Kamala Harris’ Middle Name: What Biden’s VP Pick Means to the Indian-American Community
Aryan Deorah, Staff Writer
In my community, a person’s name carries significant meaning. In accordance with tradition, astrology, and parental will, names are chosen to reflect a person’s future, their characteristics, and their personality. Names are critical to an individual’s identity, but in the case of Kamala Devi Harris, a name can mean so much more to a whole community.
Indian-American comedian discusses his upbringing and systemic racism in his Netflix Special: Homecoming King. Netflix
Mainstream American society has long ignored and forgotten the Indian-American community. When Indian-Americans and their beliefs are shown in pop culture, they are misappropriated in the form of tech support and book worms, common stereotypes for people to poke fun at, or chants and prayers, to be recited at thousands of yoga classes across the nation. However, even prior to Kamala Harris’ historic choice as the first Indian-American on the ticket of a major political party, recent years had represented a cultural shift. More and more Indian-Americans had made their way to fame, from comedians Hasan Minaj and Aziz Ansari to actors Dev Patel and Priyanka Chopra. Documentaries and shows like Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever began to portray Indian-Americans as regular people with regular problems.
Most importantly, politics began to further acknowledge the value of Indian-Americans, from Democrats flipping Orange County seats to Cory Booker and other 2020 candidates actively campaigning to Indian-Americans. According to a paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Indian-Americans have grown to 0.82% of the eligible voting population, greater than the margins of defeat for Democrats in swing states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, and are the second largest foreign-born group in the nation. Indian-Americans, who have twice the median income of America as whole, are also estimated to have contributed 3 million dollars to 2020 primary campaigns, outspending Hollywood, which may explain increased political interest from both sides of the spectrum.
The cherry on top came on August 11, 2020, when the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, selected Kamala Harris to be his Vice President. Prior to her nods to the Indian community in her VP nomination acceptance speech, few people knew of Harris’ Indian heritage. She is often addressed, and addresses herself, as a black woman, and considers herself to have strong ties to the black community. Though she may not mention it much, she does claim her Indian heritage considerably influences her, from her grandfather’s involvement in the Indian revolution to her weekly visits to the local Hindu temple, with her single, Indian mother who raised her.
Kamala Harris wears a traditional Indian sari and sits in the back left for a family photo. To her right are her mother and her grandfather. Los Angeles Times/Sharada Balachandran Orihuela
This historic milestone does not mean the Indian-American community will approach her with open arms. Indian-Americans come from all over the political spectrum and she has managed to attract controversy from all sides. Progressives resent her over her role in the war on drugs and conservatives attack her for being too far on the left, while political spectators note her flip flops on policy such as Medicare for All and capital punishment. She is by no means the perfect VP pick, but Indian-Americans can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they might finally have a member of their community representing them in elected office, which is a first for many.
Indian-Americans have been on the fringes of American public life, with considerably low rates of census participation and voter turnout. According to the same paper by the Carnegie Endowment, out of 4.16 million Indian-Americans, only 2.62 million are citizens and 1.9 million are eligible to vote. On top of that, naturalized citizens vote at far lower rates than citizens born in the US, bringing down voter turnout rates for the Indian-American community as a whole. Many foreign-born Indian-Americans don’t see the importance of government, and place much of their focus on their family, culture, and way of life. When they do discuss politics, they often discuss Indian politics, finding it much more relatable and understandable. After all, politicians don’t pander to tiny minorities, and because many Asians weren’t allowed to immigrate to the U.S. until 1965, there are few native born members of the community who are old enough to be on the national stage.
Earlier immigrants faced considerable discrimination in the forms of visa exploitation and workplace discrimintations as well as a lack of understanding of their culture through cultural appropriation and public humiliation, but often accepted these things as a natural consequence of their choice to immigrate. As Hasan Minaj put it, the older generation of Indian-Americans believe in the “American Dream Tax,” that normalized and accepted discrimination as a fact of life as an immigrant. When Indian and other South Asian-Americans across the country faced discrimination and violence in response to 9/11, many members of the community accepted it as a sad, yet inevitable, fact of life and refused to speak out so long as they could get by. According to the Economic Times, Balbir Singh, a Sikh Indian-American was murdered four days after 9/11, one of the first of many hate crimes, sometimes violent, that would be committed against the South Asian-American community. Hate crimes against the South Asian-American community have been on the rise again, increasing 45% the year after Donald Trump’s election, and it's no coincidence that many of these crimes involved Trump’s slogans and supporters.
However, as Hasan Minaj also pointed out, a new generation of Indian-Americans, many of them native born, refuse to normalize and accept discrimination. We refuse to accept that our voice does not matter in American politics and are willing to go against the tide of our own community to do so. We grew up learning and reading about “we the people” and “all men are created equal” and we are willing to demand that equality.
That’s why the fact our next VP is a woman named Kamala Devi Harris, an unequivocally Indian name, matters. When you ask any immigrant parent why they struggled and left their homeland, they will say it was to build a better life for their children and pursue the American Dream. She represents that better life that so many strive for as well as the penultimate American Dream, that a child of two working class immigrants can lead this country. As I watched her nomination acceptance speech with family - my two immigrant parents who arrived in Chicago O’Hare with a job opportunity and a dream in 2000, my older sister whom they cradled in their arms, and myself, who was born two years later in the country we call home - I could not help but feel proud of my heritage and excited to see what new heights my community will reach in politics and elsewhere.