Abstract
Whether it is transnationalism from above or transnationalism from below, the life of an immigrant does get impacted by the American culture and believes on a daily basis. The daily negotiation with regards to culture and beliefs accompanied by the need to adjust at personal and professional lives in an alien country impacts the life and well-being at both professional as well as social front. The chapter presents findings of the third objective of research which aimed at identifying whether being a transnational affected the self-esteem, job satisfaction, and lives, in general, of the migrant professionals.
Varun said, “Honestly, I have adopted a few living styles (practices) of Americans like playing games and living a comfortable life and enjoying shopping and driving big cars. I think I came to the U.S. for those and I am enjoying it. However as far as beliefs are concerned, I have not adopted any of them yet.”
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Notes
- 1.
For measuring self-esteem, Rosenberg scale of self-esteem was created and administered in the sample survey (Rosenberg 1989). It refers to an instrument which measures how an individual feels about his/her self.
- 2.
The methods used to create the scale and summative frequency tables are described in Appendix (five items were used to create a summative scale with scores ranging from 5 to 20, with 20 indicating the highest level of self-esteem).
- 3.
First, a set of 13 binary variables was computed to measure whether a respondent was transnational on each of the 13 types of leisure time, cultural practices examined (i.e., the respondent engaged in both an Indian and corresponding American/Western practice at least once a week), ranging from dietary practices to attending meetings of social organizations. The binary variables were then summed to form an index of leisure time transnational practices. The values of the index range from 0 to 13 with higher values indicating the respondent is transnational in a greater number of types of practices (the frequency distribution of this index is displayed in appendix).
- 4.
The results are displayed in Table appendix. It is important to note that since the sampling design employed in this study is nonrandom, the t-test and F-test typically used in regression analysis are not applicable as heuristic devices for assessing the “significance” of independent variables and the overall fit of the regression model.
- 5.
Both of these attitudes were measured using a combination of items drawn from Schuessler’s social life feelings scale and Brayfield and Rothes’ Index of Job Satisfaction (found in Miller 1991: 450–457, 466–468).
- 6.
Five items were used to measure job satisfaction using a four-point Likert scale with values ranging from strongly disagree (coded with value of 1) to strongly agree (coded with value of 4). Scores on the five items were summed to form a scale score that ranged from 5 to 20, with 20 indicating the highest level of job satisfaction. The frequency distributions of these items are displayed in the appendix Tables 5.2 through 5.12.
- 7.
Around 46% of respondents agreed to the fact that there is a better place to work then their current work place.
- 8.
As discussed earlier, the work visa H1B grants work permit to work in the United States for 3 years for the first term and then if the employer and employee agrees to stay and work in the same company, a visa renewal process is done by the employers and another round of maximum of 3 years work permit is granted to the foreign employee. The visa renewal process is again a long and tedious process. Also, under the new administration with more scrutiny of immigration laws, the renewal process is becoming more scary for the IT professionals.
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Sarmistha, U. (2019). Being Transnational Citizen. In: Transnational Immigrants. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8542-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8542-1_5
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