CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Democratic presidential running mate Kamala Harris is a second-generation Indian American, born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, making her the first Asian American to be selected for the position on the ticket.
No Indian American has ever been selected for a presidential cabinet position, though no president has failed to appoint an Asian American to a cabinet since 2000. Harris’s Indian roots are part of the diverse background that made her a strong candidate for the position.
Seeing someone of Indian descent elevate to the highest levels in American politics was a cause for celebration for Indian Americans, though that part of her background might not be discussed as much publicly.
Sudarshan Sathe, a leader in the Northeast Ohio Indian-American community, pointed out that Indian Americans are now occupying the top positions in the corporate world, like the CEOs of Google and Microsoft.
Sathe, who lives in Chagrin Falls, said across the party lines, Harris’ nomination would be a point of pride.
“It would stand to reason that this would eventually culminate into an Indian American or someone of Indian descent being on the way to the White House. In that sense, I think it’s a natural progression.”
Nikki Haley previously was nominated by President Donald Trump as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, though that is not part of the presidential cabinet.
Indians make up the largest Asian American subgroup of eligible voters in Ohio, at about 105,077 people, according to an Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote fact sheet. The Asian and Pacific Islander eligible voters has grown 97% since 2000, and makes up about 2.8% of the electorate.
Across the country, the voting impact of Asian Americans is growing quickly, about 139%, according to NBC News.
Case Western Reserve University professor Deepak Sarma, a second-generation Indian American and South Asianist scholar, said he ordered pizza for his children and Ethiopian food similar to Indian cuisine to celebrate Harris’ nomination.
He showed his children a video of Harris making Indian food with popular Indian American actress Mindy Kaling.
It’s exciting to have someone who grew up in a household with heavy Indian influence nominated for a top political position in the United States, and for a nominee’s family to come from an Indian community so connected that Sarma wonders if his grandparents knew Harris’ family.
But being Indian American isn’t normally the aspect of Harris’ background that leads her description in the media.
Harris’ Indian mother, after her parents divorced, maintained Indian culture in the house and took Harris and her sister to visit Indian family. Harris, in her autobiography “The Truths We Hold,” said her mother was “determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”
When asked in an interview with CNN about how other Indian-American politicians have distanced themselves from their heritage after winning the support of the Indian community, Harris said she’s proud to be who she is.
“One is not to the exclusion of the other -- I believe that point is at the heart of this matter. We have to stop seeing issues and people through a plate-glass window as though we were one-dimensional. Instead, we have to see that most people exist through a prism and they are a sum of many factors — everyone is that way, and that is just the reality of it.”
Monte Ahuja, a prominent Cleveland businessman and philanthropist who came to the U.S. in 1969 to attend graduate school at Ohio State University, said he thinks Harris’ nomination shows how far the U.S. has come, and it’s an exciting moment.
Though he’s a Republican, he thinks Harris will do a great deal for former Vice President Joe Biden’s candidacy. He said he feels her Indian American identity will not be used as much to garner political support, instead with the ticket seeking the approval of Black and female voters.
Karen Beckwith, the Flora Stone Mather Professor in CWRU’s political science department, conducts research on gender and diversity in politics. She said Indian voters are among the most politically active within Asian American voters.
The 2018 U.S. Census lists Asian Indians as the second largest Asian American group in the U.S., at about 4.5 million. That makes up about 1.3% of the American population, though that will be reassessed through the 2020 Census.
Smaller voting groups can make a difference though, Beckwith said, depending on political turnout and geographic concentration.
President Donald Trump recently spent a five-figure digital ad buy on targeting Indian Americans, according to Politico.
All the other candidates for president or vice president are white men. Beckwith said the effects coming from Harris’ nomination on the presidential race might have more to do with her political presence and her connections in the Black and Hispanic community, rather than her Indian American background.
Harris is well known, having won multiple statewide elections, and has a history of support with Hispanic communities in California. She served on several important committees while in office, including the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. President Barack Obama and Biden both endorsed her Senate candidacy in 2014.
“She will help to secure voter turnout among Black voters, which are absolutely key, and I think she will do very well among Democratic women and also Independent women -- she will contribute greatly to the ability to increase turnout, which is crucial in the 2020 election,” Beckwith said.
Sarma said the intersection of Black and Indian identities, and how she’ll present them, is going to be an interesting component of Harris’s candidacy. Harris being a woman -- one of the few nominated for vice president -- also adds to the layers of background that she will explain and defend during the race.
For a candidate with a background like this, there’s pressure to be perfect and go above and beyond to prove herself, Sarma said.
“Somebody who is Caucasian doesn’t have to worry about this, and somebody who is not Caucasian has to defend themselves or justify themselves or make themselves legitimate and somehow connect themselves to the racial narrative of the United States,” he said.
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Choice of Kamala Harris as VP candidate point of pride for Indian community - cleveland.com
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