 shows a cross tabulation between the type of visa (either a temporary H-1B working visa or permanent working permit) and the desire of respondents to return home. The table indicates that while respondents on H-1B visas generally aim to return home, those with Green Cards or U.S. Citizenships are more unsure about returning home, and nearly a quarter do not want to return home. This result is statistically significant (Kruskal-Wallis test: chi-square = 13.499 on 1 df, P = 0.000). Thus, those respondents who had the choice of whether to live and work permanently in the United States were more likely to say yes to that choice, while those on temporary work permits were more likely to say that their long term aim is to return home. For many of the Indians in Silicon Valley who are striving to obtain Green Cards, this process appears to suppress their desire to return permanently to India.

Table 7.2

Cross-tabulation between visa type and desire to return home (N=130)

		Return (Frequency)
		Yes	Don't know	No	Totals
VISA	H-1B	48	16	11	75
	Green Card or U.S. citizen	10	22	10	42
	Others	5	5	3	13
Total		63	43	24	130

Statistical tests of whether respondents wanted to return to India against other factors yielded surprisingly inconclusive results. It might be expected that those with higher salaries might be less likely to return home, as they may occupy more influential positions in Silicon Valley firms. Comparisons of desire to return and salary did show that those who wanted to return were generally paid less than the rest of the sample, but not significantly less. A similar result was found for age comparisons: generally, younger respondents were more likely to want to return home, but not to a significant extent. In terms of gender, there was no significant difference as to whether respondents wanted to return home or not.

Although analysis of the relationship between salary and desire to return home was inconclusive, a more sophisticated means of assessing the professional status of Indians using a combination of job titles and salary produced stronger results (Table 7.3). This analysis reveals that the more senior and well-paid Indians are, the less chance there is of them wanting to return home. While less than half of senior engineers in management positions want to return and 40 percent are unsure, 57 percent of engineers say that they do want to return. Thus, similar to the number of years Indians have been in the United States and their visa status, it appears that as Indians become established in well paid positions of responsibility, there is less chance of them returning home.

Table 7.3

Desire to return home by salary and job titles (N=130)

Response	Yes		No		Don’t know
Position	Freq	%	Freq	%	Freq	%
CEO*	2	33	2	33	2	33
Senior Engineer**	13	43	12	17	5	40
Engineer***	31	57	15	15	8	28
Totals	46		29		15

* CEO with salary over $125,000/year

** Senior Engineers with salary over $75,000/year

*** Engineers with salary over $50,000/year

Unfortunately, the relatively small number of respondents to the questionnaire means that it is difficult to assess how attitudes to returning home vary between respondents from different states. However, it does seem clear that the decision whether to return home is affected by how Indians perceive the hi-tech job market in their home state and how the caste system operates locally, which would affect their reintegration into Indian society. In one interview, an Indian couple said that Northern and Southern Indian states were the most problematic to return to; they also noted that more rural states were more difficult to return to [Interview 7 and 9]. Unfortunately, comparing the likelihood of return with the urban/rural population split for respondents’ states of origin produced inconclusive results.

To conclude, it appears that while the majority of Indians do say that they wish to return home to India, the more time they spend in the United States, the less chance there is of them returning. Further, Indians who maintain strong contacts with India through trips home or contact with friends at home are more likely to return home. Although statistical tests confirm these findings, in retrospect, it might have been beneficial to measure the desire of Indians to return home on a five-point scale, rather than using Yes/No/Don’t Know categories. This measure might have made the statistical tests more conclusive.

Influences on the decision to return home

The decision whether or not to return home is not an easy one for the Indians of Silicon Valley. The choice is one that involves economic, cultural, political, and family considerations. There are whole internet sites devoted to discussing the subject. For example, www.return2india.com has articles and discussion fora on the dilemma, as well as other resources such as job listings and profiles of firms in India to facilitate Indians’ return. The fierce debate on the issue reflects its complexity: Indians in Silicon Valley are balancing up a number of pull and push factors, ranging from the hard economic and logistic realities of moving back, to debates over culture and identity. In the following section, I shall try to identify the pull and push factors involved and how important they are to the final decision.

Staying in the United States

Economic and professional reasons for staying in the United States seem to be most important to the Indian community in Silicon Valley. Of the questionnaire respondents, 72 percent of the total said they would stay for professional reasons, 49 percent said that they would stay for the standard of living, while 18 percent of the total said that they would stay to be with family and friends established in Silicon Valley.

The opportunity to work with leading edge firms and technologies is undoubtedly one of the most attractive features of Silicon Valley to those working in the technology industry. As one interviewee noted, “there is a chance to partake in exciting new ventures in the high-tech scenario…there is satisfaction in this because you know you are playing a part in the events that affect the way we live”. She added, “there is also the possibility that one can get rich quick” [Interview 1]. The opportunities to work with cutting-edge technologies are more limited in India, and as one questionnaire respondent said, “my current level of specialisation is several years ahead of the levels in India” [Interview 6]. The economic and political situation in India also appears to be a major deterrent to Indians in Silicon Valley returning home. Respondents to the questionnaire raised issues of political instability, economic uncertainty, and corruption as reasons not to return home. In addition, bureaucracy and caste issues are also important for returning Indians.

Family and community considerations are also important in the decision. One respondent noted that family considerations such as his children’s education and spouse’s professional career were reasons not to return. Another said that he thought his children were “being exposed to a safe environment and a lot of opportunity,” while the “individual mobility and independence” in the United States was reason enough for another respondent to stay.

One Indian interviewed put it bluntly: “the longer people are here, the less they want to go back,” he said [Interview 7]. He referred to the ‘X+1 syndrome’, whereby immigrants perpetually resolve to return home in one year’s time. As an article on the return2india web site notes, ‘unable to truly melt in the ‘Great Melting Pot’, chained to his cultural moorings and haunted by an abject fear of giving up an accustomed standard of living, the Non-Resident Indian vacillates and oscillates between two worlds in a twilight zone’. The article also notes that this is a uniquely Indian situation: ‘all of our Asian brethren from Japan, Korea and even Pakistan – seem immune to it’ (www.return2india.com 15/12/99).

Returning to India

While the reasons for staying in Silicon Valley appear to be dominated by economic and standard of living considerations, family and culture are the major reasons drawing Indians in Silicon Valley back home. Table 7.4 shows the reasons respondents considered most important for returning to India.

Table 7.4

Reasons for returning to India (N=130)

Reason	Percent
Family reasons	42
Cultural reasons	25
To start a company	17
Other	7
No response	9
Total	100

One Indian interviewed brought up Rudyard Kipling’s observation that “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”. “There is a difference between East and West,” he noted, “it’s a major shift to come here” [Interview 2]. Among many of the Indians interviewed, cultural aspects, and the effect of culture on the family unit were very important to the decision to return home. For several interviewees, issues such as “children growing up American”, “deference towards elders” and “dating and relationships” were all issues in the decision to return. Furthermore, the supportive environment created by extended family structures in India was another reason to return home.

Many interviewees also expressed optimism about India’s future and a desire to contribute to that future. “To bring my beloved country to the forefront of technology by utilising the knowledge and experience that I will have gained in the U.S.,” was what one respondent submitted in his/her questionnaire, whilst others pointed towards the bright future of the Indian information technology industry. “The case for returning is improving day by day,” said another respondent [Interview 2]. Several Indians interviewed also noted that one reason for moving back to India would be the higher standard of living they could achieve there. Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States: San Jose, San Francisco and Santa Cruz are ranked second, third and fourth in the table of the top 100 U.S. Metropolitan Areas by median home value (figures for 1998, in San Jose Mercury News). The median home value in San Jose, California is $399,216. Those returning to India can enter the wealthiest groups in society: “standard of living wise, it doesn’t make a difference,” noted one Indian [Interview 8].

Brain drain or brain circulation

The results from the questionnaire suggest that there definitely is a strong desire by Indian immigrants in Silicon Valley to return to India. But as the questionnaire also suggests, the majority (71%) of respondents want to stay in the United States for professional reasons. As one respondent noted, “the opportunities which come along mean people don’t go back home” [Interview 5]. Thus, one critical factor in the decision to return home is the perception Indians have of professional opportunities available in India.

Questionnaire results show that 76 percent of respondents would want to work in the same industry that they are currently in, if they returned home. In addition, 72 percent of respondents – a surprisingly large number – said that they would consider starting their own business back in India. This is a reflection of the entrepreneurial nature of the Indian community in Silicon Valley: at present, 14 percent of respondents said that they have already started their own business in Silicon Valley, 59 percent said that they would consider starting their own business, and only 26 percent said they would not consider it. Furthermore, 9 percent of respondents said that they have already started a business that exploits their links in the United States and India, while 58 percent said that they would consider this. Only 13 percent said no to this question, 17 percent were unsure.

The limiting factor to this entrepreneurial activity at the moment appears to be respondents’ perception of the business environment in India. 72 percent of respondents said that bureaucracy is the major barrier to starting up in India, while 15 percent said that raising capital was the major problem. “You need to work around the system to even survive,” noted one interviewee. Furthermore, it appears that economies of scale are more important in India than in Silicon Valley: “to work in India, your firm has to reach a given size…it doesn’t help to have few people working there – it must be at least 10…to reach the economies of scale required” [Interview 2].

At present, therefore, it appears that the determining factor to Indians returning home will be overall changes to the business and commercial environment in India. While Indians living in Silicon Valley do want to return home for a range of cultural and family reasons, it is the economic argument which is limiting the flow back at present. However, as already suggested, Indians are building social and professional networks with firms and individuals at home. One interviewee argued that “even if people do not move back and forward, there is still an exchange of ideas…brain circulation is occurring, maybe not by people moving, but by the circulation of ideas” [Interview 8]. This circulation of ideas can be experienced first hand in the virtual communities created by email and the internet, through initiatives such as the Silicon Valley Indian’s Professionals Association Venture Capital forum, and websites such as www.return2india.com.

8. Conclusion

Indian immigration to Silicon Valley is a result of a perfect match between the needs of hi-tech transnational corporations for highly skilled engineers and computer scientists and the desire of Indians to work in an environment which offers opportunities to work at the cutting edge of technology, with salaries significantly higher than in India. Although the process is highly competitive, many opportunities exist for Indians to migrate to the United States, either through pursuing further education in the U.S., or applying directly to large hi-tech companies, or by joining one of the numerous recruitment consultancies, which supply contract labour to Silicon Valley’s firms.

The actions of Indian immigrants take place within the context of a web of social relations. From their initial migration from India, to their settlement in Silicon Valley, to becoming involved in a start-up company, to questions over whether to return home, the decisions of Indian immigrants are affected and supported by their personal and professional networks. These networks act on a number of scales; on a macro scale of shared identity and experience, to more close-knit professional and community organisations and relations between friends and work-colleagues. These contacts provide a professional and personal support structure, based on mutual trust, co-operation, companionship and shared experiences.

This dissertation shows that Indian immigrants have extremely close ties with friends and family at home. Indians maintain close contact with home, make frequent trips home (especially during their first few years in the U.S.), and many send remittances back home. Many Indians still return to India to be married, following traditional family and cultural marriage practices. Many also encourage contacts in India to migrate to the U.S. While the connections Indians in Silicon Valley have with business contacts at home are less well developed, a significant number are involved with firms at home, formally or informally.

There appears to be a new generation of Indians living in Silicon Valley who wish to return home. Family and cultural moorings in India are strong reasons for return, so too can be the desire to bring up children in India rather than the U.S. But the ‘myth of return’, commonly identified in studies of Indians overseas, seems to exist in the Indian community in Silicon Valley. Both data collected and analysis of interviews suggests that as time progresses and immigrants become socially and professionally established, the ‘X+1 syndrome’ – vowing perpetually to return in one year’s time – plays a role.

Two things can counteract this tendency. First, development of hi-tech industry in India will help change immigrants’ perception of the professional opportunities available to them at home. This process is occurring, and looks set to accelerate. Second, and most crucially, is the development and promotion of Indian entrepreneurship, both in India and Silicon Valley. The Indian community in Silicon Valley is entrepreneurial, and there is a common desire to start firms both in Silicon Valley and India. But Indian immigrants see the bureaucratic business environment in India as a significant barrier to returning home. Although these restrictions are loosening and barriers are being overcome, future development will depend on economic and political reforms in India.

While ‘brain drain’ processes between India and the U.S. might still exist, a source for optimism is the links that Indians in Silicon Valley have established with their homes, and their desire to build companies that can take advantage of their links with India and the U.S. Technologies such as email and the internet have created virtual communities that facilitate the circulation of ideas, knowledge, and technology in the global economy, linking disparate and quite different regions. The trust required in such high value and long-distance transactions will be based on the social relations between the participants. In the case of the Indian community in Silicon Valley, these social relations are highly developed.

As the extensive media and academic coverage of Silicon Valley demonstrates, it is an interesting and intriguing place. Nowhere else is there such a relentless drive for profits and new technologies and nowhere else are new technology companies being formed on a daily basis. Asian-Indians have not only established a niche in this system, but are prominently involved in its functioning. The question of how these communities link themselves into the global system and how they construct social, economic and production networks with their homes and other communities around the world will provide a source for much future research.

9. References

Basch, L., Glick Schiller, N. and Blanc-Szanton, C. 1994 Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Post-colonial Predicaments, and De-territorialized Nation-States, Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach

Bryman, A. and Cramer, D. 1999 Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS Release 8 for Windows: A Guide for Social Scientists London: Routledge

Cohen, R. 1997 Global Diasporas: An Introduction London: UCL Press

Cohen, R. 1998 “Transnational social movements: an assessment” Transnational Communities Programme, Oxford University, Working Paper Series WPTC-98-10 Department of Sociology, University of Warwick

Ebdon, D. 1985 Statistics in Geography Oxford: Blackwells

Frauenheim, E. 1999 “India Inc.” TechWeek September 20, 1999

Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. 1992 “Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration” Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 645, July 6, 1992

Granovetter, M. 1985 “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness” American Journal of Sociology, Volume 91, Issue 3 (Nov., 1985), 481-510

Johnson, J. and Regets, M. 1998 “International Mobility of Scientists and Engineers to the United States – Brain Drain or Brain Circulation?” National Science Foundation Issue Brief, NSF 98-316, June 22, 1998

Kotkin, J. 1992 Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy New York: Random House

Kripalani, M. 1998 “Whiz kids: Inside the Indian Institutes of Technology Business Week December 7, 1998

Lessinger, J. 1992 “Investing or Going Home? A Transnational Strategy Among Indian Immigrants in the United States” In Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., and Blanc-Szanton, C.(eds.), Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645 Pp 53-80

Lubman, S. 2000 “Indian recruits carve Silicon Valley niche” San Jose Mercury News, January 15, 2000

Portes, A. 1995 The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on networks, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship New York: Russell Sage Foundation

Portes, A. and Rumbaut, R. 1996 Immigrant America: A Portrait Berkeley; London: University of California Press

Portes, A. 1997 “Globalization from Below: The Rise of Transnational Communities” Transnational Communities Programme, Oxford University, Working Paper Series WPTC-98-01 Princeton University, September 1997

Salt, J. 1997 “International Movements of the Highly Skilled” Directorate for Education, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs – International Migration Unit – Occasional Papers No. 3 Organisation for Economic Co-operations and Development, Paris

Saxenian, A. 1994 Regional Advantage: Culture and competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Saxenian, A. 1999 “Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs” Public Policy Institute of California.

Saxenian, A. 1999b “Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Skills, Networks, and Careers” Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California at Berkeley, Task Force Working Paper #WP05

Smith, M. and Guarnizo, L. 1998 Transnationalism from Below Comparative Urban and Community Research series, volume 6 New Brunswick, NJ; London: Transaction Publishers

Taylor, P. 1999 “Regional Focus: IT in India” Nasdaq International Magazine Issue 24, September 1999

Varadarajan, T. 1999 “A Patel Motel Cartel?” New York Times, Sunday, July 4, 1999

----- 1999 The Top 100 Metropolitan Areas by Median Home Value, The Cost of Living in Silicon Valley Special Report San Jose Mercury News http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/special/wealth/hh_table.html

Appendices

Geographical definition of Silicon Valley (taken from Saxenian 1999)

Silicon Valley is defined as the whole of Santa Clara County and the following adjacent zip codes:

Alameda County

Freemont 94536-39, 94555

Union City 94587

Newark 94560

San Mateo County

Menlo Park 94025

Atherton 94027

Redwood City 94061-65

San Carlos 94070

Belmont 94002

San Mateo 94400-03

Foster City 94404

East Palo Alto 94303

Santa Cruz County

Scotts Valley 95066-67

Statistical tests

The following statistical tests are used for analysing questionnaire data:

Kruskal-Wallis H test
Mann-Whitney U test
Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient

The Mann-Whitney test is used to test whether there is a difference between two sample sets of data, while the Kruskal-Wallis test is used to test whether there is a significant difference between three or more samples. These tests are used most frequently, as they are non-parametric tests, meaning that assumptions do not have to be made about the distribution of variables.

The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is used as a measure of the relationship between two sets of ordinal values (Ebdon 1985, 97). It is a non-parametric test, reflecting the distribution of the variables being analysed.