I have a slightly different take on Bobby Jindal from some of my co-bloggers here at the Mutiny: I know, if I lived in Louisiana, that I wouldn’t vote for him. I just disagree with him too strongly on the social issues — intelligent design and abortion rights, for starters — to let my sense of ethnic loyalty get the better of me.
But I can’t help but be somewhat torn when I see photos like this:
The rest of the very interesting New York Times profile explains what this represents: Jindal is slowly winning over the rural white voters in northern Louisiana, staunch Republicans (can anyone say David Duke?) who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him when he ran for governor four years ago. He’s also learning how to avoid giving the impression that he is an overachieving policy wonk (which he undoubtedly is), so as to better connect with ordinary Louisianans.
For me, Jindal’s growing success at this (again, encapsulated in the photo above) taps into an anxiety I myself have had as a child of immigrants — who became the first (and only) person in my extended family to earn a Ph.D. Even if your tastes and cultural values are profoundly “Americanized,” as mine are, there remains a sense that you don’t quite “fit,” which tends to be exacerbated (for me, especially) every time some a-hole on South Street (in Philly) mutters something about “there goes Bin Laden” when I walk down the street. Part of the anxiety comes from the ignorance and xenophobia of some Americans, but a good part of it comes from myself, an internalized sense of remaining not-quite-pukka despite everything.
If Jindal wins, his victory will suggest to me he’s somehow overcome both sides of the immigrant’s anxiety syndrome: the part that comes from others’ mistrust, and also the part that comes from himself — his own sense of being something different, something other than a “normal” American, or in this case, a representative Louisianan. If he wins, I won’t cheer, but I will, I expect, quietly feel a certain sense of pride at his accomplishment despite my strong disagreement with his kind of politics. Not just because he’s a fellow desi — it’s actually more complex than that. Rather, the pride will be because he’s a fellow desi who’s evidently achieved, after a struggle, something I’ve long aspired to do: shake that dude’s hand.
I just disagree with him too strongly on the social issues  intelligent design and abortion rights, for starters  to let my sense of ethnic loyalty get the better of me.
good. shows you’re an american 😉
Meh. He probably didn’t even wash it after going to the potty.
well, jindal should be a litmus test on how racialist vs ideological brownz are. i’m much more conservative than most SM readers and his policy positions make me wince: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jindal#Positions_on_selected_issues
Thats because he started talking their language. For him to talk about outsiders finding justice for Jena 6 when he had no problem with the US being outsiders trying to bring democracy in Iraq is a little two faced(remember that purple finger thingy he did during one of the President’s State of the union addrsses). I am sure the lil rednecks in LA appreciated that sentiment.
FWIW, if he gets elected, it wouldn’t bother me. But he changed his name , religion, and now his outlook to fit in. I do not see anything that inspiring in it for me from an Indian point of view. However, he will be an improvement over Blanco. So at last the first Indian governor will not look like a fool to the mainstream. So I can take some consolation in that.
Nonsense. Ethnic loyalty has been part and parcel of the American cultural and political experience. Case in Point: Italian American rotting en masse for Joe DiMaggio or voting for Fiorello LaGuardia. Or the Irish and Tammany Hall.
In my opinion, the lack of support for Jindal among few desis also shows the great start for the Indian diaspora in the electorate process. Even though he is one of us and one of a very select few, we still don’t blindly follow him and are able to seperate issues from ethnic identification.
For me Jindal win or loss is both a win-win situation. If he wins then great, one more fellow brother out breaking a path. If not, then great too, one less right wing nut!
Nonsense. Ethnic loyalty has been part and parcel of the American cultural and political experience. Case in Point: Italian American rotting en masse for Joe DiMaggio or voting for Fiorello LaGuardia. Or the Irish and Tammany Hall.
it’s epiphenomenal, and indicative of lack of assimilation and orientation toward ideological (and individual) interests. anyway, tammany hall is bot a good & bad example. boss tweed was scots-irish, not an irish catholic. the white ethnics supported him & his machine out of their interests, not ethnic loyalty.
bot = both.
From his Wikipedia page:
“While at Oxford, he wrote an article for the New Oxford Review claiming he personally witnessed a friend being possessed by a demon”
This cat is even weirder than I gave him credit for!
As an African American, I don’t get why you’d want to shake his hand in the first place. but, maybe that’s one of those differences we can celebrate. 🙂
By the way, Fred Thompson (who has George “Macaca” Allen as an adviser) is quoting (Bush’s dinner invitee) Andrew Roberts about the will to win wars with approval. This guy justifies actions like the Amritsar massacre in the Punjab and speaks regularly to the Springbok Club, which considers itself the white shadow government in South Africa. And why does anybody brown or black consider themselves republican again? These people are getting scary!
Pravin, I totally agree.
What’s Brown on the outside, White on the inside ?
a. A potato. b. Bobby Jindal.
At this point I must say it’s b.
oh, re: ‘ethic voting,’ check out conn. 2006 race of lamont vs. lieberman
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/CT/S/01/epolls.0.html
page down to religion. there was a tendency for jews to favor lieberman over lamont to a greater extent than catholics or protestants, but the effect was obviously smaller than ideology.
If he wins, I won’t cheer, but I will, I expect, quietly feel a certain sense of pride at his accomplishment despite my strong disagreement with his kind of politics
I bolded his b/c if he wins, I’ll also feel something like pride also, but not at him but at my country – the US.
I remember when he was running and Kathleen Blanco and he were running for govenor in Louisiana – same sense of “pride” in the US – here in this deep south state, we had a brown immigrant Indian-Americn running as a Republican against a white democrat women. Made me feel like….this couuntry is moving beyond race politics and black/white divides.
But he changed his name , religion, and now his outlook to fit in.
As I recall, he converted when he was in college — at liberal/tolerant Brown University — so to me it’s not really fair to say that he converted to “fit in” as part of a political process.
Also, his going by “Bobby” is a fairly common thing — I know many a “Bhupinder” who became “Bobby” in junior high… It is a bit of a sell-out (and we’ve discussed this with Kal Penn ad nauseam), but in some sense it’s understandable/practical with people who are in high profile professions. If I were an actor or a politician I doubt I would get very far with the name “Amardeep Singh” (Wes Anderson might be my only hope!).
Dude! I thought you were almost as FOBish as me!
As I recall, he converted when he was in college — at liberal/tolerant Brown University — so to me it’s not really fair to say that he converted to “fit in” as part of a political process.
i think it started at his catholic school before college. more later….
But he changed his name , religion, and now his outlook to fit in. I do not see anything that inspiring in it for me from an Indian point of view.
re: outlook, he’s always been really, really, right-wing. i mean, i remember the ban-abortion-in-all-cases and pro-creationism (from a biology degree holder!) in 2003. but your point about his name and religion are spot on about what is important: what someone believes and what they hold to be good & true, not the color of their skin.
And why does anybody brown or black consider themselves republican again? These people are getting scary!
I once said to my Af-Am friend that I can’t understand how blacks in the US can be Republican, but I can see how many Asians could be Republican, and I really offended my friend. I only meant that given the average socioeconomics of Af-Ams in this country it didn’t make sense to me how any black person could be a Republican.
That guy on the right seems to be a living cliche (or stereotype). GIT R DONE. And no matter how whitewashed he may be, Jindal’s physique is clearly “Made in India”.
Dude! I thought you were almost as FOBish as me!
I play both sides of the fence.
I have both “Kaha Hai Woh Diwana” and “Sweet Home Alabama” on my Ipod, and I don’t care if all the world knows it.
re: jindal’s conversion to catholicism in the most catholic state in the deep south. i think we need to employ a little psychological sophistication
1) the fact that he was surrounded by catholics and that his political career would have been helped by the conversion (he was a double major in biology and public policy at brown) is obviously causal
2) but he could still be totally sincere about his beliefs and his conversion
as an example of what i’m talking about, the famous psychological test where you have someone surrounded by plants who agree on something obviously false. e.g., that line A is longer on the chalkboard than line B even though visually it is obvious than line B is longer. a substantial number of people will agree with the plants who have been told to lie unanimously. and these people will persist in their assertion and seem pretty sincere. anyway, my only point is that jindal could be both susceptible to outside pressures but totally convinced of his personal free choice in the matter. that’s generally the default human mental state, we think our choices are totally our own and informed only by our own rational faculties when it is pretty clear that context matters a lot.
I only meant that given the average socioeconomics of Af-Ams in this country it didn’t make sense to me how any black person could be a Republican.
more than half of black people are middle class. so obviously there are enough wealth blacks that if socioeconomics was the only predictor there would be many more republicans than the 10% of the normal vote. same with jews, who vote overwhelmingly democratic. so there are more complex historical and social factors at work (jews are VERY socially liberal for example and obviously are put off by the identification of the christian right with the republican party, so their high asset levels are irrelevant).
At the same time, if you were to shave, abandon the turban, vocally advocate a fundamentalist Christian ideology, adopt a WASP-pseudonym, and speak in a Southern accent, you’d probably make a lot of white people much more comfortable too.
I don’t want to go so far as to say that Jindal “sold out”, because these are sensitive identity issues and the guy has every right to make these choices. But I do think that it’s worth mentioning that in order for hi mto overcome “his own sense of being something different, something other than a “normal†American, or in this case, a representative Louisianan”, he’s had to give up things that many (perhaps most?) Desis would sorely miss. He proves that brown skin in and of itself is not necessarily a barrier, sure. But Desi identity is more than skin deep. Even accounting for the politics, I don’t see that much similarity between Jindal and myself.
re: jindal & conversion. googling suggests that his converted in providence and not baton rouge because of parental sensitivities. so his sympathies toward xtianity seem rooted in his teenage years (there are stories of southern baptist friends and girls who want to go the supreme court to save unborn babies, i think this is louisiana, not brown, speaking).
As I recall, he converted when he was in college
No, in high school in Baton Rouge, LA
At the same time, if you were to shave, abandon the turban, vocally advocate a fundamentalist Christian ideology, adopt a WASP-pseudonym, and speak in a Southern accent, you’d probably make a lot of white people much more comfortable too.
what accent are brown people in the south supposed to speak? are they supposed to speak like northerners? i’m kind of confused by this? or should american browns speak with indian english accents to be authentic?
(yes, i know many people in the south do not speak with ‘southern’ accents, but my friends from university towns say that you have to pick it up if you want to succeed professional or in the business world outside of particular locales like athens, georgia or auburn, alabama)
I wonder how his parents feel about him converting to Catholicism after sending him to Catholic school? Like, I honestly just wonder. I bet they’re proud of him now that he’s about to be governor of Louisiana anywho though.
Meta-irreverence aside, I have to say that I shook hands with plenty of bubbas just like that when I grew up wearing a turban and beard in Texas. Granted, it wasn’t David Duke country, but people are much more complex than we’re trying to make out here. I mean, that guy in the overalls might be a gora Sikh for all we know. Really–it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
I wonder how his parents feel about him converting to Catholicism after sending him to Catholic school? Like, I honestly just wonder. I bet they’re proud of him now that he’s about to be governor of Louisiana anywho though.
from 1993
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001045.html Jindal recalls, “My parents were infuriated by my conversion and have yet to fully forgive me.†He even steeled himself for the worst by becoming financially independent. But that hardly prepared him for the emotional battles that ensued.
As Jindal explains, “My parents went through different phases of anger and disappointment. They blamed themselves for being bad parents, blamed me for being a bad son and blamed evangelists for spreading dissension. There were heated discussions, many of them invoking family loyalty and national identity.â€Â
He elaborates: “My parents have never truly accepted my conversion and still see my faith as a negative that overshadows my accomplishments. They were hurt and felt I was rejecting them by accepting Christianity. According to Jindal, his parents resorted to “ethnic loyalty†to counter his new faith
they have another son, perhaps he isn’t weak in response to peer pressure 😉
The fact that white Louisianans are willing to vote for a very conservative, wealthy American-born Indian doesn’t say anything about the “black/white” divide to me. The history of race in this country indicates very different attitudes about Asian immigrants than about African-Americans, even if neither is particularly positive.
only meant that given the average socioeconomics of Af-Ams in this country it didn’t make sense to me how any black person could be a Republican.
more than half of black people are middle class. so obviously there are enough wealth blacks that if socioeconomics was the only predictor there would be many more republicans than the 10%
Yes, I was definitely oversimplifying my feelings. I’m not sure what the mean af-am salary is but even it was middle-class (what is middle-class?), I think the Democrat tax strategy hurts upper-middle class people the most. And yes there are other factors – I think overall the structural racism in the US is more profound for the black community and many public policies that democrats espouse, like affirmative action, or minority loan programs or desegregation of schools policies, seem to directly support the average Af-Am more.
Even as I’m writing this, I realize that I said in my previous comment that “race politics” was lessening in America and I like that and maybe I am contradicting myself now. I think the reason my statement rankled my Af-Am friend was b/c I was seeing the Af-Am community as too homogenous and not as individuals. And to an extent I am at fault about this, b/c I am thinking “when so many people in your community (Af-Am) benefit from democrat policies, even if you are a rich Af-Am, wouldn’t you still want to vote for a democrat.” I think that many Asian groups, like South Asians, even if many of them look black, have had a different history in this country and are not directly affected from what’s generally seen as democrat social policies. Anyways I’m a democrat and I think most policies that democrats usually lean toward benefit everyone. I’m still not sure about affirm action, but whatever.
The fact that white Louisianans are willing to vote for a very conservative, wealthy American-born Indian doesn’t say anything about the “black/white” divide to me. The history of race in this country indicates very different attitudes about Asian immigrants than about African-Americans, even if neither is particularly positive.
i’m assuming that in some ways jindal is slotted into honorary white. there were chinese on the gulf coast and during segregation some areas put them in black schools and some areas with whites.
And yes there are other factors – I think overall the structural racism in the US is more profound for the black community and many public policies that democrats espouse, like affirmative action, or minority loan programs or desegregation of schools policies, seem to directly support the average Af-Am more.
much of the black middle class consists of government workers. who tend to vote democrat (for obvious reasons). so that’s a variable to keep in mind.
Like I said, I’m not touching the authenticity argument, whether about his accent, faith, or any of the things I listed. In fact I’m sure a lot of American-born Desis reflect some of the adaptations in Jindal’s life. In fact, I speak with a very Midwestern-inflected accent.
But you can’t deny that it’s one point in the gestalt that helps the guy seem more “American” and less “alien”.
Whoops, typed in wrong field. Comment 34 was me.
But you can’t deny that it’s one point in the gestalt that helps the guy seem more “American” and less “alien”.
but this is like saying that the fact that i wear t-shirts and pants makes me seem more “american” and less “alien” than if i wore a dhoti or lungi. humans naturally speak with the accent of their peer group. the main exception are autistic children, who will speak with the accent of their parents. on the other hand, humans tend to follow the religion of their parents, not those of their peers (though the two may often by the same). so jindal’s religious change is more surprising and noteworthy than his southern accent.
fwiw, bobby didn’t have the louisiana accent when he was in his twenties.
amardeep, i really don’t see the lesson that you would draw — i think that neal has this one exactly right in #23. do you really think that a jindal victory would signal anything about the likelihood that david duke voters would “shake the hands” of other desis in significant numbers? or that jindal himself would invest any political capital or personal energy — not as abstract platitudes, but in situations where it really counts — to make it more likely that will happen? that hasn’t exactly been his track record.
do you really think that a jindal victory would signal anything about the likelihood that david duke voters would “shake the hands” of other desis in significant numbers?
the south has changed a lot in the past generation. the jindal victory is not going to be causal, it is going to be indicatory. remember, texas has a senator who was married to an asian american woman and had biracial children in the 1990s. that’s a long way from the 1960s. if you consider florida the south,* jeb bush was another case where a miscegenated politician held elective office.
Oh absolutely, no question. All I’m saying is that there are many aspects to Jindal’s personality in which he has moved away from the “Desi” baseline and conformed much more closely to a different set of social norms.
I’ve experienced my share of ‘but you are not REALLY Indian b/c…” thinking, so I’m not going to judge him on any of these things. But I can’t really feel much of a kinship with him either. He proves that skin color doesn’t matter so much anymore in the South if you satisfy certain other significant cultural standards (including being basically the only viable candidate!), but that’s not quite the same thing as what Amardeep’s saying, is it?
Agreed.
All I’m saying is that there are many aspects to Jindal’s personality in which he has moved away from the “Desi” baseline and conformed much more closely to a different set of social norms.
yeah, but note that he is hittin’ it brown.
OK, but then realistically what do you want/expect from the South? Some kind of color-blind, culture-blind utopia of the sort that’s never existed in history?
If Bobby Jindal, who is of upper caste khatri punjabi ancestry, is elected Governor of Louisiana as seems likely, he will become the skinniest and blackest governor in american history. Only Governor Deval Patrick approaches Jindal in darkness of skin color.
what’s the name of this senator? & do you think it would be different if they were married to black women as opposed to immigrant/immigrant-descended asian/hispanic women? (or does the race of the wife not really matter, because she is, after all, the wife and not the candidate?)
See, this is the thing…sometimes I feel that even the least-desi desis end up marrying other desis…makes me think that if you actually care about your desi identity, you’ll marry a desi…but it doesn’t always work out that way, sometimes you don’t meet a desi you like, or you meet a non-desi you click with…for me personally, Jindal sort of makes me feel guilty about not marrying a desi. But then he was fortunate to meet someone who seems to be such a good fit for him while being desi nonetheless. He could have certainly given his children desi names though, which he did not. Many Indian christians have desi names, so there was no religious reason not to. His conversion was not political, but his choice of names for his kids I think was.
Jindals are not khatris. They are banias.
He is ridiculously thin. Arnold can bench press Jindal’s weight on his pinkie. I would be afraid of marrying him out of concern for my gene pool.
1) Jindal converting to Catholicism isn’t as good for his political chances as you might think. LA is one of the last states in the US where the Catholic / Protestant divide still matters. Which is why the supposedly (but not really) anti-Protestant remarks Jindal made were blown up so huge. If Jindal converted to Southern Baptism, that would be more easily seen as opportunism.
On the other hand, if he were still Piyush the Hindu, he would not be running for Governor.
2) Everything suggests that Jindal was not an honorary white in the last gubernatorial election. He got significantly fewer votes in protestant white northern LA than a ‘normal’ Republican.
3) All parts of the “south” are differet, just like all Desi regions are different. Bu LA is more different than most, and not in a good way. Texas, Virginia, and Georgia may be “modernizing”, but northern Louisiana isn’t.
4) The real test will be if Jindal doesn’t get more than 50% of the vote and has to go to a run-off. Current polls suggest he will get only about 45%. I think the number 2 guy would be a white populist democrat from Northwest Louisiana, but its a tight race for second place.
Part of me hopes Jindal wins. If a guy with can’t win with $11 million, the backing of all senior republicans in his state, a stellar policy career, a previous congressional victory, and a good Christian background, what the Hell will it take?
Amitabh – I believe his kids are named Celia (some spellings say Selia, in which case it seems more brown to me for some reason, heh), Shaan (SO Punjabi), and Slade (which is just a big WTF? I don’t think either desis or conservative Catholic voters would be down with this name, LOL. oh and he delivered this baby himself! yowza!).
I think it’s a bit premature to say that he picked his kids’ names for political reasons… perhaps those are just names he and his wife liked? And like I said, I doubt ‘Slade’ will endear his family to Catholic voters who might care about it anyway.
And I think that you are in for an onslaught of comments along the lines of ‘what is desi, exactly? why am i less desi if i marry a non-desi? just because I have an Anglicized name and not a Sanskrit or Arabic derived one doesn’t make less desi. and you shouldn’t feel guilty for marrying non-desi’
And honestly, his religion (& thus, conversion) probably matters more in a political context than his kids’ names.