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Comment by freyir | Hacker News Reader

The author is casting the white characters in a good light, conveniently ignoring all of their deep flaws, and fixating on the flaws of the non-white characters.

"Meanwhile, Pakistani immigrant Dinesh spectacularly screwed up both a CEO position and a relationship."

Dinesh is perhaps the most likeable character on the show. Yes, he messed up in the CEO role. Just like Richard, and Gavin Belson, and the other CEO of Pied Piper. Just like Erlich and Big Head in running their incubator. Has the author actually watched the show?

Regarding Dinesh's relationship, he ended it, for good reason. Contrast that with Richard's recent experience.

Jian Yang is an immigrant, and Erlich's frequent references to that fact can be grating. But the argument that Jian Yang's bad app idea is racist is ridiculous. People in SV pitch bad ideas all the time. Is the author suggesting that non-white characters can't be shown failing?

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Is the author suggesting that non-white characters can't be shown failing?

That's more or less the undertone of every vaugeposting, clickbait article on "representation in media."

Is there any reason why they're being called immigrants instead of expats? Is there any difference?

Immigrants move to a new country on their own accord to (potentially) build a new life for themselves there.

An expat is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship sent abroad by their employers, who can be companies, governments, or non-governmental organisations, often with specially monetary incentives to make the (allegedly unwilling) move.

By that measure, H1-B's would be expats wouldn't they? They're not on a path to immigration, and theoretically are only working in the USA because no one with their unique skillset could be found, thus companies (theoretically) pay them premium wages.

I don't think you read what I wrote. H1-Bs are not sent to the US by their foreign employer generally (there is a different visa category for that). Also why would you think. H1-Bs are not on a path to immigration? For many people the path to US citizenship based on employment is H1 to Green card to citizenship

It was my mistaken understanding, that another poster cleared up.

I thought that because H1-B VISAs tethered one to their employer, then your situation was understood to be impermanent since if you lost your job and didn't quickly find another then you would have to leave the country.

This seems onerous compared to a green card.

H1-B is a dual intent visa, so someone on one could be either an expat or an immigrant. I get the impression that it is more common for them to be immigrants because someone who already worked for the company sending them to the US could get an L1 visa instead, which doesn't have the cap on number issued like H1-B does.

Although that word has meant someone living outside their country, I think it has baggage and has come to mean westerners living outside their native country.

To my ears it has some colonial connotations.

If you were to follow the author's advice, next week's article would be about Asian characters on the show (a comedy show) not being portrayed accurately enough for leaving out their faulty human side. You cannot win with these types. It's best not to engage them.

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