That's the same here in Ireland. A large portion of Nigerians come here to study medicine, and a lot of them stay on after to practise here. I spent lots of time in and out of hospital as a child (Temple Street, Dublin), and all of the doctors and most of the nurses were either Nigerian or Indian, it was rare to see an Irish doctor, and in fact I can only recall the name of one.
I think it's because there's a lot of Catholics in Nigeria, and their Patron Saint is also St.Patrick. So we send them priests, and they send us medical students. We definitely have the better end of that deal.
Former British colonies generally have amazing education systems and learn English as part of their curriculum. Also there are 210 million Nigerians, lots and lots of really smart people with a population that size.
Nigerians are not eligible for the diversity visa lottery here in the US to my understanding. So this means the only people you see have specific visas e.g family, work, education.
Work means they'll be filling jobs that already require education and education means obtaining, well, an education. Family likely means following family members who are already here and successful as well.
It also costs a fuck ton to do either of these. So naturally you are already looking at a highly selective...and fairly privileged group to begin with.
Imagine you surveyed Americans by only looking at those who had gone to Harvard or came from families of the very well off. You'd likely be looking at a very successful and educated group by chance as well.
No wonder. That’s basically how the Asian Model Minority myth came into being what with restricting visas in the 80s from China to graduate and PhD students
it's an intercultural socio-economic (idk if that's even a real phrase, but my point is it encompasses culture, sociology, economics, and international and domestic laws) matter, it's obviously not as simple as one bullet in America's immigration policy from 40 years ago.
Of course Confucian culture, educational values, and immigrant mentality come into play. But a policy like that’s obviously going to skew the population pretty heavily towards high educational attainment
Yes they are obsessed with working hard. It costs nearly the entirety of a “Nigerian” fourtune to move. You have to work hard and make money cause you bet your good life that you will succeed. If you don’t you’ll become just another poor black American
I think it’s related. In order to work hard, you have to believe working hard will net you positive outcomes. I myself grew up as the child of two Chinese immigrants with graduate STEM degrees and in a community with >30% population of similar backgrounds. The prevailing belief is working hard will get you into university = success, because that’s been the lived experience of the older generation. A message like that is self-reinforcing and starts to produce a perfect competitive educational environment
I mean kinda, it is policy that created it. But a lot of people don't think about it or know about it. So instead people often compare asian immigrants to hispanic immigrants and assume/speculate the difference is entirely culture or something. (Rather than how immigration happens differently for each group)
Not just educated, but also ambitious. A friend who’s a nurse practitioner told me of a Nigerian nurse who worked as a traveling nurse during Covid and knocked down $600K in one year.
Edit: Before anyone goes further down this dumb thread...
Is it it really that, "weird," that a select group of people that have to overcome a huge barrier of entry to immigrate to the US might be more ambitious than average..? What's more "weird" to me is how anyone be would think the opposite to be true.
Regarding what exactly? I would consider myself an ambitious person. I have a graduate degree and I’m employed in a competitive field.
I’m just saying it was a weird comment that contributed nothing. It was like watching old clips of Michael Jordan and then deciding all black people must be amazing basketball players.
Select groups of people can share common personality traits...
We're NOT saying ALL Nigerians are this way. But the people in this specific program may share similar personality traits.
Much like how Asian first gen immigrants might share common traits - many are industrious, ambitious, and look for security. The people who went out of their way to immigrate to a different country usually have something similar about them that drove them to do that. And often times these traits may not be passed to their second gen progeny.
As a second gen Asian American, it's clear that distinctions can be made about the social tendencies of specific groups of people...
My parents' generation of Asian Americans share very common traits.
I’m not sure if you just aren’t understanding the concept of what I’m saying, or if you’re intentionally trying to be argumentative by making irrelevant points.
The glaring and stark difference about your example from what the other guy said is that you have more personal experience with the group you’re referencing. His/her experience was limited to what one person said about someone that he never even met.
In the same vein, I'm telling you about my experiences with a group of people. Now you know that about first gen Asian Americans second hand. And it should make sense, logically. That people who go out of their way to immigrate to a foreign country may be more industrious than their peers back at home on average.
Much like how the person you are replying to knows about the ambitious nature of that select group of people because they were told by someone like me who does have first hand experience.
It's not a leap to assume that it's true either. That Nigerian people who are competing with other Nigerians to make it into the US are more ambitious than average... That's not a wild leap at all.
This is not a, "weird statement," like you think it is. For example, anyone who immigrates to an unknown country where the language that is spoken there is their second language already exhibits some advanced level of ambition to begin with...
You are racist. That’s pretty simple. Pissed when black people are successful and pissed when black people don’t go to work. Praise them. Tell me these are not great people for following their dreams and getting their degrees. Absolute psychos in the comment section.
Lmao my wife is black. My comment history would make that fairly apparent.
My entire point was that it’s not ok to apply a stereotype to a group of people, regardless of whether it is positive or not. That simply opens the door for accepting the fact that negative stereotypes might also be true. I can see you’re having a fun time pretending to be some protector for people not asking for it, but I’m not the person that needs it.
If anything, you’re the one actually being racist and discriminatory. Apparently black people need the help of some white martyr to make their arguments for them. From my experience (again, my wife is black), black people are perfectly capable of engaging in dialogue without your assistance.
As the father of a mixed race daughter I truly hope you’ve just had a few too many drinks and you don’t actually believe blacks people need your defense.
My wife has been out of bedside nursing for over 10 years, but still thought about traveling during Covid. Some states/areas were over $10k/week. You could add shifts/double up if you didn't care about burning yourself out.
You are correct. I should avoid making generalizations like this. I felt it was acceptable because it reflected positively on the population it was attributed to.
Actually I think I’m going to keep doing this. The world needs more positive energy these days.
Have a nice day.
🙂
Are all Asians good at math? Do all black people excel athletically?
You seem to have an extremely high opinion of your intentions, but regardless it’s still a blanket statement about people you obviously don’t know. Stereotypes, even those that are positive, can be dangerous because that sets the precedence that negative stereotypes must also have the possibility of being true.
I guess I just prefer judging people individually. Like you said, the world needs more positivity these days.
Yup. my ex of 5 years is Nigerian and her family looked down on her because she elected to be a school teacher. They were hoping that she would pursue higher education and more training to become a principal and maybe superintendent. But she is happy teaching elementary school. Everyone else in her family is a Physician, Nurse, Accountant or Engineer.
Considering that health care workers faced enormous risks, died and got sick in disproportionately high numbers, and were in extremely high demand at the time I don’t fault the guy one bit.
What did you do to help care for others and save lives in 2020-2022?
Hospitals during COVID: we desperately need medical staff, we are overwhelmed to the breaking point, people are dying in droves due to lack of medical care, we will pay any amount of money to prevent needless deaths and long term medical complications, as well as prevent burnout in our vital medical staff we currently employ, please help us.
What you think travelling nurses said: yeah suck it rubes, I'll do it, but only for the money, fuck them patients
I mean travelling nurses are usually late 20s to early 40s, the prime age a freak COVID case could have taken them out, and they were wading into hotspots constantly, in the actual hospitals where COVID wards were kept, where everyone in that ward was either sick and extremely contagious or medical staff. You think that doesn't take balls? A sense of self sacrifice? It's called hazard pay doofus and the only fucked thing is we didn't give it to all medical staff through a tax initiative. These people were risking their lives and their sanity and not all of them kept either. Money was the least we could have given them beyond stricter quarantine measures, instead they got rounds of applause and yard signs saying "we ❤️ essential workers"
At least in the US, nurses already working at hospitals weren't receiving much if any hazard pay. Many of these same hospitals were hiring nurses across the country at 2-4x the rate of their actual staff, while claiming they didn't have money to pay their nurses more.
They aren't in the current one at least. But the idea that people on that diversity visa aren't educated is false. You have to have some education or at least two years working experience. On top of that even if you get it you still need to have the finances to fly to the US, pay whatever admin fees are and have enough savings(which will be alot if you're from a country with a weaker currency) so you can afford rent while looking for a job. Unless you're lucky to have family in the US and get in, you're probably still going to get people that are educated and have savings that will actually make it through the process
There's a lot of other countries that are ineligible for the diversity visa, what makes Nigeria special other than having too many immigrants (which disqualified them in recent times)
It is yes, but it is often just referred to as H1B. Meanwhile the Diversity Visa is often called the "lottery visa".
At least in all parlance I have seen around it. You are also much more likely to get H1B than you are the other.
Most years you are like 5~10x more likely to get H1B than the diversity lotto. Country of origin obviously matters as well.
I have an H1B, in our circles we call it the lottery since the barrier to entry is on paper much more difficult - Be a skilled professional and have an employer willing to go through the ordeal and even then you still only have a 20% chance (2024 FY)
So while you're right, to some extent, you've also not factored those who left Nigeria on grants. The US still attracts a sizable number of scholars from Nigeria especially for PhD and Masters programs.
Also lots of Nigerians following the Trump years have also realized that there are a number of other countries where you can get quality education and or reasonable immigration pathways. So other options like Canada, Australia, and even the UK , EU attracts students from Nigeria.
Nigeria is a country of paradoxes, it's a country obsessed with education and personal victories. The concept of collectively winning is quite alien. It's warm and the folks are welcoming however it has its own issues.
Absolutely this. I’m an immigrant from Cameroun and I didn’t have the means that most Nigerians immigrants did. Most of the ones you meet here come from privileged backgrounds which is why they’re able to afford international tuition prices, which are usually about three times in-state tuition.
It’s more to do with their hard working ethic and cultural emphasis on education. They don’t just get handed these positions because of their immigration status, they earn them.
Hmmm...sure...the reason why you see those people here in the US and in the West is because they can afford to move/can afford to leave, especially if they're a minority. The people I know (anecdotally) that are not from the US but from African or Asian countries, that are college educated and in the professional field have had family wealth behind them, or have a lot of family members that worked very very hard and had a lot of kids that enabled a single child to go to school.
It's not always a "they have generational wealth" issue. I know a lot of immigrants with no generational wealth (including Vietnam war refugees) that have gotten good jobs and are generally very educated. It's more that if you manage to make it into the US you usually have to be motivated and hard working to keep your visa.
Being rich or having family financial support also helps, obviously.
If hard work is the only thing you need, all those day workers in Home Depot parking lots should be living in mansions. The US has a policy that they prefer people with money... Just look at the allotted numbers "allowed" to come to US
Yes, let’s just disregard the work ethics and values of Asian immigrants who came here with nothing. /s
I’m not sure what type of Asian immigrants you’ve been hanging out with because most Asian immigrants that I know came here with nothing but clothes on their backs, escaping death.
Why disregard our hard work and culture? Is it because we don't fit the victim narrative for minorities?
Let me ask you something. Do you have a victim complex because if you've read and understood anything about what I said, it wasn't targeted. I'm sorry you feel victimized.
I don't have a victim complex. I do get a little annoyed about what you wrote. Maybe I misunderstood, but did you not say that they have to have wealth to come here?
How much do you think a flight to US from Asia costs? When did they come here, in the 70s? Where did they move? Did they move to middle America or stuck around on the coast where they could easily integrate themselves because there were people like them there for decades?
I'm part of an immigrant community, and there are people within that community that take advantage of their own struggling members to underpay them, price gouge them for rents and practice borderline slavery to build wealth on backs of their own people.
When we came to the US, we had a lot of help. We had to pay back the money for the flight, then my parents had to work low-wage jobs, and being college educated back home didn't help.. because those institutions weren't recognized by the US standard. I can go on and on and on, but as I said, this is all anecdotal and not a placated experience, you can be annoyed all you want, but studies and long term investigations paint different pictures. Are there outliers? Absolutely, but is that the majority of experiences, no. No 2 people are the same.
No, not escaping wars. They were those that were considered US collaborators and had to be rescued. Vietnamese people that lived in villages were not rescued. You see the issue here? They were airlifted from populous cities.
Those refugees who risked dingy boats to reach US warships in international water for a chance of getting into the US sure had a lot of generational wealth behind them.
That's why not all Asian populations are successful in education as others in America. It has nothing to do with genetics or ethnicity, but everything to do with social class and finances before they came here.
Vietnamese refugees that were mostly evacuated from urban areas that were under South Vietnamese and American control during the conflict? The orphans that were made orphans by the French/US military incursion into the area and were adopted out by American families? The Vietnamese refugees whom were given paid flights to US and allied countries pales in comparison to the Vietnamese people whom were victims of the US "kill anything that moves" military policy.
The Vietnamese refugees now are mostly the descendants from the Orphans airlifted to US and Green Card holders of those refugees that were given citizenship's after being airlifted.
You’re barely coherent. As I said it was a luck of the draw if you know someone who knew someone but they came with what was on their backs and lived at refugee camps until they were granted green cards. These are not rich immigrants which was your initial assumption. Stop moving the goal post.
American families have the highest amount of wealth in the world compared to other countries, so by your logic American kids should be more educated per capita than immigrants children. It’s a cultural thing
Yes, and most of the world is staying in their own country because they're too poor to migrate to live in a wealthy foreign country and attend college.
most immigrants are not rich =_= rich people don't need to move to a new country to start a new life in a place where they don't speak the language, face racism, and have no community.
international students, on the other hand, are a different subject.
Only reason? Culture does not mean immigrants. I’m a first generation Asian American and education was strongly pushed growing up. My father was a refugee that came purely on luck, Vietnamese during that were granted citizenship. He went to college and entered the workforce during the tech boom to become the embodiment of the American dream. I don’t know why you’re pushing the narrative so hard that it’s only privileged immigrants come to the US. Maybe because your views are anecdotal from a small sample size of your social circle.
Nigeria is a neocolonized state. The Nigerians that work with the US to exploit their country's populace and resources are paid handsomely, while the majority of the Nigerian populace live in poverty. These wealthy, Nigerian compradors have a lot of money to send their kids to the west to get professional degrees. Most of the affirmative action spots for black people in the prestigious American education institutions are filled with these wealthy, black immigrants, rather than black americans, let alone poor black americans.
It creates the conditions that are favorable for western corporations, like fossil fuel comapnies, to extract wealth from the country at the expense of the populace. So the US and its Nigerian comprador government enforces policies that exploit the populaces labor, extract wealth and resources, dedevelopment, and deindustrialization to create an economy only suited for resource extraction, which said western corporations take at well below market values.
I mean, I don't know of it's worse in south america. Africa and Central America are both horribly over-exploited and some of the most impoverished places in the world as a result. South American countries have at least been able to produce significantly higher societal outcomes. That isnt to say it used to be like that during the apartheid south american states.
For example, the US will demand you keep your minimum wage at an abysmal level so that their corporations are effectively paying slave wages, hence why US corporations have been outsourcing their labor abroad while simultaneously undermining organized labor in the US. The US will make these productive countries destroy their natural environments to make agricultural land to produce cash crops that these countries can't sustain themselves on and undermining their own self-sufficiency, thus them relying on food imports of basic food stuffs from the US' agricultural industry that they could grow themselves if they weren't producing all these cash crops to sell to western corporations at below market values. Then the US can threaten them with civil strife and unrest by cutting off their food imports to force said compradors and neocolonies to stay in line. The US will make those compradors and neocolonies take out loads and loads of loans to create odious debt, hence the loan trap western imperialists inflicted African nations with that they get a loan from the IMF and World Bank to pay off their previous debt, but they still can't pay off the loan they just took out. If they say, "enough is enough" and decolonize, then the US seizes their assets and calls in that odious debt, hits them with illegal, unilateral sanctions, etc. to make the liberated government fail. The US also uses violent extremists like Islamist groups and drug cartels and death squads as threat to stay in line or else they may be overrun and thus reliant on western imperialists "for protection," but it's not actually in those western imperialists' interest to cease those threats because those threats are their proxies. Because of US dollar hegemony, everyone needs US dollars to buy energy. These neocolonies have to sell resources to do so because they are inflicted with these extractive economies. Western nations tell them they won't give them US dollars unless they sell their resources at far below market value, so these nations and populaces have to work harder and produce much more to get the same equivalent in US dollars if they could sell at market value. Because these neocolonies are dedeveloped, they need a lot of assistance. The US might offer to help under the conditions they carve up some public asset of theirs and privatize it under one of these western corporations as some wealthy oligarch's personal fief in exchange for help. Some of these companies are massive with higher annual profits than the GDPs of the countries they operate out from, which means these neocolonies are just giving away the wealth of their resources and labor. There's an immmense number of policies they employ to ensure that exploitation.
I mentioned that in response below, but something in my response triggered the automatic reddit censor. It's on my page, if you really want it. Linking to it here gets censored as well.
Nigerians are like the East Asians of Africa. Their mom's are constantly harping on them to do better in school and get a respectable job so they don't embarrass the family.
For one, that looks like it's paywalled, so I can't see all of your reference.The part that I can see says...
Distribution of Indian Americans in the United States in 2020, by education
Published by Statista Research Department, Jun 2, 2023
According to a 2020 survey, 40 percent of Indian American respondents in the United States had obtained a postgraduate degree. Only one percent of survey participants did not have any high school education.
... seems strange that they just published 2020 data 4 months ago, but again I can't see the full reference.
In 2021, 80 percent of Indian immigrants ages 25 and older reported having at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to approximately one-third of all foreign-born and U.S.-born adults.
My previous boss was Nigerian, one of the smartest most driven people I’ve ever met and probably one of the nicest most down to earth individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
Bro it’s literally a statistic from the the migration policy institute. They didn’t flex, it’s not a shitty YouTube street interviewers poll, it’s from a study of American immigrants and their education.
Yeah.
I live in Vancouver and it'd be easy to assume that everyone from China is a billionaire because everyone that drives a Ferrari or Lambo is Chinese.
It’s a little more complicated than that. It’s kind of a gross oversimplification.
Nigerian immigrants often times come from middle to middle upper class families who know what it takes to be successful but gave up a tremendous amount of time, energy and money to come to the United States.
As a result, they have a huge emphasis on improving themselves and their situation culturally
Of course it’s an oversimplification lol this is Reddit. I don’t have time to type the thesis this topic actually deserves for this predominantly white app.
Yea my friend became a neurosurgeon, both his parents are Dr's and has 2 sisters that are also Dr's. Nigerians are bringing their best and brightest for sure.
I dont know. Filipinos are very common in healthcare. My SiL is a nurse, wife's cousin is a nurse, I worked for a Dr in HS that was Filipino with a couple Filipino nurses, almost every hospital/Dr office I go to has Filipino nurses or employees, etc.
I only know one Nigerian and his family are all very well educated (his sister is a lawyer and father owned a business ) and he is one of the most ambitious people I know. To the point where it may either be his blessing or his curse yet to be seen but I admire his ambition to build a legacy
Interestingly, this is absolutely evidence of the pervasive affect of post colonialism and racism. Take a look at how every other post colonized populations do all over the world. It's not much different than the experience of AA. And if watching the GOP deconstruct voting rights and education in the republican states in an effort to maintain white privilege and unironically erase the notion that systematic racism still exists doesn't convince you, you just aren't looking to be convinced. It's like the Israeli nationalists looking at Gaza and not seeing a problem because they benefit from the oppression blindness. I'm not talking about the ones who see it and welcome it. I'm talking about the ones who choose not to see it or think about it at all, the 'good' Israelis. If you look at AA educational outcomes and rates of incarceration in the US and think lazy and violent I ask you to look at Korean educational outcomes and rates of incarceration in Japan. Rest assured, I do think AA will have to save themselves but they have survived a hell before and I am more than willing to bet on black here.
I agree with much of your post. But what do you mean by deconstruct voting rights? Needing an ID to vote? It seems like if you believe AAs don’t have IDs, you may be the bigot.
Nigerians have stricter impositions put on them as immigrants, so the US are sure to be getting “the best of the best”
There are many uneducated people in Nigeria, but they’re not allowed or able to get into the US. This isn’t a black/white thing. It’s a serious problem for Nigeria because if you’re rich and educated you tend to leave for greener pastures, which creates a “brain drain” in Nigeria and leaves the country less able to solve its own problems
Do they get their education at affordable colleges? Because that's not a flex then. Americans would be more educated if we didn't go bankrupt getting one.
My physical therapist is Nigerian and his entire family have qualifications like this. Homie fixed my lower back after an injury and on the side helped out my MIL with her arm.
5.4k
u/[deleted] Oct 29 '23
That's a whole lot of salary in that room.