Notes from India (4) Third World Immigrant Hustle

Above: Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. 09 April 2024.
Granny and charges in tuk tuk.

Shortly after entering the main gate of the plus five-hundred-year-old Rajput, Mehrangarh Fort, I stopped at a money exchange window to get some rupees for dollars. Boldly advertised on a sign in the window was the exchange rate: one dollar gets you 83 rupees. I carefully meted out five US twenties on the dealer's desk. The dealer confirmed the count and then pointed to another sign behind him which said: Small US bills, 82 rupees to the dollar. Twenties were apparently small bills. I smiled at the dealer, who remain stern faced. Bait and switch I thought to myself. I was only going to change one hundred dollars to get some tip money. I wasn't going to quibble over the the reduced rate. So, sans complaint or protest, I completed the exchange and went on my way.

More amused than angry about having been had, I was impressed with the resourcefulness of the currency exchange operator. Having lived in "third world countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Philippines, and India) for eight years over the course of my life, I had experienced many situations where quick-witted service providers would find another way to apply a hoodwink premium to some transaction I had gullibly entered into. While living in Manila in the early 80's, our phone broke down. The phone company sent out a repairman who concluded the problem was electrical. He said he couldn't fix it. I told one of my employees at work about the seeming Catch 22. 'Well Steve," the employee said, "just ask the phone guy to fix the "electrical" problem. He'll do it for a few pesos, cash of course." I asked the phone company for another service call. The same phone repairman returned. I said, "Look, I know you are the phone guy, but can you fix the electrical problem for me? I'll give you thirty pesos." "Sure," he said. For sure I had been had, but the problem was solved... and not a lot of money had been involved. And, I felt more satisfied, than had, by the fact that my telephone now worked.

It has long been my private theory that the "resourcefulness" I had witnessed in India and the Philippines while engaging in small transactions correlated to the success of immigrants arriving in the US from those same countries. Check the below chart and note how Indian and Filipino immigrants' average incomes in the US are well above that of white Americans. Now, I have to be careful here. I am not saying these immigrants to the US get ahead by cheating. People who don't follow US laws and practices, over time, will be caught and punished. I am saying, though, that there is a quality found in certain third world country US immigrants that impels them to work a little bit harder, a little more resourcefully and cleverly, to get ahead. I applaud the success of America's Filipino and Indian immigrants. Whether my private theory is right or wrong, the below numbers don't lie. Bottom line: the US needs more resourceful, talented and "hungry" Indian and Filipino immigrants.