Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• Bipartisanship Lives, and Biden Takes a Bow - Finally, Infrastructure Week is for real. - link

• After the Lost Cause - Why are politics so consumed with the past? - link

• Can Congress Insure Fair Elections? - The legal scholar Rick Hasen discusses the dangers of election subversion and voter suppression. - link

• Lina Hidalgo’s Political Rise - The thirty-year-old Houston chief executive is creating a model for how progressives can govern effectively. - link

• The Unexplained Phenomena of the U.F.O. Report - A new intelligence document examines a hundred and forty-three sightings that might have been caused by errant balloons, foreign drones, or “Other”—a reserved way of saying aliens. - link

From Vox

• Air travel will suck this summer. Blame the airlines’ short-sighted layoffs. -

  

  American, Delta, and United spent a year laying off workers. Now the airlines need them back.

  The airlines are no longer desperate. Gone are the pandemic-era flight deals, flexible booking policies, and open middle seats. Millions of Americans are traveling again, as the weather warms (in some parts of the US) and vaccination rates rise. This is cause for optimism. The joys of normal life — summer vacations and guilt-free social gatherings — are on the horizon. But first, the airport.

  Travel is back, and so are its all-too-many inconveniences: long security lines, pissed-off passengers, boarding mishaps, and random airline fees. It’s not good news for summer travelers, especially those with trips booked around Independence Day, so plan accordingly for all of the above. And it isn’t just that rowdy travelers might be acting up. From a logistical standpoint, things have actually gotten worse.

  The number of fliers daily in the US is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, even though business and international travel have been slow to resume. Airlines and airports have struggled to accommodate this influx, which has resulted in longer customer service wait times, significant flight delays, and sudden cancellations. In some cities, airport concession stands and restaurants aren’t fully staffed or open, leaving stranded travelers with fewer options for food and beverages.

  Dropped someone off at the airport before 6AM (Austin). Jammed. Go early.
  
  Also: @AmericanAir a complete disaster. Canceling flights, terrible service. They took the generous bailout and fired thousands. Would avoid, if possible.

  — Wait Capital (@WaitCapital) June 23, 2021

Industry executives have attributed such inconveniences to bad weather and, perhaps more vaguely, “labor shortages.” A May memo from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to its employees warned that over 100 of America’s largest airports will struggle with staffing shortages and asked office workers to assist with airport security on a volunteer basis. Delta’s CEO was concerned about staffing enough contracted workers for the summer. American Airlines recently announced plans to cancel hundreds of flights in July, citing “unprecedented weather,” a spike in travel demand, and a dearth of workers. Skift, a news site on the travel industry, predicted a summer full of subpar domestic travel experiences — from elbow-to-elbow seating on flights to sold-out destinations — as a result of the labor shortage.

Republican lawmakers and business leaders have used similar language to describe America’s slow job recovery. They’ve blamed the worker shortage on generous unemployment benefits and stimulus checks, claiming that people would rather stay at home and receive government aid than apply for jobs, a theory rejected by economists. According to the Washington Post’s Heather Long, America is undergoing a “great reassessment of work,” as people consider changing their industry or seek out higher-paying, stable jobs that are less public-facing. Regardless of the reason, America’s labor market is still far from normal, and certain sectors are recovering at different rates.

After a year spent slashing jobs, airlines and aviation subcontractors are now back on the hiring train. It’s not enough to hire back workers; those workers need to undergo training and security clearances. “For airlines, you just don’t go out and hire somebody,” Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant, told Yahoo Finance. “If you’re going to have them work at a ticket counter, they have to have training in hazardous materials and security. You just don’t bring people on real quick. The real issue is [the airlines] had to let somebody go.”

United’s CEO recently warned of a pending pilot shortage as older crew members retire, but it’s not just pilots that are in demand. Airlines and airports are looking to staff a variety of positions, from flight crew and food service workers to customer call staff and gate agents.

The airlines’ response has been akin to a corporate shoulder shrug that sidesteps the industry’s role in fragmenting its workforce, argued Laura Moran, a spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union. “There was a time when most folks — the customer service and wheelchair agents, security officers, cabin cleaners, and baggage handlers — were directly employed by the airlines,” Moran said. “Now, we have a real patchwork of subcontracted workers who perform crucial labor for the airlines.”

Some of these positions were first on the chopping block when travel halted. Thousands of jobs were nixed to stem immediate revenue loss — by airlines, airports, or the vendors they contracted out work. The travel and leisure industry accounted for a staggering 39 percent of all US job losses from Covid-19. Airlines cut about 90,000 full-time, in-house positions by the end of 2020, including the 30,000 workers they’ve placed on furlough.

Workers employed directly by the airlines were promised some job security; domestic carriers received billions of dollars in federal aid — $25 billion in April 2020 and $15 billion in December 2020 — predicated on the condition that they would bring back employees or keep them on payroll for a set period of time. But thousands of others in contracted positions, like cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants, weren’t offered the same protections. A House investigation revealed that aviation contractors axed tens of thousands of jobs — roughly 15 percent of their workforce — even after receiving CARES Act funding for payroll assistance.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Thus, it’s inaccurate to chalk a diminished passenger experience up to a “labor shortage” without contextualizing the airline industry’s working conditions and standards — and why it’s seemingly unable to summon back tens of thousands of crucial workers. A shortage does little to acknowledge the fluctuations in work consistency and lack of financial security that many have contended with. The industry has long relied on an understaffed and underpaid workforce, with many clocking in on the front lines (which, again, are unusually stressful these days). Yet, airlines have consistently deflected blame toward the vendors and contractors that employ some of these missing workers. It’s a tactic used by major corporations (and the airlines themselves) to shirk responsibility for low wages and the lack of worker benefits and protections.

Airlines work with different vendors to outsource different types of labor, from cleaning to food services to baggage handling. These vendors independently negotiate subcontracting agreements with the airline, Moran explained, which determines workers’ wages and benefits: “The result is a disconnected system of work with no standard wages, and it’s a situation the airlines have created to keep costs down and profits up. It’s unreasonable that low-wage Black and brown workers on the front lines are expected to bear the brunt of these problems when airlines are trying to reach profitability.”

Now, across the country, it seems there are fewer workers willing to return to an underpaid, unstable job, whether it be in retail, food service, or travel. The work of airport unions and organized labor in recent years have helped secure better wages for subcontracted employees, but inequities still persist in many cities.

“There isn’t a shortage of workers. There is a shortage of workers wanting to come back to work for poverty wages,” said Elsa Caballero, president of SEIU Texas, whose union represents janitorial, security, and building staff in airports. “Airlines, which are a major employer in Houston, are still paying way below $12 an hour.”

United, for example, has previously downplayed its relationship to subcontracted airport workers, dismissing its influence over vendors’ pay. In response to a “Fight for $15” protest in 2017, a spokesperson emphasized how United does “not have a direct employer-employee relationship with [its] vendors’ employees,” as if that alone absolves the airline from any responsibility.

However, airlines do have leverage to raise wages, if they choose to intervene and place pressure on contractors. Workers at Philadelphia International Airport, for example, qualified for a $12 minimum wage after the city passed a “living wage” ordinance in 2014, but subcontracting companies refused to increase their pay rate until American Airlines upped its contract to pay for the discrepancy. American interjected again in 2017, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, when contractors refused to bargain with the workers’ union.

“In Houston, we’ve had to work with the mayor and city officials to create an executive order to ensure that an airline like United will pay workers a living wage,” Caballero said. “We know airlines can pay more, but they are lowballing the contracts they offer vendors.”

Substantial federal aid has done little to assuage workers’ and union leaders’ fears of further layoffs. Airlines are still searching for ways to keep costs low. United Airlines, for example, told its in-house catering workers earlier this year that it was “exploring the option” of working with a third-party contractor for its kitchen services, igniting a series of worker protests in April.

Running an airline is a high-cost operation. Slate’s Henry Grabar previously described the industry as “low-margin, capital-intensive businesses,” which means a company’s cash savings won’t be very helpful during an extensive crisis. ”Capital-intensive means it’s hard to tighten your belt,” Grabar wrote. “You can save some money on fuel and food, but not on labor or rent. You still have to pay banks or leasing companies for your planes. You can’t save those seats for later, or fly twice as many flights when business picks up again. There is no factory to shut down. Even if you ground flights, many costs are fixed.” Customers have been expected to pay additional fees on top of ticket costs for additional luggage, seat selection, and priority boarding. (Fees are also another stream of revenue for airlines, one that is exempt from the 7 percent excise tax on domestic airfare.)

Yet, the aviation industry has a long history of generously padding the wallets of its executives, investors, and other shareholders through stock buybacks and hefty compensation packages. All this, despite being a fundamentally expensive business. So far, they’ve squared that tricky circle by passing costs on to the consumer and neglecting the needs of workers who are central to airline operations.

While customer service and labor issues can seem at odds with one another, Caballero argues that improved working conditions can directly affect the passenger experience. Travelers and workers could find solidarity in the fact that they both expect more from airlines. If travelers are being nickel-and-dimed for every expense, where does the additional money go? Research shows that higher pay boosts employee performance and retention; in a place like the airport, in which so many workers are public-facing employees (sometimes dealing with unruly passengers), fair compensation and benefits should be prerequisites.

“This is a consumer issue,” said Caballero. “It affects passengers when airport workers are paid poorly and don’t want to show up, when there’s no one to push a wheelchair or answer questions at the gate. Their work is undervalued, yet it’s incredibly important to passengers.”

• Welcome to the Gatekeepers Issue of The Highlight -

  

  Music, books, film, and the people who move pop culture forward.

  

  Until a global pandemic gave us the Summer That Wasn’t, there were a few things we could expect from the sultry months between June and September: At least one ubiquitous “song of summer,” an earworm that would spill out of ever car, club and radio, for months on end. Flashy, loud, and, often, inane blockbuster films. Concert tours and sprawling festivals. A slate of books vying to be the season’s beach reads.

  Summer has always been a season of pop cultural happening, a time to reset our tastes and nudge out last year’s sounds and sights for something altogether new.

  This summer — quickly shaping up to be the Summer That Was — seemed a perfect time to look at the people and forces that shape pop culture: The gatekeepers.

  In our cover story, Constance Grady looks at the indomitable, and persistently undermined, power of teen girl as arbiters of culture. In just the past year, they have turned TikTok and “Driver’s License” into phenomena and relegated side parts and skinny jeans to the out-of-touch olds. As the culture reconsiders how it has treated young stars including Britney Spears, Grady notes: “Across the pop culture landscape, teen girls — as both fans and creators of mass culture — are getting more respect now than they would have just five years ago. The New York Times regularly reports on teen influencers; Forbes puts together respectful write-ups of the money to be made with the teens on TikTok.” But are teen girls finally getting their due, or have they simply become the targets of a crass cash grab?

  Charlie Harding, the co-host of the Switched on Pop podcast, explores what may be a monumental shift in the music business: Hit songs have somehow come to obscure the very singers belting them out. Blame streaming services’ playlists, which have created a “lean back” experience for listeners, allowing them to enjoy a tune without ever connecting with an artist, and leaving artists struggling to stand out from the crowd.

  But sometimes, the ultimate gatekeeper is us: It was in the case of writer Isabel Fall, whose short story, “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter,” might have remained a niche sci-fi tale if not for the Twitter maelstrom that enveloped it shortly after it published last year. How can a Twitter hoard undo a writer, or make it unsafe for art? In correspondence with Vox’s Emily VanDerWerff, Fall shares her story, and how she has tried to keep her work alive.

  And finally: Film critic Carlos Aguilar explores the world of cultural criticism, which remains largely white and male. “A self-taught, undocumented Latino for whom English is a second language isn’t the prototype of a critic in this country,” he writes. But the effect isn’t felt just by wannabe critics; the sameness of critics contributes to a sameness of perspective, he writes, dulling dynamic conversations around art. Meanwhile, cartoonist Sam Nakahira explores the surprising political forces that practically willed K-pop into a global phenomenon.

  ---

  Beth Hoeckel for Vox/Getty Images

  Who runs the world? Not teen girls.

  They shape everything from what we listen to to how we part our hair. Will we ever give them the respect they deserve?

  By Constance Grady

  ---

  

  The pop star versus the playlist (coming Tuesday)

  Streaming services’ playlists make it easier for listeners to find music worth playing. But experts say they’re also breaking fans’ relationships with artists.

  By Charlie Harding

  ---

  Getty Images/iStockphoto

  How Twitter can ruin a life (coming Wednesday)

  Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next.

  By Emily VanDerWerf

  ---

  Michelle Rohn for Vox

  Who gets to be a critic? (coming Thursday)

  I never believed I could be one. That’s the problem.

  By Carlos Aguilar

  ---

  Sam Nakahira for Vox

  The surprisingly political history of K-pop (coming Friday)

  The influence of the “wave” of Korean music and film on global culture was no accident.

  By Sam Nakahira

• What the American dream looks like for immigrants -

  

  Upward mobility is common for the millions who come to the US. But there’s a lot more to the story.

  Over the past 40 years, the prospect of achieving or maintaining a foothold in the middle class has faded for millions of Americans. Blame stagnant wages, the ever-increasing cost of living, massive student debt, and the narrowing of once all-but-guaranteed routes — like, say, a good union job — to economic stability. Millennials, as a whole, are the first generation predicted to be worse off than their parents. A 2017 study found that a staggering 90 percent of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents did at age 30; for children born in 1984, that percentage has declined to just 50 percent.

  But there’s a complicated, competing reality at work for recent immigrants to the United States and their children, the majority of whom are currently living some version of the American dream. Or, more precisely, the upward mobility component of that dream: the idea that hard work will lead to increased stability and class position for the next generation.

  A massive study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, published in 2019, examined millions of father-son pairs of immigrants over the last century. The authors found that children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than the children of those born in the US. More significantly, they found that shifts in immigration policy and country of origin have not altered the pattern — and that it holds true whether the first generation was poor (in the bottom 25th percentile of income distribution) or relatively well-off (in the top 25th percentile).

  What happens after that second generation is more complicated, but that initial immigrant upward mobility, when gains are acutely felt? It’s still there, even as the once-consistent class mobility of Americans three, four, five, or six generations removed from their ancestors’ original migration has stalled.

  For those who’ve personally watched upward mobility work within their families, the promises of the American dream often feel like promises kept. Hard work and education led to significantly better outcomes for their children, with more stability for the entire family. There’s a lot more to these stories, however, particularly to the way second-generation immigrants conceive of their place on the class ladder.

  Speaking with first- and second-generation immigrants from more than a dozen “sending” countries over the past month, it’s clear there’s a shared desire to have bigger, more nuanced discussions of the immigrant experience of the American dream — conversations that attend to the specific contexts that so often get swallowed within the label of “immigrant,” alternately portrayed as a problem (overwhelming the border, sucking up governmental resources, taking American jobs) or a model success story, with very little, if any, attention to the paths that open or close to migrants from different home countries and circumstances, from different racial and educational backgrounds, with profoundly different levels of societal and governmental support.

  Between 2005 and 2050, the US is projected to add 117 million people as a result of new immigration — a stunning 82 percent of the population growth. That’s 67 million incoming immigrants, 47 million of their children, and 3 million grandchildren. These new immigrants and their descendants will shape the future of this country. They know, arguably better than those who are native born, where the roadblocks to stability are located: where the pain resides, where the trajectory loses steam, where outdated hierarchies and good old-fashioned racism work to exclude them. They see what’s lost every time the narrative of the middle class remains, implicitly or not, the narrative of the white middle class.

  As a second-generation immigrant named Elle told me, immigrants are just enough removed from the American status quo that leads people to believe they have a right to a place in the middle class. They can, in her words, “see the entire landscape of potential outcomes, upturns, and downturns.” There’s invaluable perspective there. Below, Elle and six other first- and second-generation immigrants share what they’ve come to understand about the middle-class American dream.

  ---

  Dharushana Muthulingam, age 38

  Family moved from Sri Lanka to Los Angeles via the UK in the 1980s

  My parents are originally from Sri Lanka. They moved to the UK, where I was born; then the still-ongoing civil war broke out. Most of my extended family made it to various refugee camps and then settled all over the globe.

  Money was short growing up, and the shortage was a source of discord. It was explicit that financial security was the priority, and the jobs that achieved security were physician, engineer, lawyer. My parents owned several small businesses, like many immigrant parents, but when they imagined the success of their children, it was one of these “respectable” professions. It was security: mine and theirs. Like most of the world, they do not have a 401(k) — children are the retirement plan. I remember being rebuked if I said I wanted to be a rock star or mailman. I said I wanted to be a writer, and was told I could be a writer after I became a doctor.

  

  So I went to college. I went to medical school. I got married. I had two children. I have a mortgage. I bought a minivan. Check, check, check. I worked very, very hard. My brain and body and soul broke multiple times. American medical training is stupidly hellacious. It’s thoroughly populated by either individuals from multigenerational physician families — they navigated the culture with ease, had their rent covered — or the other strivers like me, trying to mobilize out of their class, scraping together the fees to take tests and do applications. I went to some of the best institutions in the world, where I spent a lot of time crying in the financial aid office.

  In order to use education as a tool for class mobility, well, you get educated in the process. I deeply absorbed the Western liberal ideology of the educated middle class. I absorbed the particulars of the American caste system while going deeply into debt for the process, looking at my brown femme face in the mirror every day while trying to convince others to pronounce my long foreign name.

  When we say “middle-class experience in the United States” usually we are talking about a very particular white middle-class experience in the United States. That is the one on TV, the one that runs the universities, the cultural experiences, and brokers the power. It is weird because growing up in California suburbs, there were actually a lot of middle-class people of color, so my lived experience is different, but I embraced the pop culture portrayal of the American suburb. It’s insidious, divisive, and warping and leads to toxic shit like the “model minority” fallacy and respectability politics that degrades your soul.

  It’s important for people to know that Asian immigrants are very heterogeneous. Many of the people who got here in the ’70s and ’80s for the first nonwhite expansion of immigration to the US since the Chinese Exclusion Act were professionals: doctors, engineers, grad students. But the majority of Asian immigrants are not necessarily professionals or highly educated.

  I am deep in a midlife crisis reevaluating everything I thought about my goals to get in the middle class. But you know, sometimes I am fucking proud. In the remote LA suburb where I grew up, we would get doughnuts. My dad would chitchat with the owner, who was a Laotian refugee. They would each brag about their kids. The doughnut store guy’s kid was at Yale Law or something. and this was supposed to be it. The American dream. Two guys who fled war — and my dad, who grew up as a subsistence farmer in a thatched-roof hut, whose mother could not read — these guys sent their kids to the most powerful institutions in the most powerful country. You still sometimes want nothing more than to make your parents happy, because you know on a very deep level how much they have struggled. You want to bring them all the riches and prizes of the world.

  ---

  Ana Maria, age 45

  Parents arrived in Los Angeles from Mexico in the early 1960s

  We didn’t talk about our class position. Growing up, when my brother or I asked for toys, restaurant visits, candy, we got used to hearing “no hay dinero” — there’s no money for that.

  Our parents didn’t talk to us about aspirational goals; work is just what you did to keep yourself alive. My mother’s nickname for me as a young girl was “mi trabajadora,” essentially “my hard little worker.” In my family, making it meant working in an office. When my mother described her goals for me, they amounted to going to college and getting a job in an office. To this day, though I lead product, design, and engineering teams to build software and websites used by millions around the world, I describe my job as “in an office, with computers.”

  I see myself constantly fighting a battle between Enough and More.

  On the side of Enough: the realization that my annual contribution to retirement accounts is seven times my family’s annual income. Haven’t I made it? And then there’s the Enough prescribed by bloggers and influencers who want us to set aside the rat race and the comparison game, accompanied by the creeping feeling that I embody too many “other” categories in the world of tech bros — too female, too brown, too Mexican, too old, too nontechnical, “too nice” — to keep advancing.

  On the side of More: the driving need to use my gifts and brain and skills. The desire to be the role model I never had — the Latina in tech, in a large leadership role — to inspire the younger Ana Marias out there. The drumbeat in my head after years of coaching, therapy, accountability partners, and an encouraging husband is: Why not me?

  And in the messy middle between Enough and More: an inkling that I might check the right boxes with all my “otherness” and that may open a door, but do I want to go through that door? The recognition that I can dream of wanting more only when I frame it as focused on other people — retirement with my husband, support for my mother, giving to causes, being in a position to lift up other Latinas — which makes me look at myself with a raised eyebrow and a “seriously?!”

  ---

  Melody, age 25

  Parents arrived in Columbus, Ohio, from Ghana in the 1990s

  My parents were recipients of President Clinton’s visa lottery. My dad came to the United States first, at the beginning of 1997, and me and my mom arrived in May of that same year. They chose Ohio because they had a lot of friends who had also emigrated from Ghana who lived there.

  Both of my parents had to start over when they came to the United States. My mom went to nursing school and became an RN. My dad worked as a forklift operator at the Limited for 10 years, and then he went back to school and got his nursing degree. Me, my brother, and my parents lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Columbus, Ohio. When I was in third grade, my parents bought a $300,000 house in a suburb with a great public school system. A lot of their friends who immigrated also ended up buying homes and moving to well-off suburbs.

  I feel like my parents bought into the idea of the American dream, and perhaps still do a little bit. They were able to achieve that dream: Buy a home in a nice suburb with a good school system for their three kids, send us to college, and give us a good life.

  But I do think [that] as we all get older, we realize the other factors that played a role in this success. My parents didn’t have to pay for child care; there was another Ghanaian woman who lived in our apartment complex, and she would watch me and my brother when my parents weren’t home. They had a strong support system since many of their friends immigrated to Ohio from Ghana. My parents are really religious, so the church was also a site of refuge for them. Ohio has a fairly low cost of living compared to other parts of the country, and once my mom graduated from nursing school, she got a union job, which pays very well and has amazing benefits. My father’s job at the Limited also paid a decent wage and had good benefits, including free clothes gifted by the company.

  I think the African immigrant experience as a whole isn’t discussed, and when it is, there’s not a ton of discussion about the systemic factors that contribute to the success of African immigrants and their children. We don’t have the generational trauma that Black Americans carry with them, which, in my opinion, makes a huge psychological difference.

  ---

  Christina Hernandez, age 29

  Grandmother arrived from Cuba pregnant with Christina’s father in the early 1960s

  My mom comes from a solidly middle-class white family with roots in the US going back to the late 1800s or early 1900s. My dad’s side of the family is from Cuba. My abuela [immigrated] to Miami after the Cuban revolution because she was pregnant with my father and didn’t want him to be born in a communist country. My abuelo followed about a year later as an asylum seeker. My grandparents were white, middle-class Cubans.

  My parents are both educators who met as high school teachers and are now both professors. When I was a kid, we moved to New Jersey so that my dad could do his PhD; my mom made sure we chose a town that had really good public school ratings. That meant that they couldn’t afford a house, and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment. We lived in the same apartment for about seven years, and we always had enough to eat, but fun stuff was really carefully budgeted. As an 8-year-old, I was very aware of financial stresses and my parents’ deteriorating marriage.

  

  My parents instilled the idea that working hard was the answer. My dad is a perfectionist, and so am I. After my dad got his professor job and my parents split up, my dad remarried and was able to buy a house when I was about 12 or 13. My mom didn’t buy property until I was in college, and it’s a condo rather than a house. I think I absorbed messages about how the choices we make financially and for our education and about children … have repercussions that can last decades.

  I also don’t want to make the choices my parents made. I don’t want to rush into having children — I’m now older than both of them were when I was born — and I have been very aggressive about paying off debt. I have internalized the message that middle-class status is nonexistent or extremely precarious, and as a result, I’m frugal to a fault.

  I have a very strong sense of what I think is “enough,” and my impression moving through the world as an adult is that my idea of enough is a lot less than what other white people think is enough. For me, stability is having a retirement fund and health insurance, and enough savings that I can replace my laptop or buy a plane ticket without any notice when a relative is sick or dying. Middle-class life means that I do now go on vacation, but even then, my boyfriend and I would rather go backpacking in the wilderness than visit a resort.

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  Rajika Bhandari, age 50

  Arrived in North Carolina from India for graduate school in the 1990s

  When you’re an immigrant coming from another country where you may be middle class or upper-middle class and privileged in many ways, you lose that status when you move to the US. All of that social capital that you and your family may have accumulated over the years, and that opened doors for you in your home country, that was your safety net — that no longer exists. No one in your new country knows what your background is. The new culture doesn’t know what to make of you. Back in India, my family was by no means wealthy, but we had a high social status because of education, because my parents had been to some of India’s top schools and colleges. That carried with it a real weight but was not acknowledged or known in the US.

  I’ve noticed this within my community, but I also think this is even more true for other immigrant groups: There’s a desire to align with the dominant group in the US, which is white Americans. For Indian Americans, this is very much about getting the right degrees, sending your kids to the right college, living in the right neighborhoods — this desire to align with a dominant group that represents that middle-class status that you’ve lost. During the Black Lives Matter protests last year was the first time I saw South Asians and Indian immigrants standing up along with their Black friends. For the first time, the blinders came off, and there was this realization that we might think that we’re upper-middle class, we’ve obtained the American dream, our kids go to Ivies, but in the eyes of the majority, we’re just another brown person.

  If you talk to the average American, there isn’t a good understanding of higher education and the immigration pipeline. They will not know that international students contribute $45 billion to the US. There might be an understanding that there are these students in the US, but it’s that they’re taking away “our” seats in college and then in the workplace.

  Writing my book [America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility] really came out of trying to fill this knowledge gap, especially because the legal pathway to citizenship is so poorly understood: how challenging it is, how much it controls the life of an individual who’s going through it. People think it’s not a big deal — they’re following the legal pathways, they’re living these nice lives, but what it has taken for people to get on these pathways, to get to these points, it’s staggering. There’s this feeling of being straitjacketed, you can’t move, you can’t breathe, otherwise you’ll fall out of legal status. It’s a slow-level suffocation.

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  Ashley Valdez Jones, age 27

  Mother became a naturalized American citizen in Nogales, Arizona, when she turned 18

  My father was Leave It to Beaver white Irish Catholic. His side of the family has been in the country for generations. My mom grew up in Nogales, Arizona, a town that straddles the US-Mexico border. Her family had lived in the States for years, but my grandma had all 13 of her children across the line in Nogales, Sonora, because she didn’t trust American doctors. We joke that she reverse anchor-babied. My mom became a naturalized American citizen when she turned 18.

  According to my dad, we were “comfortable.” He didn’t talk about class explicitly but focused on middle-class accomplishments: building a home, international family trips, a boat. My mom talked about class only to explain why her side of the family had less and why so many of my cousins wore my hand-me-downs. As a child, my understanding was that all Mexican people were poorer than all white people, because that’s how things shook out in my family.

  The story I got was that my mom escaped poverty, and being Mexican, by marrying a white guy. We were never close to her side of the family, and as a child, I thought it was because we weren’t like them and implicitly above them in class. The message I internalized was that the only way to achieve the American dream was to become white.

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  Elle, age 30

  Immigrated to New York from Bangladesh via the Middle East in the mid-1990s

  We started out in a tiny New York City apartment that was crawling with cockroaches, so I had the general sense that money was tight. Everyone we knew at the time was also a part of the immigrant community, also making ends meet, so I never really felt like we were under pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” in any particular way. It was never explicitly stated to us as kids, but looking back, it was obvious that my dad as the breadwinner had the goal of advancing his career in order to make the kind of money doctors can make in the US.

  I had absolutely no class consciousness until we left New York City for the suburbs. That was my introduction to the hallmarks of American middle-class life: bowling alley birthday parties, sleepover invites, Lunchables and string cheese, minivans, playsets in the backyard, after-school extracurriculars, piles of presents at Christmas, summer camps, annual stays at the lake house or a beachfront property. All of this confused me since my family’s social circle still cleaved pretty strongly to immigrant communities where none of this stuff mattered, and yet I still wanted it. I got very used to hearing “no”: no to the Barbie Dreamhouse set, a definitive no to all the sleepover invites, an “absolutely not” to most processed American food. Disney was the only thing that cracked through.

  The long-term indicator of middle-class comfort was getting to eat out at restaurants more regularly. That was absolutely unheard of for our family for many years, but it morphed into a treat and then to a natural cost to account for whenever we were not at home. What used to be a major restriction and stressor is now a relief and a joy. All aspirational goals and material markers of progress aside, I don’t think we ever felt like “we made it” until we became US citizens. That took almost two decades of switching visas and seeking employer sponsorship and winding our way through the immigration process that no born American has to think about.

  You could definitely make the argument that we followed the American dream to a T, just by looking at the ways our spending habits changed over time. We went from a used car to a nicer car to several cars; from shittier apartments to nicer apartments to a house. Rather than buying into the American dream wholesale, however, I think we were just following the path parallel to the American dream that many South Asians who aspire to become expats have internalized: Study and/or work hard so you can get out at all costs.

  That mentality is obviously not unique to immigrants alone, but it is distinct to us in that “getting out” at its core has very little to do with attaining the material markers of progress most Americans would associate with a successful middle-class life. Many of our contemporaries, both my parents’ age and my own, are happy to be “out” in any way, shape, or form. The assumption is that whatever is “out there” (Western Europe, North America, more prosperous parts of Asia, the Gulf) is automatically better than what is “in here” (your country of origin).

  There is truth to this, of course, but as an idea, it can end up being as hollow as the American dream. People realize too late what they’re giving up by moving away, or that the life they lead abroad is much harder than they anticipated.

  Something I have to remind myself a lot — because no discussion of the American middle class seems to say so — is that no one’s journey to the middle class is guaranteed or even at all certain. Perhaps it feels more obvious to me simply because there are members of the immigrant community who are never able to make their professional degrees count in their new homes, or people who predate our arrival in this country whose ceaseless hard work never translated into salaried or white-collar jobs that might let them rest a bit more. Today, I think the precariousness of the middle class is a pretty universal phenomenon regardless of which path one took to achieve middle-class status. That might just be the effect of trying to be middle class in America — it swallows you whole.

  If you’d like to share your experience as part of the hollow middle class with The Goods, email annehelenpetersen@vox.com or fill out this form.

From The Hindu: Sports

• Deepika Kumari reclaims world no.1 ranking after hat-trick of gold medals at Archery World Cup Stage 3 - Overall, she has nine gold, 12 silver and seven bronze medals in the World Cup.

• Three Sri Lanka cricketers suspended for bio-bubble breach in England - Batsman Kusal Mendis, Danushka Gunathilaka and wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella were seen roaming the streets of Durham after the final T20 international on Sunday night

• T20 World Cup to be shifted from India to UAE: Sourav Ganguly - The T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in India is being shifted to the UAE owing to the health safety concerns posed by COVID-19, BCCI President Sou

• South Africa beats West Indies by 16 runs in 2nd T20 - Only 24 hours after losing the opening match by eight wickets, an unchanged South Africa lineup produced an improved but still imperfect bowling and fielding performance

• Diksha finishes 4th in Czech Ladies after a superb 66 in final round - Diksha Dagar registered her best result in almost two-and-a-half years with a superb Tied-4th place finish with a flawless final round of 6-under 66

From The Hindu: National News

• Militant killed in ongoing Srinagar encounter - Top commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba arrested near operation site

• P. Sainath awarded 2021 Fukuoka Prize - Selected for the Grand Prize for promoting civil cooperation through his writing

• No scientific data so far to show Delta plus variant adversely impacts vaccine efficacy, says Paul - Currently, three COVID vaccines — Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik-V — are being used for inoculation in India.

• Finance Ministry stimulus package | Free visas to 5 lakh tourists, financial support for tourism sector - Financial support would be provided to more than 11,000 registered tourist guides, travel and tourism stakeholders.

• Pandemic spurs revamp of iconic Byculla hospital - Established over a century ago, the Masina Hospital is upgrading infrastructure and facilities across the board for a better patient experience.

From BBC: Europe

• France elections: Far-right National Rally fails in key regional battles - Marine Le Pen’s National Rally had hoped to win a regional powerbase ahead of next year’s election.

• Portugal makes unvaccinated UK people quarantine - UK travellers will have to quarantine for 14 days while Germany wants EU to step up restrictions.

• UK classified government papers found at bus stop - The papers contain details about UK warship HMS Defender and the British military.

• Netherlands 0-2 Czech Republic: Tomas Holes and Patrik Schick goals shock Dutch - The Czech Republic shock 10-man Netherlands to book their place in the quarter-finals of the European Championship.

• Belgium v Portugal: Thorgan Hazard strike sets up quarter-final with Italy - Belgium edge out Portugal in Seville as Thorgan Hazard’s smart strike proves enough to reach the quarter-finals of Euro 2020.

From Ars Technica

• On-road and off-road in the all-new Ford Bronco - There’s a dizzying combination of configurations, but they all feel unstoppable. - link

• Google launches a new medical app—outside the United States - The dermatology AI app won approval for use in the EU but not with the FDA. - link

• SolarWinds hackers breach new victims, including a Microsoft support agent - Discovery came as Microsoft was investigating new breaches by the same hacker group. - link

• All the major players spent time in the Denisovan cave - Even the sediment in the floor of Denisova Cave has a story to tell. - link

• Circling—or cycling—the track at F1’s famous Circuit of the Americas - Be warned: Calves needed to climb all 133 feet of Turn 1 if you’re using a road bike. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• “Dad what is the difference between realistically and hypothetically speaking?” -

  -Well son, go and ask your mom and sister if they would have sex with a stranger for 1 million dollars

  -But why dad, how is this going to answer my question?

  • Just do it!

    After a few minutes the son returns to his dad..

    -Hey dad,both said they would accept the 1 million dollars offer for sex

    -Therefore son, hypothetically speaking we could have 2 million dollars, but realistically speaking we only have two hookers in the house.

  submitted by /u/Sicilian_d_8
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