women, hopes and dreams

you see it here first instead on Time’s cover

A cultural phenomenon I have yet to see anyone observe is that 2024 is the Year of Women of South Asian heritage. You see it here first.

Three figures of media attention in calendar year 2024—first Nikki Haley through the presidential nominating process, then Usha Vance as the most recent vice presidential nominee’s spouse only a week ago, and now Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely presidential standbearer—are all daughters of South Asian immigrants. In an era of western liberal democracies increasingly opposing immigration, this is an amazing coincidence and indicator of the future in the United States, if not elsewhere.

One could add Pramila Jayapal, though the Washington Congresswoman actually hails originally from the Subcontinent. She formally became a U.S. citizen in 2000. The Congresswoman representing a Seattle district is a major spokesperson in today’s political environment.

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s governor, predated them all in national prominence, of course, as he ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination in 2016. Nikki Haley’s terms as South Carolina governor overlapped with Jindal’s but he had the attention. Jindal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following his parents’s arrival in the mid-1960s.

Nimarata Randhawa’s family emigrated, first via Canada, in the 1960s when her Sikh father arrived to teach biology at a historic Black college in South Carolina. She was born a U.S. citizen in 1972. Haley’s vigorous campaign for president elevated her from a former U.N. Ambassador to the most visible woman in the ranks of her political affiliates, initially forcefully opposing her party’s ultimate nominee who she now supports.

Usha Chilukiri Vance is from a south Indian Hindu family, Telugu speakers, enmeshed in the academic communities of the United States and India. With Vance’s sudden prominence a week ago upon her husband’s nomination as a vice presidential candidate, press reports unearthed that Vance’s great-aunt still teaches physics at 96 years old. Vance’s own parents are academics in the San Diego area. She is a successful lawyer with Yale Law credentials.

Kamala Devi Harris’s background is more intricate. Her mother, South Indian of Tamil descent, studied biology at Cal Berkeley in the 1960s where she met, then married a Jamaican-born economics professor, Donald Harris. The academic upbringing meant Harris grew up not only in Oakland where she was born but in Illinois and Montreal where her mother taught over several years. Harris won election as Attorney General of California before a seat in the Senate which made her appealing as a running mate for the White House.

Immigrants come to the United States for many reasons, but it appears, anecdotally, Indians came to study. American institutions of higher education offered significant opportunity and funding for research in the areas important to the transformation underway on the Subcontinent: health sciences and economic development. Many economists and doctors came to learn in hopes of taking their education back to spread at home.

Some of those students instead chose to stay in this country where they saw opportunities for their children to prosper in a nation of immigrants. For all of our challenges we were even then a land of fewer social constraints and vast opportunity. Immigration laws opened the option more broadly in 1965 by abolishing the 1920s restrictions on quotas for incoming populations. This opened the door for migrants from many people but those from the Subcontinent were a fundamental constituency who arrived to avail themselves of education rather than to work in agriculture fields as laborers.

Haley, Vance, and Harris all are American born citizens. All married men of non-Indian backgrounds, two Christians while the third a Jew. Two of the three women have their own children while Harris has step

-children, all living the American experience. The three are all working women with high levels of post-graduate education and experience, Haley and Harris in elected office over several years while Vance is an attorney who clerked for Brett Kavanagh and John Roberts.

In short, these are all women who exemplify the American dream. None is the classic 1950s wife and mother but they all three illustrate the path many (but hardly all) women seek for a career, marriage, and overall life. They all just happen to be from a nation whose immigrants has been gaining attention over the past several years; like all Americans, each of these individuals has a personal trajectory rather than a single path.

These women have in turn excited others by their actions, achievements, and that they represent new Americans. This is not coincidental but an indicator of a trend we likely will see as America, like it or not, continues from its European-centric founding into a greater reflection of the global community. We have always evolved and will continue to do so if we are to thrive. It seems highly unlikely this trend will reverse, despite pledges that seem determined to do so.

It’s this American melting pot, to resurrect an old phrase, that keeps us vital. It’s painful for those seeing this shift as negative but this influx of people, of cultures, of experiences that keep America going. I am not ignoring the fear these changes bring to many but change is rarely welcomed with open arms. I have to wonder whether this infusion of new energy won’t provide us with a more positive outcome if we take it on board willingly and enthusiastically but I recognize some will fight vigorously against the change.

Yet every single day is a change from yesterday.

The anxiety about those newly arriving is hardly new in America yet few of us actually date our families back to Jamestown or the conquistadores, much less the native populations here in 1500, do we?

My daughter happened to mention she finally went to a store on Sunday she had been meaning to visit for ages. It turned out the shop specializes in Indian spices as she thought she hadn’t explored them enough in her cooking. As a millennial woman, I think this tiny anecdote says something about the future.

I genuinely see this as The Year of the South Asian American Woman, regardless what else happens this year….and there are still five months to go.

I welcome any thoughts, rebuttals, or suggestions about this or any other column.if you find it of value, please feel free to circulate it. Thank you for reading Actions. I particularly salute those of you who subscribe.

It was quite a start with massive cloud banks today but last evening had a rainbow which seems appropriate for today’s photograph. We most definitely remain a land of hopes and dreams.

Be well and be safe. FIN