Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty is Emma Lazarus’s The New Colossus, which promises safe harbor for immigrants. It ends with the line: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. But for many immigrants, the journey after walking through the golden door has been rocky.
Vidby, an AI company that does video translations, surveyed 1,000 immigrants in America over the age of 18 about experiencing discrimination. Eight in ten said they had experienced discrimination. Here are the key highlights:
- Finding a new community: two-thirds said they struggled to find a community, and also said they’ve been mocked or excluded because of their accent, while a quarter said they don’t feel safe or welcome.
- Troubles at work: 61% say they’ve been discriminated against at work due to language or cultural barriers, while 40% believe they didn’t get a job or a promotion because they were an immigrant.
- Discrimination while dating: 35% said they didn’t get a date because they were an immigrant, and 73% said finding a relationship was more difficult than it would have been in their home country. Even those who had dates still had troubles—46% said their partners’ parents didn’t like them because they were a foreigner.
“For anyone who has lived abroad, learning to communicate effectively is a familiar struggle . . . Perhaps it’s time for a rethink about expectations when it comes to how we communicate across borders, as new technologies make it possible to bridge gaps between languages,” said Vidby founder Alexander Konovalov.