With Kamala Harris, wave of excitement sweeps through Asian-American community
It was close to 11 pm on Sunday night on America’s east coast. Shekar Narasimhan had just got off a call joined in by close to 1000 people.
And he was amazed by the energy levels among Asian-Americans, Hispanics, and Black community members on the call, as Democratic-leaning outfits representing the three groups came together to endorse Kamala Harris for president.
Narasimhan, the chairman and founder of the AAPI Victory Fund, one of the first of its kind super Political Action Committees (PACs) that supports Asian American candidates, said that this energy had come from a deep conviction that representation mattered. And Harris, who has attended AAPI fund’s events and recognised Narasimhan’s work, was the face of that.
“We have been saying for a while that the 24 million strong Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community is doing well but wasn’t politically engaged in a big way because no one was talking to them. Then you get Harris running for president in 2020, becoming the vice president and there was a burst of energy in the community. Representation matters,” said Narasimhan, adding that Harris had helped them create a network with other caucuses of minority groups such as Blacks and Hispanics. “We are smallest of the three but the fastest growing group and have a lot of resources. Harris is aware of the potential. She will tap into it, and her presence will also galvanise the community,” he said.
Harris’s possible nomination does indeed appear to have galvanised both the incredibly diverse Asian-American community in general and the Indian-American community in particular, which can see in her both a symbol of their success and a potential opportunity to have American politics reflect the diversity of American society. It also comes at a time when these communities are far better organised and therefore in a position to make a difference both financially, and in terms of votes in swing states in close elections.
Harris’s desi identity
At a lunch that she hosted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his state visit to US last year, Harris spoke extensively about both her roots as well as the impact of the Indian-Americans in US.
The vice president said that India was a “very important part” of her life, and when she was growing up, her mother would take her and her sister from the Bay Area to India every other year. “And the purpose of those trips were many, including that we would well understand where she came from, what produced her; so that we could spend time with our grandparents, with my uncle and our chittis (Tamil for aunt); and to really understand the love of good idli,” Harris said to applause and laughter. She recalled how her grandfather took her on early morning walks, told her the story of India’s freedom struggle, the importance of fighting against corruption and inequality, and credited it with who she had become now.
But Harris also located her own story with the larger story of the rise of the Indian-Americans, naming the five desi members of the US Congress who are called the samosa caucus, and the impact of the community across the country “from the C-suites of American companies to neighbourhood businesses, from the studios of Hollywood to university research labs across our country”.
She was right. Last month, in a report titled Small Community, Big Contributions, Boundless Horizons, Indiaspora, among the most respected of the diaspora organisations, examined the impact of the 5.1 million strong community, encompassing first generation immigrants and those who claim Indian roots. The results are telling.
CEOs of Indian-origin head 16 Fortune 500 companies that collectively employ 1.1 million Americans and generate a trillion dollars in revenue. Indians established 72 of the 648 US unicorns in operation in 2024. They own 60% of all American hotels. Despite being 1.5% of the population, they contribute 5-6% of all income taxes. From 1975 to 2019, the share of US patents with Indian-origin innovators jumped from two per cent to 10%. A third of the employees in Silicon Valley are Indians. Around 22,000 faculty members in US universities are of Indian-origin, while 270,000 Indians study in US. Of the top 50 colleges in US, 35 have an Indian in a leadership position. There are 6,000 Indian restaurants in US and 36,000 yoga studios. The Indian diaspora’s philanthropic contribution is over $1.5 billion annually. And there are over 150 desis in notable positions in the US administration.
Sanjeev Joshipura, the executive director of Indiaspora, locates Harris’s rise in this wider context. “Kamala Harris vying for President of the United States is the next step in the steadily increasing engagement of the Indian diaspora in America’s political life. On both sides of the aisle, one needn’t look far to find Indian origin political and policy leaders at every level, from federal to state to local.”
The Harris they know
What this has meant is that within a day of her entering the race, the segment of the Indian-American community that leans Democrat has been quick on its feet in mobilising support for her.
Indian American Impact Fund, a key political outfit that has supported 116 Indian-American candidates and raised $20 million in the last eight years to elevate the community’s political representation, endorsed Harris on Sunday.
Deepak Raj, Impact’s cofounder, said that as one of Harris’s most vociferous supporters “from the very beginning of her political career”, Impact was thrilled to back her candidacy. He added, “We are ready to leverage our extensive network of resources to mobilize South Asian voters, confident that they will be instrumental in delivering the White House to Kamala Harris in November.” Harris had attended the gala dinner of the Impact annual summit earlier this year.
Celebrating Harris’s candidacy at this particular time, Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic delegate from New York to this year’s convention and a party member who worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign, said that Harris was best positioned to prosecute the case against Donald Trump for his “war on women”. On her identity and what it meant, Shroff told HT, “Harris is unique compared to other national South Asian voices…who choose to lie about the discrimination they have faced in this country, spew rightwing anti-immigrant talking points, and be used as pawns to promote a white Christian nationalist agenda. Instead Harris is an authentic representative who speak for her communities because she is proud of where she came from and knows that diversity is America’s greatest strength.”
MR Rangaswami, a diaspora leader and tech entrepreneur from California, has known Harris ever since she became a district attorney in San Francisco and then California’s Attorney General through her Senate stint and now as VP. “At every level, I found her to be a quick study who worked hard and stepped up to the job. When I came to America over four decades ago, I didn’t even dream that an Indian-American would be standing for the highest political office in the land. I am ecstatic now that moment has arrived,” he told HT, adding that he had seen Harris embrace her indian identity even more including hosting Diwali events at the residence of the vice president.
Narasimhan, the Asian-American community leader, also vouched for Harris’s competence and qualifications, pointing out how within two hours of Biden’s announcement, the campaign had gone from Biden for president to Harris for president and how the VP had secured major endorsements within four hours. He hailed her for recognising the importance of community, diversity and standing up against hate crimes. Referring to those who sometimes critique Harris for not owning up to her Indian identity more, Narasimhan said, “She talks about her heritage and that’s enough. Does she have to eat idli, dosa always to be Indian? What does that even mean?”
Asked if the country that had never even elected a woman president was ready to elect a Black woman, and an Indian-American woman, Narasimhan said, “There is only one way to find out. We are going to find out when we count the votes. But I will tell you based on what I am seeing — with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, we are going to win this election.”