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Immigrant Wives' Visa Status Keeps Them Out of Workplace
Hanuma Samavedam said the birth of her son, Madhav, now nine months old, helped break the monotony of not being able to work somewhat.
(By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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To combat the silence of suburbia that seemed so at odds with the bustling, crowded India she left, Bindu Reddy went to the library and volunteered at a school when she arrived in the United States. Sometimes the former special-education teacher browsed job listings on the Internet, knowing that few schools would sponsor her work permit.
She says she still wonders what would have happened if she had not immigrated. She probably would have opened her own school by now. Her house would probably dwarf the Germantown two-bedroom apartment she calls home.
Before coming to the United States in 1998, the Reddys lived in London -- where spouses like Bindu are given work permits.
Like Samavedam, Bindu Reddy has been waiting years for her husband to get his green card so she can begin to have choices again. In a region where economists estimate that a family of three needs to earn $47,000 to $62,000 a year to get by, the Reddys, like many U.S. families, would like two incomes to earn money for savings or extras, such as dinners out or DVDs for the boys.
"We feel not for ourselves but for our kids. They ask us, 'Why can't we move?'" said Reddy, who has a master's degree in special education. "My son asks me, 'When are you going to work? I want to go to day care, too.' Sometimes I shout at him for saying that, and I feel bad."
In the case of India, where matchmakers do not hesitate to ask potential mates details about their salaries, skin color, even weight, observers say women's families are getting more inquisitive about immigration status. Because of a robust Indian economy and advances they have made in the workplace, fewer Indian women want to leave to become housewives, said Murugavel Janakiraman, chief executive of BharatMatrimony Group, a global matchmaking service.
"In the late 1990s, the people were more interested in going abroad and wanted a foreign groom. They were not really concerned about whether they could get a job," Janakiraman said in a phone interview from the southern Indian city of Chennai. "Now they prefer to be in India."
Mostly via e-mail, Hanuma Samavedam keeps up with news of former colleagues and the various job opportunities they are finding in India. Some have been promoted two, even three, times since she left. She acknowledged the education her son will get in the United States and the job opportunities for her husband. But she wondered aloud whether her sacrifice is worth it.
"I became a housewife here, but my mind wants to work," she said. "If I get a job today, I will like this country, too."
