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The Invisible Majority Canadian ex-pats are big, but invisible, part of valley workforce By KATE RIX - Special to the Mercury News |
| They know all about ``Scooby Doo.'' They've seen all of Woody Allen's
films. They saw ``Saturday Night Live'' with the original cast. The only sure way to out them is to get them to say ``scout'' or ``about.'' And don't try to stump a Canadian on American political trivia. Even if they can't vote, they're hip to a lot more news than just the Sharks' win-loss record. From chief operational officers to senior vice presidents and engineers, Canadians make up one of the largest groups of foreign workers in the valley. They call themselves the ``invisible majority,'' an expatriate community drawn here for the adventure and the opportunity. ``Doing this was part of a good career move,'' says Muriel Jaouich, 30, senior manager of public relations for VeriSign in Mountain View. ``I know I could go back any day and have a way better job than I could have had before.'' The INS doesn't keep records of where people go once they obtain a visa, but the Canadian government estimates that roughly 300,000 who hail from the provinces live in the Bay Area. That's nearly 100,000 more than the population of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where Susan Chung is from. A journalist who gave up her newspaper job to move with her husband to the States in March 1999, Chung helps oversee a virtual Canadian community and social club called the Digital Moose Lounge, launched by the Canadian Consulate Trade Office in December. Chung feels she's hit a vein of uncharacteristic Canadian patriotism. At its first meeting, 42 Canadians, mostly in the tech field, shared a couple of cases of Moosehead beer and a platter of finger sandwiches. Today, less than a year after launch and with simply word-of-mouth promotion, some 600 executives, engineers, lawyers, marketers and others have joined DML. ``I'm shocked,'' says Chung, 35. She and others acknowledge that patriotism may have little to do with the group's success. ``Beer and hockey are central to Digital Moose Lounge,'' says Handol Kim, consul and trade commissioner at the Canadian Consulate Trade Office, the Silicon Valley outpost for the Canadian government's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in San Jose. ``Canadians are invisible here because we sound and act like Americans. It's a very subtle tie that binds Canadians together. It's speaking cultural shorthand,'' like helping each other figure out the American health-care system, for example, or worse, the credit card application process (most American credit companies cannot check Canadian credit history). They also get together for important holidays and to acknowledge milestone cultural events. Sunday, the Digital Moose Lounge is holding a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, which was sold out a week ago. Like many others drawn to the valley's booming job market, Canadians are motivated to acquire their own fortunes and, in some cases, bring it back up north. Kim, 30, helps run the consulate's Ventures program, a start-up packaging program that works with Canadian entrepreneurs, firms, venture capitalists and successful expats to line up seed and supplementary start-up funding. Working off the success of Canadian firms such as Nortel Networks and individuals such as eBay's Canadian Jeff Skoll, Kim is crafting a network of Canadian capital and talent. Kim estimates that Canadians working in Silicon Valley represent a potential venture capital pool of about $10 billion, much more than that of VCs in Canada proper. So far, out of 150 start-ups his office is working with, four have made presentations to potential funders and one is very close to closing a deal. Many of the valley's Canadians entered the country with H-1B visas, while others hold TN, or NAFTA, visas, available only to citizens of Canada and Mexico. Those visas are good for one year but can be renewed. For some, their stay in the States is strictly temporary. Chung, who is expecting her first child on Christmas Day, says she and her husband most likely will return to Toronto to raise their family. But for Kent Westerberg, a Saratoga attorney from Calgary who moved to California 10 years ago, it hasn't been hard to make his new home here while maintaining ties to his home country. Westerberg, 38, plans to apply for U.S. citizenship. ``The main reason is wanting to vote,'' he says. ``Not to take away from Canada -- my parents still live there -- but this is my home now. It's where I live, pay my taxes. I've got no plans to go back.'' |