Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs Book

Policymakers and scholars have paid a great deal of attention to California's immigrants. However, most of this attention has focused on low-skilled immigrants-in particular, how they affect the employment and wages of native workers or demand for public services. Saxenian looks, instead, at highly skilled workers-the foreign-born scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley-and their experiences both as entrepreneurs and as middlemen who facilitate trade and investment links with their countries of origin. Her findings suggest that the policy debate over immigration must be widened to include the evolving relationship between immigrants, trade, and economic development in an increasingly global economy. Restricting the immigration of skilled workers, as has been suggested in recent debates, could have far-reaching consequences for economic development, affecting not only the supply of such workers but also the rate of entrepreneurship, the level of international investment and trade, and the health of California's economy. This project was supported by PPIC through an Extramural Research Program contract.