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Indian Americans are under siege today and it seems to have happened rather quickly. As one of Robert L. Stevenson’s characters says: “Events move slowly at first and then happen suddenly.”

We thought we were the “model minority” with the highest per capita income of any ethnic group and were punching well above our weight in Members of Congress, Fortune 100 CEOs, Unicorn founders, University Deans, Artists, Writers, Entertainers and so on.

Add to it, slogans like “India Rising” and “Largest Democracy and Oldest Democracy” suggested an almost inexorable rise in influence for India and Indian Americans. So, what has gone wrong? Is it temporary and therefore fixable? 

There are three steps we can take right now:  

• Stop doing the most ostentatious ceremonies to celebrate our festivals UNLESS we are prepared to engage with much broader inter-religious and multiethnic groups to participate, so they understand their significance and value to the broader community. Otherwise, this is us dancing to our own music and thumbing our nose at the 71% majority. Note: I do not minimize the enormous strides in assimilation including the Diwali state-sanctioned celebrations, public school, and state holidays, but those are still new and still symbolic.

• Run and elect more Indian Americans for local offices, from school board to mayor so that we are seen as working for the broader local community. Our community is often accused of being more interested in the “click and grin”- namely another photo that shows how important you are (by association) than substance. That means we spend hours waiting for 30 seconds with a Presidential candidate rather than spending 30 minutes encouraging and supporting a local one who looks like us!

• Improve dramatically the outreach to nearby communities from our own community centers and places of worship. We have thousands and they can enrich many more lives by doing this and making us safer. This is an obligation that should be taken on by all places of worship. Would we rather see our $15 billion investment in this infrastructure targeted by hate-mongers rather than utilized by and cherished by the local community that surrounds them? 

There are always going to be elements in any society that fear change and the response is usually that a small, vocal minority finds ways to attack and denigrate. In today’s social media world, this can often degenerate into anonymous and virulent hate speech which could lead to physical violence. 

A little history is relevant too. The right to naturalize for Asian Americans was only fully secured by the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 and shortly thereafter led to Dilip Singh Saund’s election to Congress as the first-ever Asian American. The Civil Rights movement led to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 which then gave legal access and led to the so-called “brain drain”.

I believe this may have fueled the resentments which are now bubbling over. And there is a dark side too: the Dotbusters of Jersey City, NJ who attacked Indian women with bindis on the streets thirty years ago. An even more vivid example is that the first person killed in the US after 9/11 was a Sikh man in a turban who was a gas station attendant in Phoenix- he was targeted by an assailant who assumed he belonged to the Taliban. Ignorance and bigotry tend to go hand in hand.

And today we have the deterioration in the US-India relationship (the “strategic partnership of the 21st century” was another slogan that has gone by the wayside). This has been accompanied by questions about the impotence of the Indian American diaspora to apparently stem this and keep the immigration routes open. Instead, the Indian public is treated to pictures of deportees- including women and children- walking off C-130 US military planes in handcuffs. And the nagging questions about whether we “belong” here. Yes, this is temporary as long as WE make it so. 

The response has to be strategic, thoughtful, and vigorous. Our community has the intellectual and financial capacity to mobilize and act. Bottom-line, even if the first generation wants to hide, the next generations cannot. This is THEIR ONLY country, and they want to be treated as equals in it.

So, inaction is not a choice. It is time that we brought together all the different elements of our community and built – without duplicating – unrivaled research capacity, civic participation, and legal infrastructure. This should be equal to or better than what other communities have already done. And we must outreach and ally with all communities as part of the basic framework. It’s time to begin this NOW. 

 

 

The author is the Chairman and Founder of AAPI Victory Fund, which mobilizes voters from Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.

 

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)