The “One Percent”: De“naturalizing” Tech Worker Discourses of Unfairness

Through an analysis of the indie movie For Here or To Go? this essay argues that the rhetoric of “unfairness” articulated by Indian tech workers not only elides privileges, but also increasingly relies on the figure of the illegal immigrant to perform injury and to shore up claims of desirability and inclusion. Although constructed using juridical-legal logics of legality/illegality, the illegal immigrant mirrors racial, gender, and other anxieties that are mobilized to constitute migrant illegality. By examining how economically-privileged immigrants produce the dehumanization of less-privileged groups, this essay hopes to demystify the unequal position of groups within contemporary migration.