Is the Pakistani Diaspora in the West Doing Poorly?
A recent Dawn newspaper article entitled "Getting Ahead in the West" by British journalist Owen Bennet Jones suggests that Pakistanis in the US and the UK are doing poorly relative to their Indian counterparts. It builds this narrative using the example of 3 ministers of Indian origin and just one junior minister of Pakistani origin in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet. It also cites the example of the choice of Kamala Harris, who is seen as African-American in the US political context, on the Democratic presidential ticket headed by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
British Pakistanis:
While it is true that the current British government has three ministers of Indian origin, it is also true that British Pakistanis Sajid Javid and Sayeeda Warsi held senior cabinet posts in recent British governments headed by Prime Ministers Teresa May and David Cameron.
In addition to cabinet memberships, British Pakistanis have been elected as mayors of several cities, including London. They also have over a dozen seats in the British and European parliaments.
Twelve British Pakistanis, including 5 women, have been elected members of parliament (MPs) in recent elections held in the United Kingdom, according to media reports. Seven of them are members of the Labor Party and three belong to the Conservative Party. This sets a new record with the increase of two MPs from the May 2012 elections that resulted in the election of 10 MPs of Pakistani origin. British Pakistanis make up 1.8% of the British population, about the same as their representation in the House of Commons. There are 15 British Indians in the UK parliament and they make up 2.3% of the UK population.
Upwardly Mobile Pakistani-Americans:
A recent study shows that Pakistani-Americans are among 5 most upwardly mobile groups in the United States. Other top most upwardly groups are Chinese-Americans from Hong Kong, Taiwan and People's Republic of China and Indian-Americans.
Immigration to the United States continues to offer a route to escape poverty — if not for poor immigrants themselves, then for their sons, according to a study published by a team of economic historians at Princeton, Stanford and the University of California, Davis.
It is important to note that there are about 500,000 Pakistani-Americans, a fraction of about 3.2 million Indian-Americans in the United States.
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| Average income rank of sons with parents in 25th percentile. Source: New York Times |
Top 5 Upwardly Mobile Groups in America:
The study shows the adult outcomes of sons born in 1980 who grew up in poor families at about the 25th percentile of income distribution in the United States. Pakistani-American sons born in poor households are now at 59th percentile of income in the United States.
Sons of immigrants from Hong Kong in 25th percentile have the highest economic mobility are 64th percentile followed by China at 63rd, India at 62nd and Taiwan at 60th percentile. Sons of American born fathers are at 46th percentile, much lower than for the sons of immigrants. Only the sons of immigrants from the Caribbean island nations of Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica have lower mobility.
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| Six of the Twelve British-Pakistani MPs |
British Pakistani MPs and Peers:
In addition to the 12 British Pakistanis in the House of Commons, there are 8 members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, bringing the total strength of British Pakistanis in the UK parliament to 20. Most of them are from very humble backgrounds in rural Pakistan. Majority of Pakistanis in the UK are from Mirpur and its surrounding villages in Azad Kashmir. They or their parents migrated to Britain when they were given compensation by Pakistani government for their land to make way for the building of the massive Mangla Dam after the signing of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan in 1960. Five of the twelve British Pakistani MPs in the new parliament are from Azad Kashmir.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan:
Last year saw the election of Sadiq Khan as mayor of London, making him the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital city. Mayor Sadiq Khan is also of Pakistani-origin. Khan's father migrated to Britain in 1960s and worked as a London bus driver. Khan comes from a family of two generations of immigrants: His grandparents migrated from what is now India to the newly created state of Pakistan in 1947 and his parents migrated from Karachi to London in 1969. Sadiq Khan was born in London in 1970.
British Pakistanis' Struggles:
While the British Pakistanis have made some headway in the public sector in their new home, they continue to face discrimination, particularly in the private sector. A 2016 study by the government’s Social Mobility Commission found that the "children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin in Britain have outperformed other ethnic groups to achieve rapid improvements at every level of education, but are significantly less likely to be employed in managerial or professional jobs than their white counterparts".
The study said that the "minority ethnic pupils (including Pakistanis) are outperforming white working class children in English tests throughout school, with white British teenagers coming bottom of the pile in the subject at GCSE level".
Pakistani Doctors in the West:
Pakistani doctors make up the third largest source of practicing physicians and surgeons in the United States. Pakistan is also the second largest source of doctors of foreign origin serving in the United Kingdom, according to OECD. Indians make up 34% of the foreign doctors in Britain, followed by 11% from Pakistan.
Summary:
Pakistani-Americans are among the top 5 groups in terms of upward economic mobility, according to a study by researchers at Princeton, Stanford and UC Davis. Other immigrant groups with high mobility in America include Chinese and Indians. It is important to note that there are about 500,000 Pakistani-Americans, a fraction of about 3.2 million Indian-Americans in the United States. British Pakistanis have achieved significant success in spite of their humble origins and discrimination they face in their adopted home. 12 of them serve as members of the House of Commons and 8 in the House of Lords. Mayor Sadiq Khan of London, the first Muslim leader of a major western capital, is the son of a London bus driver who migrated from Pakistan. British Pakistani children are outperforming their white working class peers in schools. British Pakistani doctors are the second largest population of doctors of foreign origin in the United Kingdom. The British Pakistanis are among the best of the Pakistani diaspora, or any diaspora, in the world. Pakistani-American have been described as "geniuses" by CNN analyst Van Jones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr5cLv8Dj2I
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Upwardly Mobile Pakistani-Americans
Pakistani Diaspora
British Pakistanis
London Mayor Sadiq Khan
British Pakistani Singer Zayn
Pakistan 3rd Largest Source of Foreign Doctors in America
Pakistanis Make Up Largest Foreign-Born Muslim Group in Silicon Valley
Pakistanis in Silicon Valley
Massive Show of Support for Silicon Valley Muslims After Trump Ban
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https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54405737
The viral video, featuring President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, walking hand-in-hand and lathering praise on each other at a massive event held in Houston last year, had already attracted more than a million views on social media platforms, and the nearly 2,000 Indian-Americans on his chat groups were sharing it at a furious pace.
Meanwhile, for Mr Trump, mega-PR events like 'Howdy Modi!' and 'Namaste Trump' with the Indian prime minister - massive rallies held in each leaders' respective countries - have helped too.
In fact, the day after President Trump tested positive for coronavirus, a group of Hindu Indian-Americans in Chicago conducted a havan, an elaborate Hindu prayer ritual, for the "speedy recovery of the President and First Lady Melania".
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While Democrats do not have the bonhomie of Mr Trump and Mr Modi to boast of, they have Senator Kamala Harris as Democratic challenger Joe Biden's running mate - and there's ample evidence to suggest her presence has galvanised the party's Indian-American supporters.
Ms Harris identifies as black, given her father is a Jamaican-American, but on the campaign trail she often speaks about her late mother Shyamala Gopalan, a biomedical scientist who immigrated to the United States from India as a young woman.
Until recently, many Indian-Americans had assumed Ms Harris to be a black politician, but the way she talks about her mother and embraces her Indian roots seems to have endeared her to many in the community.
Ramesh Kapur, a Massachusetts-based Indian-American industrialist, says the impact of the senator's Indian-American roots is most visible at fundraisers.
At a virtual event for Mr Biden the last week of September, the community raised $3.3m (£2.5m) in one night - the target was $1.5m.
A Glasgow restaurateur, he was part of the rise of the British curry house — and played an essential part in its story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/dining/ali-ahmed-aslam-dead.html
Ali Ahmed Aslam, the Glasgow restaurateur who was often credited with the invention of chicken tikka masala, died on Monday. He was 77.
His son Asif Ali said the cause was septic shock and organ failure after a prolonged illness. He did not say where Mr. Aslam died.
Much like Cartesian geometry, chicken tikka masala was most likely not one person’s invention, but rather a case of simultaneous discovery — a delicious inevitability in so many restaurant kitchens, advanced by shifting forces of immigration and tastes in postwar Britain.
Many cooks claimed that they were the ones who served it first, or that they knew a guy who knew the guy who really did. Others insisted it wasn’t a British invention at all but a Punjabi dish. None of those stories seemed to stick.
Instead, the bright tomato-tinted lights of fame shone on one man: Mr. Aslam, who immigrated to Glasgow from a village outside Lahore, Pakistan, when he was 16, and who opened the restaurant Shish Mahal in 1964.
What seems to have established Mr. Aslam as the inventor of the dish was an unsuccessful 2009 bid by the Scottish member of Parliament Mohammad Sarwar to have the European Union recognize chicken tikka masala as a Glaswegian specialty. In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Mr. Aslam explained that he had added some sauce to please a customer once, and you could almost hear him shrug.
In Aslam family lore, it was a local bus driver who popped in for dinner and suggested that plain chicken tikka was too spicy for him, and too dry — and also he wasn’t feeling well, so wasn’t there something sweeter and saucier that he could have instead? Sure, why not. Mr. Aslam, who was known as Mr. Ali, tipped the tandoor-grilled pieces of meat into a pan with a quick tomato sauce and returned them to the table.
“He never really put so much importance on it,” Asif Ali said. “He just told people how he made it.”
Chicken tikka masala became so widespread that in 2001 Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary, delivered a speech praising the dish — and Britain for embracing it.
“Chicken tikka masala is now a true British national dish,” Mr. Cook said, referring to a survey that had placed it above fish and chips in popularity. “Not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.”
Mr. Aslam was born into a family of farmers, in a small village near Lahore. As a teenager, newly arrived to Glasgow in 1959, he took a job with his uncle in the clothing business during the day and cut onions at a local restaurant at night.
Mr. Aslam was ambitious, and he soon opened his own place in the city’s West End. He installed just a few tables and a brilliantly hot well of a tandoor oven, which he learned to man in a sweaty process of trial and error. He brought his parents over from Pakistan; his mother helped to run the kitchen, and his father took care of the front of the house.
In 1969, Mr. Aslam married Kalsoom Akhtar, who came from the same village in Pakistan. In Glasgow they raised five children. In addition to his son Asif, his survivors include his wife; their other children, Shaista Ali-Sattar, Rashaid Ali, Omar Ali and Samiya Ali; his brother Nasim Ahmed; and his sisters Bashiran Bibi and Naziran Tariq Ali.
Chicken tikka masala boomed in the curry houses of 1970s Britain. Soon it was more than just a dish you could order off the menu at every curry house, or buy packaged at the supermarket; it was a powerful political symbol.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/scotlands-next-leader-be-announced-with-independence-movement-crisis-2023-03-26/
LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Scottish nationalists picked Humza Yousaf to be the country's next leader on Monday after a bitterly fought contest that exposed deep divisions in his party over policy and a stalled independence campaign.
The 37-year-old practicing Muslim will succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the governing Scottish National Party (SNP) and, subject to a vote in the Scottish parliament, take over as head of the semi-autonomous government.
Yousaf's victory was confirmed at Edinburgh's Murrayfield rugby ground on Monday afternoon after a six-week campaign where the three candidates spent much of the contest criticising each other's record in a series of personal attacks.
The SNP's unity, which had been one of its strengths, broke down over arguments about how to achieve a second independence referendum and the best way to introduce social reforms such as transgender rights.
Yousaf takes over a party with an overriding objective to end Scotland's three-centuries-long union with England.
But while about four in 10 Scots still support independence, according to a poll this month, the departure of Sturgeon - a charismatic and commanding leader - may slow some of the momentum behind a break up of the United Kingdom.
There is no agreed strategy for how to force a new referendum - one of the reasons Sturgeon resigned.
The often bad-tempered leadership contest has relieved some pressure on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is dealing with divisions in his own party, waves of industrial action and high levels of inflation.
FRONTRUNNER
Yousaf won 24,336 of the votes of the SNP's members in the first round, while his main rival Kate Forbes 32, Scotland's finance minister, came second with 20,559 votes. Ash Regan, who quit the government because of her opposition to proposed changes to gender recognition, was third with 5,599 votes.
By Ishaan Tharoor
May 13, 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/13/watch-muslim-politician-in-a-kilt-swears-oath-in-urdu-to-british-queen/
https://youtu.be/NE_J8wzo6ko
In an emphatic demonstration of British multiculturalism, a Muslim politician elected to Scottish parliament delivered his oath of allegiance in Urdu while wearing a kilt.
Humza Yousaf, a member of the Scottish National Party who won a seat from the city of Glasgow, spoke first in English and then in the language linked to his Pakistani heritage, swearing "that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth" and concluding with "so help me God."
His party championed Scotland's unsuccessful bid for independence in 2014, framing its nationalism not on ethnic identity but on the desire for a distinct, diverse nation to have greater control over its affairs. The SNP now dominates politics in Edinburgh and has a sizable bloc of seats in Westminster as well.
On Twitter, Yousaf laughed off the predictable backlash to his oath from those fearful of the role of Islam in British society.
Yousaf was not the only politician to take the oath in another language: Other members of Scottish parliament spoke in local tongues such as Doric, Gaelic and Scots.
https://news.sky.com/story/humza-yousaf-promises-independence-what-can-new-snp-leader-deliver-12843802
Humza Yousaf made a few big promises as he succeeded Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader - including healing divisions in his party, redoubling efforts to lift people out of poverty and, of course, Scottish independence.
On the Sky News Daily, Sally Lockwood is joined by our Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies and Shona Craven, columnist at The National, as we look at what we can expect from his leadership and discuss how he will measure up against his predecessors.
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ArainGang
@ArainGang
Scotland led by Pakistani Minister Humza Yousaf, will seek independence from the United Kingdom, which is led by Indian Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The Subcontinent Strikes Back
https://twitter.com/ArainGang/status/1640430192006139906?s=20
Craig Murray -
@CraigMurrayOrg
This is incredible. The Home Office's own extensive study found that there is no ethnic group particularly involved in paedophile grooming, and that most organised paedophile groups are white.
Braverman is truly disgusting.
https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1642656137928404993?s=20
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/dec/analysis-new-home-office-report-admits-grooming-gangs-are-not-muslim-problem
The study finds no credible evidence for a far-right stereotype that has spread widely in the media, writes Dr Ella Cockbain (UCL Security & Crime Science) in an article co-authored with Dr Waqas Tufail for The Guardian.
'I am calling her rhetoric racist, I am', Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/watch-braverman-dubbed-a-trump-tribute-act-following-grooming-comments-346597/
Suella Braverman has been labelled a “Trump tribute act” following her divisive rhetoric on child sexual exploitation.
The home secretary pointed to a “predominance of certain ethnic groups – and I say British Pakistani males – who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values, who see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way and pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave” in a speech.
She also claimed that victims and whistle-blowers were ignored “due to cultural sensitivity and political correctness’’, a claim challenged in many reports including the Operation Linden Report, published in June 2022.
Writing in response to the comments, a number of health organisations have criticised the home secretary’s rhetoric in the strongest possible terms.
An open letter reads:
“It is unacceptable for the Home Secretary to use inflammatory and divisive rhetoric that is sensationalist and contradicts her own department’s evidence.
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LBC
@LBC
'I am calling her rhetoric racist, I am.'
Tory peer Baroness
@SayeedaWarsi
condemns Suella Braverman's language and tells
@mrjamesob
we need a grown-up as Home Secretary, not a 'Trump tribute act'.
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?QueryId=68336
India 45,830
Pakistan 12,454
Grenada 10,789
Philipines 10,217
Dominica 9,974
Mexico 9,923
Canada 7,765
Dominican Republic 6,269
China 5,772
UAE 4,635
Egypt 4,379
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Total Foreign Doctors in UK 66,211
India 18,953
Pakistan 8,026
Nigeria 4,880
Egypt 4,471
Foreign Doctors in Canada 25,400:
South Africa 2,604
India 2,127
Ireland 1,942
UK 1,923
US 1,263
Pakistan 1,087
https://www.bolton.gov.uk/councillors-mayor/mayor#:~:text=The%20Mayor%20of%20Bolton%20for,1972%20at%20the%20age%2015.
Ayub was born in the small village of Ghora, Kotli, Azad Kashmir. He came to live in Bolton in 1972 at the age 15.
Ayub has worked in various sectors including Textile mills, manufacturing, commercial and later in the transport sector and local government for last 40 years.
Ayub was elected to Bolton Council in 2006 and has represented Great Lever Ward for the last 17 years. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Planning Committee, Cabinet member for Highways & Transport, Audit, Corporate and Place scrutiny Committee. He has also served as a Governor of Bolton Islamic Girls School.
Mohammed Ayub will be the first Bolton Mayor of Kashmiri origin and is exceptionally proud to be Bolton’s First Citizen. Ayub has chosen his wife Zaibun Nisa to be his Mayoress, they have been married for 45 years. Originally born in Pakistan, Zaibun has lived in the UK for many years. They have 6 beautiful children and 14 grandchildren.
Born in Rawalpindi, Pervez moved to the UK when he was 21 years old. He became a bus conductor in Bradford, working seven days a week and earning up to £18.
This eventually led to Pervez opening up his first convenience store, Kashmir, for the Muslim community in London.
https://www.desiblitz.com/content/pakistani-billionaires-living-in-the-uk#:~:text=The%20most%20popular%20and%20successful,earning%20up%20to%20%C2%A318.
https://theconversation.com/why-pakistani-students-benefit-the-most-from-going-to-university-158088
By Beth Daley
Editor and GM
The benefits are especially large for (British) Pakistani students, with an estimated boost to average earnings of more than a third by age 30. Adding up predicted gains over the whole life cycle and taking into account taxes and student loans, we found that doing a degree is worth around £200,000 for Pakistani students – around twice the average return for all students we calculated in previous work.
This is not because Pakistani graduates have especially high earnings. In fact, the opposite is true: Pakistani graduates have the lowest graduate earnings of all ethnic groups, with typical earnings at age 30 of £23,000 for men and £19,000 for women.
How The Conversation is different: We explain without oversimplifying.
Learn more
Instead the reason is that – based on comparing similar people who did and didn’t go to university – Pakistani graduates would have earned much less had they not gone to university. Typical earnings at age 30 of Pakistani men and women who did not go to university are only £13,000 for men and £11,000 for women.
An important factor explaining the large earnings gains for Pakistani graduates (compared to not attending university) appears to be that Pakistani students are more likely than White British students to choose subjects with good job prospects at university, such as business, law, or pharmacology. They are also less likely to choose degrees with low or negative financial returns, such as creative arts.
These findings appear to contradict a claim in the government’s recent race commission report. According to the report, an explanation for the low graduate earnings of many ethnic minority groups is that “ethnic minority students, and especially Black students, from lower social status backgrounds are not being well advised on which courses to take at university”.
Our findings suggest that the opposite is true for South Asian students, as they tend to study more lucrative subjects than white students. We also find no evidence that black students choose lower-return subjects than white students. This does not mean that poor career advice is not a problem – but it doesn’t seem to affect ethnic minorities disproportionately.
The government’s report also suggests that ethnic minorities have low graduate earnings because they attend less selective universities. It is true that students from ethnic minorities – especially black students – are more likely to attend lower tariff universities, and that graduates of these institutions earn less than other graduates.
But importantly, this does not mean that these universities offer low returns. Many graduates of these institutions would have had much lower earnings still if they had not gone to university at all. Overall, we found no evidence that ethnic minorities’ institution choices lower their gains from attending university.
1. India (720,000) 2. China (273,000) 3. Mexico (119,000), 4. Vietnam (100,000), 5. Philippines (87,000), 6. South Korea (84,000), 7. Canada (56,000), 8. Taiwan (53,000), 9. Russia (45,000), 10. Pakistan (35,000).
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/foreign-born-stem-workers-united-states
Since 2000, the share of foreign-born workers in the STEM workforce has increased by more than 40 percent.
The share of foreign-born workers in STEM occupations has grown significantly in recent years. As shown in Table 2, the number of foreign-born STEM workers increased from 1.2 million (16.4 percent of the STEM workforce) in 2000 to 2.5 million (23.1 percent of the STEM workforce) in 2019.
Because immigrant STEM workers tend to possess skills that complement those of their U.S.-born co-workers, the presence of immigrants in the workplace increases the productivity (and therefore the wages) of all workers. Moreover, innovation by immigrant workers increases the revenue of the firms in which they work, which enables employers to hire more workers. The overall share of workers who are foreign-born and hold advanced degrees from either a U.S. or a foreign university is also associated with higher levels of employment among U.S.-born workers. A 10 percent increase in the share of foreign-born workers with advanced degrees working in STEM occupations boosted the U.S.-born employment rate by 0.03 percent. This means that every additional 100 foreign-born workers with an advanced degree working in a STEM occupation creates roughly 86 jobs for U.S. workers.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/articles/householdwealthbyethnicitygreatbritain/april2016tomarch2018
White households median £313,900 mean £590,400
Indian households median £313,200 mean £493,800
Pakistani households median £224,500 mean £302,100
Chinese households median £77,300 mean £348,400
Bangladeshi households median £65,600 mean £141,100
Other Asian households median £162,100 mean £367,800
Black Caribbean households median £85,900 mean £379,200