The SiPort Killings and the Death of the American Dream

If you’re in the Bay Area or you work in the tech industry, you may be acutely aware of Jing Wu, the lead QA Engineer from SiPort who was fired, then returned to his office later that day to shoot his CEO, Chief of Operations and the Head of HR. This story is getting a little too familiar than it should be; this isn’t the first time there has been an office shooting in the San Francisco Bay Area and neither is it a first time we’ve seen an Asian guy go on a murderous rampage. Because we live in a fucked up world, this probably won’t be the last time we see this stuff either.

What has been interesting to read though, have been the comments on Valleywag — a catty gossip blog that focuses on Silicon Valley life — and the automatic assumptions that Wu was here on an H-1B visa and being fired caused a murderous rampage, and the xenophobia that comes from hiding behind a computer screen.

LoisKnuder: Let this be lesson to employers that hire H-1B workers. Dont do it, they will kill you if you lay them off. They have much more to lose than U.S. Citizens. Dont be greedy. Give jobs to U.S. Citizens only
growhappy: When I’m CEO there won’t be any H1B workers thanks to Wu.

Wow, that’s the take-away most people are getting from this tragic story: Don’t hire immigrants? Really? We always hear about the universal plight of Asian-Americans parents — that they immigrated from Asia to work hard so that they could achieve the quintessential American Dream — so their children can live the life of an middle to upper class tax bracket consisting of public school, lowered Honda Civics and childhood obesity. My father spent 35 years at the Pacific, Gas & Electric company for that very same dream. In lieu of that American Dream, he got my sister and I. (But that’s another story.)

And this why you almost – almost – feel for the guy; because no one wants to be robbed of that said dream, taking what you’ve worked so hard to earn and to start over again in the midst of what people are calling the next Great Depression. Capital letters, even. We’re living in desperate times, and I have the sinking feeling that we won’t hear the last of stories like this; but you don’t kill people over it, fucking duh.

Hopefully I’m proven wrong.