mitalify

mitali-fy / verb (used with object) / to perceive the world as mitali

Mayor Bloomberg calls for major immigration reform | via Techcrunch

It’s what I call national suicide – and that’s not hyperbole. Every day that we fail to fix our broken immigration laws is a day that we inflict a wound on our economy. Today, we may have turned away the next Albert Einstein or Sergey Brin. Tomorrow, we may turn away the next Levi Strauss or Jerry Yang.
via techcrunch.com

Go Mayor Bloomberg! Much of the immigration reform discussion in the US centers around farm workers and laborers (not that I have anything against them). There is little focus on the fact that the green card process for educated, accomplished professionals is so completely broken that its basically a joke.

In my case.... after having spent close to 15 years in the US, with an undergrad degree from a top school and an MBA from another top school and having worked at Microsoft, Yahoo, EA, I was only able to finally get a green card after I married a US citizen! Why? Because I am an Indian citizen, and green cards are given out by quotas. This is quite possibly the most anti-capitalistic, anti-meritocratic and basically anti-all-things-American process employed by the US government. It is LONG overdue for a change.

What's in a Vote?

Vote
Voting Day, like today, is always a bittersweet day for me.  I am one of those unfortunate people who has never voted :-(  I left India (my country of citizenship) when I was 14, and lived in Cairo for 4 years till I was 18.  I never got a chance to vote because India's process of absentee ballots is extremely complicated, error prone and simply dysfunctional.  Back then, I actually thought I would go back to live in India some day so my vote would count... some day.  That day has yet to materialize.  I moved to the US for college when I was 18, and have never lived in India since.  In the last 14 years, I have lived primarily in the US, with a couple years in the UK and very briefly in South Africa, always as a non-citizen, never being able to vote. 

But of course the decisions of other people's votes affect me just the same - I pay my taxes, I care about gay marriage, school districts, unemployment, global warming.  Except unlike everyone else who went to the vote today, I don't have a say in any of it. Perhaps because of this, I am even more acutely aware of the importance of voting and representation than those who take it for granted.  I cannot imagine not showing up to vote, when you are able to do so!  Eventually, I will come to the realization that this is my home and will probably get a US citizenship and ability to vote.  But until then, I count on other rational individuals to vote, and to keep in mind thousands (millions?) of folks like me: "legal aliens" who are also represented through your votes.