efforts. Between 1990 and 2010 Indian nationals, whose educational system shifted in the 1990s to train more highly educated engineers, dominated the ranks of recipients, receiving 46% of all visas.82 During the same period, émigrés from China came in a far second, receiving only about 6% of H-1B visas.83
Asian immigrants profoundly transformed the face of high-tech work. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of foreign-born engineers in Santa Clara County rose from 33% to 53%. Among them, nearly 40% were of Asian descent.84 Asian immigrants were not only hired by companies; they also launched new firms. Between 1995 and 2005, over half of all Silicon Valley companies had one or more immigrants as a key founder. Indian and Chinese immigrants founded nearly one-third of new high-tech firms during the period.85 Thus, while many recognized that the integrated circuit (IC) fueled the valley’s success, when locals referred to the region as “being built on ICs,” they were oftentimes referencing the region’s large number of Indian and Chinese immigrants, who were commonly described as the engines that drove the industry.86
Immigration slowed during the dot-com bust in 2000 and the subsequent Great Recession. During these challenging times, many migrants were forced to return to their home countries, including many H-1B workers who were unable to remain in the United States without an employer sponsor. Immigration was further restricted by Congress’s 2003 downgrade on new H-1B visas from a cap of 195,000 to the original 65,000.87 With thriving technology sectors abroad—in places such as Bangalore, India; Chengdu and Dalian, China; and Hsinchu, Taiwan—many immigrants were also lured back to their home countries for better employment opportunities.88 But even as Asian immigration rates slowed, the Asian American population in the valley rose. Between 2000 and 2010, the Asian American population in Santa Clara County increased by 32% to around 565,000.
Though they predominantly came from mainland China and India, the diversity among Asian immigrants in the region was striking, including many South Koreans, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, and Malaysians as well as Chinese and Indians from many different parts of the world. As Lisa Lowe argued, the abolishing of national origin quotas and exclusions that began with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 brought in many groups that widened the definition of “Asian American.”89 By 2009, Fremont’s residents came from as many as 147 different countries and spoke over 150 different languages.90 Irene Yang’s neighborhood is exemplary of such diversity, as it took shape in some of Fremont’s more well-to-do neighborhoods. Sitting in her custom-built house in the Mission San Jose hills, which she described as Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired with feng shui touches, Irene pointed out the diverse families who surrounded her. She counted one White family; two Indian families, one from India and the other from Pakistan; and six Chinese families, including those from Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Irene’s family also reflected this diversity. She was born in Taiwan but grew up in Japan and married a second-generation Chinese American. Held together by their class status, this potpourri became the norm in Silicon Valley neighborhoods by the first decade of the 21st century.
Diverse as they were, these newcomers shared one important similarity. They were far more likely than previous generations to regularly travel across the Pacific Rim for work and family. A 2002 study found that approximately half of all Silicon Valley foreign-born professionals traveled to their native countries for business yearly, and 5% made the trip five times or more per year.91 Among these, Taiwanese were the most likely nationality to return home on a regular or even permanent basis, followed by Indians and Chinese mainlanders.92 For many of these families, life was lived on both sides of the Pacific. Aiwah Ong describes late 20th-century globalization as producing generations of elite “hypermobile cosmopolitans” whose sense of citizenship has been grounded in their economic ties as much as, or even more so, than ethnic or national allegiances.93 Among this generation of Silicon Valley newcomers, many found themselves at home both in the American suburbs and abroad. Their bicultural identities and transnational landscapes reflected their transpacific lifestyles.94 As Wei Li put it, these global sojourners were as comfortable crossing oceans and countries as Main Street, USA.95
The mobility of many Silicon Valley newcomers changed their pattern of sociability and community. It was increasingly common, Andrew Li noted, to find Taiwanese Americans who ran companies in which the manufacturing was done in China, their business headquarters were in Taiwan, and the family home was in Silicon Valley. Asian Americans’ frequent border crossings fostered important social networks, business ties, and familial connections that expanded their sense of place and home.96 At the same time, they also disrupted old social patterns. Comparing his friends’ lives to previous generations of Taiwanese immigrants, Andrew explained that overseas travel had become such a regular part of their lifestyles that it was difficult to get people together, even for a weekend barbeque.
Among this class of global cosmopolitans, the North County suburbs served as important gateway communities, especially those that were already popular among the Asian American middle class such as Milpitas, Cupertino, and Fremont. Word of mouth and established connections reinforced these suburbs as popular immigrant destinations. This extended to Taiwan, India, and mainland China, where the zip codes of these suburbs were well known.97 Ellie Cho, a second-generation Chinese American who was a young student at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont when we met, understood the importance of immigrant succession in affecting the decision of families such as hers to settle in Fremont. “Immigrants who are moving in America, they are thinking like, oh, where am I going to fit in?,” she explained. “Where am I going to make a transition the easiest?” For her parents, she understood the answer to be clear: “In Fremont, [the] Bay Area, because there’s so many Asians here already.”
Not everyone came to Fremont with the intention of settling in an Asian American community, but many found the city’s ethnic diversity and its now-established ethnic businesses and social institutions comfortable and convenient. This included Timothy Hu, an immigrant from Taiwan who had spent most of his life working in the American Midwest. He explained that during his three decades there, he always “felt like a minority.” Upon retirement, he and his wife Doreen decided to move closer to their daughter and other family members who lived in the Bay Area. Having found a residential subdivision that was close to his daughter that Doreen liked and that had new homes (which both Timothy and Doreen wanted) and good feng shui, they settled in the Fremont hills. Quickly, their lifestyles began to change. As they were now located close to three major airports with direct flights to Asia, the Hus began making more frequent trips to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, where they held important social and business connections. Within a 15-minute drive they could be at any one of four Asian shopping centers, where they frequently ate out at restaurants that Timothy claimed were far better than those in San Francisco’s and Oakland’s Chinatowns. Just down the road in Milpitas, his wife began frequenting a Chinese Buddhist temple that was located along the city’s historic main street. Once a week, Timothy made a longer drive across the bay to Millbrae, a suburb south of San Francisco, where he joined a Chinese opera club. While they had not planned on it, the Hus stayed in Fremont because they discovered that it was “good for Asians.” They had all the community and cultural amenities they desired. Just as important, living in a city where “everyone is a minority,” Timothy noted, he no longer felt like one himself.
With plenty of room for new residential, commercial, and office development, Asian American newcomers shaped the character of Fremont far more than in most Silicon Valley suburbs. For its growth between 1990 and 2000, Robert Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy ranked Fremont fourth among the nation’s “boomburbs,” cities with populations over 100,000 that were growing rapidly.98 In the same study, Fremont ranked as the nation’s number one “cosmoburb” growing suburbs with particularly high numbers of foreign-born, highly educated residents, especially non-Hispanic Whites and Asian Americans.99
By 2010, Fremont was the largest Asian American–majority city in Silicon Valley and, in fact, the largest majority Asian American municipality in the continental United States.100 Known
