[Apologies this was delayed. It took me a while before I was ready to put pen to metaphorical paper on this subject]
As an American without hyphen I was gratified to see a consensus emerge around Obama as the better candidate, with even one of McCain’s own advisors crossing lines, and for Obama to emerge victorious. Given the state of the economy, I was pleased to see the candidate preferred by 4 out of 5 economists get the most votes.
But as a hyphenated American, after a campaign where I was repeatedly told I wasn’t a real American, I was thrilled to have the candidate more like me win. That’s a poor reason to choose a candidate, I know, but yes, I’m very tickled to think about the fact that the President of the United States will be a son of an immigrant, a man with a funny name.
I don’t vote based on personal appearance, but sure, I noticed that he’s roughly my height, weight and skin color (I’m better looking, but I wont hold that against him) and closer to my generation than that of my parents.
I don’t vote based on biography, but I appreciated that his father came to the USA to study, he grew up in an extended family, he know what it’s like to stay in touch with those you love over a noisy long distance telephone call. I didn’t think it would be possible that the President of the United States might have grown up and been hassled for being an American Born Confused something:
Even those [Illinois state] senators who seemed like natural allies treated Obama with nothing but enmity…dismissed him as cocky, elitist and… “a white man in blackface.” … Most frequently, they ridiculed Obama for his complex ethnicity. You figure out if you’re white or black yet, Barack, or still searching?… [WaPo]
Given the ways that national leaders have condoned and encouraged xenophobia after 9/11, stoking fear and hate for their own political benefit, I am very happy that I will soon have a President who understands personally that this can be dangerous:
The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” Michelle asked a top campaign aide. [Newswk]
I was deeply embassed and ashamed by the behavior of the GOP this election. They really went out of their way to present themselves as an ethnic political party, the party of real (rural White) Americans. I was thrilled to see the American public reject the politics of division and embrace the candidate who offered a universalistic rather than narrow particularistic appeal.
Obama, on the other hand, built a broad coalition, reaching out to voters across the spectrum, including many long written off by the Democratic party. He has presented himself as the President for all of us, not just his core supporters:
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too. [HuffPo]
What does this mean for desis? Well, not much in some ways. We’re still a small group, and we’re not going to get singled out for ponies and party favors.
But I think, for the first time, we’ve been truly seen and recognized. Obama knows both South Asia and South Asians. We aren’t just some weird American fringe ethnic group to him. He has called himself desi, cooked dal, and travelled in the desh.
His campaign drew upon desis not just for topics to do with South Asia, but for every day campaign issues. The director of my local Obama campaign office was actually a Ugandan Desi ABD whose father was born in Jinja. One of the core staff members in the office was a desi female, one of the Patels from Kentucky.
I am hopeful that under an Obama administration our background will not be seen as a liability or as something intrinsically un-American. And that, to me, is change that we sorely need.
That is my birthright as an American, what all of us are promised as citizens, that we will be part of one nation, indivisible, where all are acknowledged as equal. I think that, on Tuesday, we took a small step in the right direction.
I mean, look at how much more steeply spending grew in the last 8 years than the 8 years prior. Spending grows no less during Republican Presidencies and often grows more.
well… the people i know scarcely regard the gwb years as being adequate representation of conservative values or ideology :-). think Gen Powell as point of context, and even they want the system to be flushed of the guck.
mind you, when I say ‘people’ – this is a handful of acquaintances. hardly a representative sample – but still people i hang with and consider in good regard.
But the graph covers far more. The line is never flatter during Republican years, even during Reagan. Given that the Democrats presided over far greater economic growth, and the GOP grew the state no less than the Dems, the GOP has led to larger deficits. The facts don’t support the myth, promulgated by the GOP, that they are the party of fiscal conservatism and small government.
btw – am I the only one hoping that grandma moves into the White House for the first extended family? That would also feel very desi.
What Obama victory may mean for our ancestral home: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24608689-25837,00.html
That turmoil, he argues, cannot be resolved without Pakistani co-operation — and Pakistani co-operation cannot be assured unless Islamabad is “cured” of its insecurity and preoccupation with India and fears of being attacked from its eastern flank.
In an interview this week, Senator Obama said: “If Pakistan can look to the east (India) with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe its interests are best advanced through co-operation with the Taliban.”
We may get more than what we bargained for.
well. i cant speak for the u.s. but fiscal conservatism isnt really bound by ideology . the canadian deficit slayer is from the Liberal party, but he is a shipping magnate and understood the value of balancing the books. a very popular premier from the west coast is Gordon Campbell who was once assaulted by teachers at an airport for cutting off the pork, also from the liberal party.
i initially took this angle because Neale’s comment in #38 callign for a social Czar was indicative of more such requests in the future, and something i’d heard as being cited as reason to not vote for BO by some pragmatists. i hope BO can control bloat. even so his first day in office will be worth more than the rest of his tenure regardless of everything he achieves as president.
The white cookie won’t crumble until white people embrace miscegination to the same extent as we desis oppose it. 😉
From the TIMES OF INDIA online; Obama’s Past Life.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Barack_a_reborn_Lincoln_aide/articleshow/3687373.cms
Yup, including Desis supposedly with Sangh ties. Sonal Shah, member of his transition team:
Link
P.S. Prior to Obama, South Asian Americans weren’t truly seen and recognized? What about Bobby Jindal?
The New Yorker article umder desi linked to in #45 shows how Palin was ‘picked’ – most arbitarily. That the likes of Bill Kristol pushed hard for Palin makes it sweeter. Would have liked to see the smug sob’s face. Fox News seems a bit lost, beating up on Nader for his remarks. I’m not an American and I don’t believe in the hype about Obama, but the neocons have been kicked out, if only for a little while, and that can only be good.
Let’s see, what Obama’s victory means to me….it means more than I can tell you. It means that the spirit which drove desegregation, got rid of miscegenation laws and brought the Supreme Court to say that separate is NOT equal is alive and well despite all efforts to corrupt, deter or dissuade it. It means that a relatively large part of the country saw past the corrosive divisiveness of McCain’s campaign to at least consider an “us” which rises above the flattening Whiteness of the 50’s. It means that the collective nastiness directed at a portion of my family will be (publicly) curtailed and that my nieces and nephews and the children of my friends are truly the future of America. It means that as the child of immigrants, I can finally say I believe in this country and actually hope that this president will get FISA off my back and those of my friends and colleagues. It means to me that all the inter-community, cross-cultural work my friends and I engage in, not because it’s hip or the 15 second flavor, but because that is WHO and WHAT we are, has value. It means that I can (perhaps) stop fighting my government and work with my country. It means that the core values I have tried to teach my ESL students, and which have been abased at every turn by this administration, have been vindicated.
I never thought I would live to see this day.
A friend heard something like this on NPR the day after the election:
Roda Parks sat So that Martin Luther King could walk. King walked So that Barak Obama could run. Obama ran So that our children could fly.
I hope this lasts forever. Even if it doesn’t and something, god forbid, should happen, at least we know it is possible because this has happened and we have forever turned a corner.
What has Obama got to do with Indans? It’s a well known fact that Indians hate blacks and call them names and won’t have black cheerleaders perfrm even in India, and now all of a sudden just because Obama is the president, you all consider yourselves blacks?? Talk of kissing winners’ a****!!
that was a beautiful post ennis…new zealand just voted a right-wing government in after 9 years of progressive politics and a woman prime minister…v sad night 🙁
i know this is a terrible thing to post, but i’m wondering how many people have that ‘god forbid, something should happen’ fear about obama…every time i saw a big crowd at a rally or something i just thought how easy it would be for some dumbass to try and harm obama and/or his family. hope it never ever happens…but just wondering if i’m the only paranoid soul who has this thought when they see him live in front of big masses of people! maybe i’ve seen too much chappelle’s show…i think obama is fantastic for the us and the whole world, and i hope that we haven’t just turned a corner but keep walking down the path with obama, it shouldn’t be a brief moment in history that we celebrate but a long, successful, much-needed presidency.
It means hopes, however slight, that things might get better, colored with a heavy dose of pessimism:
Satire…it kicks ass when it’s honest.
Obama’s black? Nobody told me! And I’m Indian? Why didn’t I get the memo! Somebody, quick, give me my war paint and feathers. Me scalpum paleface for heap big wampum!
Rightly said, jeez!! These people have no self esteem. Now they are saying Obama is like them cos he’s the son of immigrants!! Obama’s dad met him only for one week of his entire life, so he has no experience of immigrants’ lives. Obama’s entire life in the US hasn’t been that of an immigrant’s.
But you know what Indians are good at, so this is no surpise. They will always try to claim winners as their next of kin. And Obama is not even pro-India!!
What has Obama got to do with blacks? Last I heard, he is an arab radical kenyan communist indonesian socialst marxist muslim. Desis dig them.
If you think Obama is not black, you must be blind. Are you trying to claim his as Asian?? lol…. Ask Obama himself, he describes himself as African American…so did you vote for him just becuase you think he’s not black? I supported Obama just because of his anti India attitude. Hope your India inc goes down the drain…but that’s not far considering that many countries are outsourcing less to India…
67 · obama is not black said
Don’t forget that he is also the socialist illegitimate son of Malcolm X. 🙂 What’s not to love?
67 · obama is not black said
Don’t forget that he is also the illegitimate son of Malcolm X. What’s not to love? 🙂
I was reminded of the exchange earlier by this article in today’s paper. Kerchner captures my concern on the fervor around BO’s election. There are just so many people clamoring for a piece, the administration has to choose between disappointment and disaster.
In the past, populist Presidents had populist advisors and looked only at populist economic choices. Not true with this President elect. Both this current slate of economic elders and his original campaign advisors don’t fit that bill.
More importantly, that newspaper was wrong. Reagan grew government at the same rate as the populists they list. As a matter of fact, almost every President grew the government at a similar rate EXCEPT for Bush 43 who grew it faster.
It’s like the perception that democrats are bad for the stock market or bad for the economy, which isn’t true. They’re actually better.
72 · Ennis said
I disagree. Pres Obama has a quite a few individuals who are ex-Clinton era staffers and will likely be slotted into key positions. While there are a few surprises (glad that Volcker is on his advisory team), overall its the same policies being rehashed, tweaked a tad and being reintroduced by the Democrats. And as for the Democrats being good for the markets and bad for the economy, the subprime mess started during Clinton’s era as he wanted housing rules relaxed and the tech bubble also had its beginnings then.
So what you got against India?
Obama Mama, I just don’t like them.
You don’t like people in India or you don’t like people from India who are presently living in America (assuming you are from the USA, here)?
My guess, by the way you write, is that you are desi yourself, but you don’t like other desis.
— thought it shouldnt be needed let me explicitly state that i have the greatest admiration for BO and wish him and your country the best through his tenure. i observe so i can learn and voice a concern because (with all humility) i feel that there are so many people who have projected their expectations on him they must be let down now and urgently so in order to prevent resentment later —
i hope so. but in my opinion this president was elected for his unmatched ability to bridge the racial gap. it’s right to ask about his management style and how he will handle his handlers. he demonstrates the right curiosity and leadership, but there’s no training for crisis except for crisis itself. let’s see. all the best.
why sad? One of the best things that happened across the Tasman. NZ is so “nannified” that a new word is required to describe it. Time to roll back and ship some of the Kiwis back home.
OK you two down under, clue the rest of us in……
New Zealand voted in a new government headed by a former forex trader. The party is officially right wing but in a New Zealand context right wing would be the far left in the USA. Many kiwis leave NZ for Australia due to better economic opportunities – nearly 10% of Kiwis live in Australia. NZ is a scandinavian style society without the economy and with a soft neighbour up north. Bloody foreigner They come here and take our jobs and claim our medicare and FHOG and the Baby bonus :(. What is worse that their favourite meal is still fush and chups.
Only activity that provides one with greater delight than kiwi bashing is pom bashing 😉
Obama mama, you’re absolutely right in your assumption of where I’m from orginally. What I meant by my earlier post is I dislike both the country and its people.
including the ones who are in the US or other countries.
lol, why are you here then?
Tiger lily, am here just to say I don’t like them.
Socialism is alive and well