From Engineers to Factory Workers: The Untold Journey of Indian Immigrants
By Daniella Jacob, Public Scholarship Editor at the Center for Asian American Christianity, and Jaicy John, training specialist.
An informative oral history will be used in this piece as an archetype to represent the shared story of many Indian immigrants who shared this position. For privacy, the names and personal identifiers of the family have been shielded.
Factory work has been a springboard for success among Asian Americans. Philadelphia’s Indian Americans are no exception. From its inception in the 1970s, North Philadelphia’s Cardone Industries hired immigrants from across the city. Cardone provided needed work which supported their ability to build roots in the community.
In 1965, the Hart-Celler Act was passed, which allowed thousands of Indian immigrants to come to the United States. This act opened America’s doors to those who could presumably contribute the most to the country. This mostly meant that immigrants were to be those who work professional jobs with higher education and expertise. In came nurses, engineers, businesspeople, educators, and more. This major influx of immigration from India intersected with Cardone’s genesis and proliferation.
Indian men, coming from technical institutes and engineering positions, searched for jobs to match their caliber. Joseph was one such man. He arrived in America in the 90s after graduating from an Indian technical college as an electrical engineer. Upon arrival, Joseph immediately began searching for jobs matching his skillset and education. He worked as an engineer across India as well as in Dubai; he was familiar with the job search process. Upon arriving in America, he was faced with an unfamiliar application requirement. Joseph had to take certifying exams to prove his caliber to work as an electrician, a skilled labor position that would provide strong financial support for a young immigrant family. These examinations catered to American citizens, not taking into account the difference in metric calculations, which for most immigrants vary completely. Also, it did not take linguistic skill differences into account. Despite these challenges, Joseph scored well but missed qualifying by a single point. The alternative route would be to pursue education in the US, but this avenue was limited both by finance and a lack of awareness of resources available to support immigrants pursuing education or self-improvement. So, to support his family, like any American, Joseph began to look for available work.
When I was talking to Joseph about all this, he glazed over this portion of his story. He mentioned “nalatharnu athu kittayarane” (translating to “it would’ve been nice to pass that exam”), but that was all he had to say in this regard. A few intentional choices by American employers and seemingly “common-sense” considerations in reviewing immigrants’ skill sets would have transformed his opportunities, his connection to the community, and his confidence in his American identity. Yet, instead of complaining about the injustice, he accepts that as an Indian, he got the best he could find and did the best he could for his family. He smirked at my remark that his passport gives him equal rights as any American, reflecting that his life and experience have taught him otherwise.
Recent research and social trends have identified linguistic racism as a major issue in the US. This also means America’s systems are also infused with linguistic supremacy. Beyond rejecting his capabilities, Joseph was experiencing rejection because of his English and accent. This not only became a barrier to his job search but seeped into even the simplest parts of life. A trip to the grocery store was complicated by this: if Joseph went to the grocery store to return defective products, he was met with irritation and often not serviced. Those who dismissed him often did so because of his supposedly unintelligible accent. To solve this problem, he began to bring his young daughter along to advocate for him.
On days when America was harsh to him, he would return home defeated. He would slump down on the couch, silent and stoic. And, sometimes, on those same days, his wife would return home from her job as a nurse and cry on the couch in the living room. A family grieving the harsh price of assimilation and the lack thereof. Their dedication and skill sat second to their accents and culture.
In the midst of that wilderness appeared Cardone. By the 90s, many Indian people, specifically Malayalis, had already risen in the ranks within the company. By referral, many Malayalis were applying to the factory and being hired on the same day. Joseph recalls the day of his interview clearly.
The hiring managers took him up to the second floor of the factory. They asked about his story: where he was from, what he used to do, what his situation was now. After briefly vetting him, he walked down the stairs and was trained by other Malayalis, in his language. Cardone didn’t ask what the rest of the country did. They didn’t require expert command of language, American credentials, or much else. They just wanted a worker who had skill and enough commitment to want to work a job that started at 5:00 am, had a 30-minute lunch break, and was compensated fairly.
Cardone benefited off of the system that initially rejected their workers. As a result, they were able to have a full force of skilled workers who were humbled enough to keep their noses down and remain faithful to their work. At the same time, Malayali workers benefited from Cardone- finally finding a place where they weren’t judged by their greatest challenge: their language proficiency. Instead, these workers were judged by the caliber of their character instead of their accent.
On his first day, Joseph was trained in Malayalam, and consecutive days followed suit. Joseph would communicate instructions, chat during lunch, and receive feedback, all in Malayalam. Cardone became an oasis of opportunity within a realm of familiarity. It offered a job, enough to support a family, and even provided a glimmer of hope for future promotions, ultimately fulfilling the future these trained professionals were promised with the American Dream.
While it served as an oasis of familiarity, it also served as a vehicle against assimilation–it stunted their ability to adapt to the different environment around them. Joseph's kids seconded this perspective:
“We had a love-hate relationship with Cardone: it didn’t make dad feel like he was less than, but it also didn’t build up his potential and skills to be more,” said Joseph's oldest daughter.
She hated Cardone because she saw it as the breeding ground for Joseph's shyness and reservedness. This had caused her and her younger sister to grow up faster and more assertive than they wished. Her younger sister, as recalled before, became the more assertive one because she was dragged along to advocate for her shy father. She couldn’t understand why her dad wouldn’t just try for himself. Yet still, she refused to deny the duty she had to take care of her dad with the upper-hand she had through familiarity with American culture.
Post-COVID, Cardone laid off hundreds of people from their Greater Philadelphia warehouses. Many older Indian men lost their jobs and had to hustle to find work in gas stations, stores, or other factories. Providentially, Joseph was laid off in the same month he was scheduled to retire. Joseph never mastered American English. He can speak fine amongst his family, but until his retirement, he would rarely use it in public for fear of judgment. He now walks around the house reciting sentences like “hey, how you doing” or “what’s up buddy.” He isn’t directing these recitations toward anyone as much as he is making his tongue familiar with these phrases. At the age of 65, he’s now allowing himself to cast away fear and try these things that he was rejected for thirty years ago.
If America, the “land of opportunity,” had been prepared to diversify the standards of qualification to global dimensions, people like Joseph would not have had to isolate as much as they did. While the rest of the nation pushed them to realize what seemed like a weakness, language, Cardone pushed them to realize their greatest capabilities. Cardone allowed them to reuptake their technical training, leadership, and dignity.
To this day, Joseph doesn’t have many resources to learn English, pass his engineering entrance exam, or raise his technical potential. Having attended a municipal unemployment seminar within the calendar year, the city department points to referral-based jobs, like Cardone, to be the best option. There is not easy access to skills-focused training, language enrichment, or local classes for immigrants. We can easily assess the most popular trend in fashion through a quick Google search, but can’t do the same while searching resources for immigrants in the U.S. This perpetuates barriers for immigrants seeking to gain access to the resources they need to exist and thrive in this country.
Scripture gives the Church a nudge towards being a redemptive space for those who don’t “belong.” In both Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 10, God strongly commands Israel to love outsiders (hag·gêr, which means stranger, alien, or sojourner) as they themselves were once outsiders in the land of Egypt. This contagion directly relates to America, where almost all of its residents were once strangers. For the Israelites, they had their feelings of alienation replaced with feelings of belonging and anticipation within the promised land. Very quickly after, they were on the flip side of that: Israel and their land now served as the vehicle of alienation for foreigners. The solution God proposed was empathetic love for these foreigners–one based on what Israel had just experienced. Some of us have a fresher, more recent experience of alienation being gradually infused with belonging and hope. We, especially Asian Americans who have a fresher understanding of being strangers, can honor the church’s call to “love the stranger as ourselves” through empathetic analysis of what served (or didn’t serve) us during our time of alienation. Empathetic solutions could look like hiring workshops, English as a second language (ESL) courses, or churches hosting job fairs.
For America to welcome immigrants, we have to start treating them as if they belong and increasing ease of access to opportunities of growth and development. Otherwise, the promises of the American experience will be limited to our rhetoric rather than their realities.
Daniella Jacob is a Malayali-American, born and raised in Houston, Texas. She is currently an undergraduate student at Bryn Mawr College studying Religion and Anthropology. As a Public Scholarship Editor at the CAAC, she enjoys engaging with her faith community and putting to words what may be hard to explain on the outside. After Bryn Mawr, Daniella hopes to continue her research through graduate school.
Jaicy John is a first-generation Philadelphia native within the Malayalee Orthodox faith tradition. Currently, she is a training specialist with experience in school-based, corporate, and non-profit management. Jaicy has experience (and loves) living and working both internationally and in the US.
This is a well written article describing linguistic racism/ supremacy and how it harms the person and also affects the next generation. The children often are called upon to step up to play parent functions while it diminishes the parent. The children often disown parts of themselves as they assimilate and adopt a less than authentic self.
The children may not realize that standard American English is but a social construct that privileges some communities and maintains racial and social hierarchies. The one-up and one-down dynamic of racism/supremacy is unknowingly transmitted to the next generation. As a child of immigrants myself, I tried to practice Matthew 25 by helping my church teach ESL to immigrants. And yet, I had to remind myself to also practice cultural humility. Thank you.