It’s impossible to avoid the debate raging on X right now around H1-B visas after the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as the White House’s AI policy advisor. Here’s a good summary.

The synthesis of the whole issue is “They took our jobs” (like many other complex topics masterfully distilled by South Park over the years). It’s not an easy time if you’re in tech and looking for a job. It’s easy to lash out at a group you think are getting something you feel you’re rightfully being denied. It’s only gonna get more complicated with the advancements in AI. It’s a very nuanced topic that needs to consider multiple points of view from both sides.

However, the post I to make is more subtle. Sriram is currently a citizen of the USA. He is American. Why did his appointment kickstart this debate?

The problem, as I’ve experienced as well, is that when you move to a different land, for a small minority of natives, you’re never really an insider. No matter how fluent you become with the language, no matter how integrated you are, no matter how you self-identify yourself – for a small group of natives, you will always be someone else – “They…“.

It happens all over the globe, and it happens to everyone. I feel like this is an tribalist attribute of the human psyche that evolved over a long period of time. It won’t be undone with just a few decades of rapid globalization. This phenomenon isn’t just visible across countries, you can even observe this domestically. Like a North Indian settled in a South Indian city for decades but always seen as an outsider by some. This effect is more pronounced in regions which are more homogenous. So, ironically, the way to combat it is to deal with it while regions slowly become more diverse.

And that’s the crux of it – if you want to move to a region where you are not considered a native, you will have to deal with some folks who will always consider you an outsider. This is unavoidable – we can all wish this wasn’t the case, but that is to wish for utopia. It’s a personal choice whether you feel like the outcome of the move will be better than dealing with folks who will always treat you as an outsider. You can either stay and persevere, or you can always leave.