100 thoughts on “Desis Run to The Hill”

1. People who look Indian would be less likely to win. It kind of ignores the third category – the South Asian Americans that have created their own new hyphenated identity which is a unique cocktail of both sides.

   I agree that anyone campaigning with a tilaka or dastar or any other desi identifier would probably be ignored and/or ridiculed heavily in the US. I also think that desis are phenotypically diverse enough to “look” familiar enough to American eyes (just as long as the voice is white American). Plenty are regularly mistaken for latin@ or mixed-black, and this is adequate to more prejudiced Americans even if they understand intellectually that a desi is quite distinct. [RE: Jay Chandrasekhar in Super Troopers]

2. People from non-Anglo Europe changed their names as well, changed their national dress, and gave up old national past-times. That may bw part of the reason soccer has had such a hard time here maybe. I think that process is interesting for what was gained and lost and why it was that these things occurred. It seems to me the for lack of a better word multicultural movements are one reason this is not as prominent a strategy among immigrants, but at a certain point the option to assimilatw is a development that may have been in part effected by multicultural movements

3. minor correction: haley hasn’t won the primary yet because there is a runoff, which she’s heavily favored to win, tomorrow (she was just under 50%).

4. All the same, the way the article was framed made me feel uncomfortable.

   too much focus on biographical stuff in regards to their religion; seemed like they were assembling a dossier. frankly, kind of a more professional version of the kind of stuff which you see on these comment boards whenever we talk about certain politicians. the stuff about haley as the only one confused for a white woman, and married to a white man, were factually correct, but seemed really strange. kind of like the stuff about bobby jindal’s physique in 2004. his “shiny black hair” and “deep rich brown skin.”

5. Desis Run to The Hill

   umm, nikki haley and kamala harris are not running for federal office.

6. The usernames political and politics are used by different users

7. I may not agree with the way people like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley handle their business but I still feel uncomfortable judging them.

   I’ll do it anyways. They are sell-outs. They sold their names and religions for the wrong reasons. Why give up your identity for colleagues who won’t accept you for who you are?

   Pathetic.

8. umm, nikki haley and kamala harris are not running for federal office.

   Do you know how hard it is for me to come up with witty blog titles?!? It’s the most difficult thing about writing these blogs, personally speaking.

   But no, they are not running for federal office. Please read the blog post after you get sucked in by the oh so witty blog title. 😉

9. “could a Hindu who worships multiple gods, or a turbaned Sikh who doesn’t cut his hair, survive a statewide Republican primary in the Bible Belt?”

   No.

10. They are sell-outs. They sold their names and religions for the wrong reasons

    They are not. It depends on where you draw the line. Some people might call desis who moved to US as sell-outs since they left their mother land, so does that make all American desis sell-outs?

    @Topic – It is interesting to note that when US rose to power it was almost a Homogeneous society (White). Now China is rising & it is also Homogeneous society (Han Chinese). We can see in coming decades whether multiculturalism is boon or bane.

11. I am so fucking sick of this shit.

    I’ll (judge) anyways. They are sell-outs. They sold their names and religions for the wrong reasons. Why give up your identity for colleagues who won’t accept you for who you are?

    This response isn’t aimed solely at the person who wrote what’s above, but it sure as hell was inspired by it.

    Well, well, well. Aren’t all of you who “judge anyways” so righteous. So flaw-free. So…psychic!

    Let’s just ponder something for a moment, shall we? What if all of you commenters who gnash your teeth and rend your garments over two conversions by Desi Republicans are…wrong? Did that ever cross your mind? That people have free will? That perhaps, just maybe, they found something meaningful in a faith which is different from yours, and that what they discovered in Christianity wasn’t political expediency?

    If, IF some of you are right about Haley and Jindal…then don’t you worry your pretty, insecure, petty little heads. Because the God whose faith they converted for shall roast them in a hell far more excruciating than the scathing remarks which pepper the haterade-marinade of Sepia Mutiny comments, for such a false, craven, ignoble conversion. Seriously. Let it go. If you’re right, they’ll suffer, either by the hand of the “imaginary” deity who is at the center of the Abrahamic faith I share with your two least favorite Indian-Americans OR by the corrosive effects of a lifetime of dishonesty, to oneself and ones’ friends, families, constituents.

12. They sold their names and religions for the wrong reasons.

    As oppossed to all those who sold for the right reasons?

13. I may not agree with the way people like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley handle their business but I still feel uncomfortable judging them. I’ll do it anyways. They are sell-outs. They sold their names and religions for the wrong reasons. Why give up your identity for colleagues who won’t accept you for who you are?

    i’m glad you put in the prefacing paragraph – it makes your unwillful judgment seem generous. as for the judgment itself – think what you may, but if you’re brown and writing in english in the states, it’s likely that many people would say you’re a sell-out, too – and they might be right. by all accounts, jindal’s and haley’s religious conversions took place for reasons wholly separate from their politic agenda. moreover, who’s to say what anybody else’s true identity is – just because haley was born into a sikh family does not mean that that is her (religious) identity – arguably, the sellouts are the ones who follow a religion blindly with no thought as to whether they really believe in it, vs. those who actively think about their religious path. i, too, feel uncomfortable judging you, but, what the hell, i’ll “do it anyways.”

14. It is interesting to note that when US rose to power it was almost a Homogeneous society (White). Now China is rising & it is also Homogeneous society (Han Chinese). We can see in coming decades whether multiculturalism is boon or bane.

    1) i wonder if western multiculturalism is fake. will western societies allow female circumcision? how syncretistic are american born south asians, as opposed to being americans with a south asian accent? (substitute other groups like muslims, latinos, etc.) i speak as someone really skeptical of a lot of the multicultural rhetoric.

    2) to say that the USA was homogeneous then is a touch anachronistic. first, remember that blacks were around 20% of the population at the founding. second, the unified white identity was probably marginal in most parts of the country because there were very few non-whites. in the northern states there was a lot of ethnic ferment due to german and irish immigration in the 1840s and 1950s, and religious riots between catholics and protestants. southerners viewed themselves in a white vs. black fashion, but that was a secondary experience in the 19th century as the south went into demographic decline (relative).

    3) during the rise to power as an international force around 1900 the USA was undergoing massive southern and eastern european immigration of catholics and jews. proportionately as many (a touch more actually) were immigrants then than now. popular authors like madison grant were writing books about the racial inferiority of these groups in relation to the anglo-saxon majority. so americans at the time would be surprised to learn that they were a homogeneous nation!

    4) the han view themselves as racially homogenous. but remember that people speaking min and cantonese dialects can’t understand those speaking mandarin dialects. to say they’re homogeneous hides a lot of cryptic variation. china is homogeneous kind of like europe is homogeneous, excepting that there’s a common written language and a unified political history.

    but #4 is illustrative of the real dynamic: the chinese elite view themselves as a culturally unified entity bound together by history, ethnicity, etc. the reality of dialect divergence, basically separate ethno-linguistic identities, is subsumed under this assertive self-conception (dialect groups like the min speakers from fujian contributed disproportionately to the bureaucracy). in the 19th and 20th century the USA also had this in the dominant eastern WASP elite (john f kennedy assimilated to the WASP culture despite his status as a catholic ethnic). didn’t matter if there were lots of european immigrants or catholics, these groups were subordinated to the majority identity. today we have an ideology in many western states experiencing mass immigration of multiculturalism. i don’t think it’s really coherent or workable in the long run (in fact, ethnic minorities who go back to the motherland often realize how assimilated they are to their nation of residence), but it’s a different stance than 19th century USA or 21st century china. that being said, i think it’s also fake. i think, for example, socially conservative muslims who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds will be forced to abandon that stance like conservative christians are (this is more evident in canada and europe where freedom of conscience is more conditional) because really the elites don’t believe in multiculturalism with separate values.

15. That perhaps, just maybe, they found something meaningful in a faith which is different from yours, and that what they discovered in Christianity wasn’t political expediency?

    To add to this, if who they married was for politics and not love, and what they changed their religion to was for politics and not faith, and what they changed their name to was for politics and not ease of being called their name – I dunno, wouldn’t they have technically waited till they were running for office to do it? How is Jindal “selling out” if he changed his name when he was five?

    No one ever talks about how Kamala Harris is a Baptist. Or Ami Bera is an Unitarian.

    In the end, why does it matter for Bobby and Nikki but not Kamala or Ami?

16. It is interesting to note that when US rose to power it was almost a Homogeneous society (White).

    At the time we declared independence 40% of people in what would become the United States primarily spoke a language other than English. Past the Appalachians most spoke French. Olde New York was still largely Dutch from the days when it was New Amsterdam. Moreover, the colonies attracted numerous Spanish, Portuguese, and German immigrants as well. Later on there would be more German immigrants as well as Swedish, Irish, and Italian. By the time there was a land boom out west you had a lot of Scandanavian, Polish, and German immigrants moving out west. Many of them didn’t speak any English. Schools back then were bilingual depending on the community you were dealing with. To this day there are Mennonite/Amish type communities from Pennsylvania to Montana that speak Dutch or German as their first language. This is also why Midwesterners love their sausage. On top of that, most of the land from the Rockies on West used to be part of Mexico, so there were a lot of Chicano/Latino people living there before we conquered it and moved in a bunch of settlers with the California gold rush. The transcontinental railroad was built by Chinese and even Punjabi immigrants.

    And this is all without mentioning either the three fifths of an 800 pound gorilla in the room or the numerous American Indian tribes who were either assimilated or eliminated.

    Basically, from the Great Depression to the 1960s was probably the most ethnically homogenous period in our nation’s history. All that prior diversity had largely been either melted into the pot or was subaltern enough that nobody cared about them. After the depression the US was too poor for anyone to get a job. After the war the population of young men throughout Europe was pretty much devastated by war so there weren’t many people who could immigrate here. Moreover countries throughout the world had practice during the war managing their borders, issuing passports, and doing all the other various stuff necessary to enforce immigration quotas in anything more than name only.

    The notion of an ethnically homogenous America is pretty much a fiction.

17. Man I must be tired. That reads more like a series of bullet points than a cohesive paragraph. It is certainly not my characteristic florid prose and for that I apologize. haha.

18. It comes down to what the elites believe and the other groups.are subordinate, and the rest is bread and circuses? I’m not wanting to be on your bad side because it seems you can be pretty scary to deal with but this is just point blank by definition elitism. In your reading what is your basis for this and I’m curious as to your reaction when you came to this conclusion. Your opinion is influential here and frankly to someone not inclined to this way of thinking this is a depressing and almost dystopian worldview. I sincerely want to keep that respectful because you seem daunting to interlocute with

19. @politics Who is your comment directed at and what exactly are you trying to ask?

20. I’m reacting to the comment above from razib

21. Am I wrong in reading a hard core elitism in that comment?

22. At the time we declared independence 40% of people in what would become the United States primarily spoke a language other than English.

    can i get a citation on that? as you probably know i like to collect quantitative historical data for the purposes of cliometrics. also, i’m skeptical of a 40% number in 1776, the 1790 census had a good majority of british isles ancestry from what i recall, though i’d have to dig the paper again. i can believe 40% (or more) for the middle colonies, but new england and the south (including the biggest state, virginia) would have had very few non-english speakers.

23. re: “politics”, we’re kind of off topic here. first, you need to tighten what you’re asking, since i’m as befuddled as taz. second, i was being descriptive, not prescriptive. IOW, i was describing what occurred. not saying it was good or bad. as an example, if i describe the enslavement of black americans, it does not imply that i support their enslavement.

    also, Basically, from the Great Depression to the 1960s was probably the most ethnically homogenous period in our nation’s history. i was going to add something like this to my post actually. doesn’t mean that that period isn’t relevant, it frames the baby boom generation and so it’s really relevant. but no point in pretending we can back extend it to the 19th century.

24. because it seems you can be pretty scary to deal

    BTW, did anyone else laugh at this? come on, some of the regulars have met me at meet-ups. imagine me cornering you in a dark alley and asking if you’ve got a dark beer on your person.

25. Sorry its as tight as I could make it. It seems more than descriptive to me, but hey I could be wrong. Suppose its your reading of history but you write in a pretty definitive way, and from this point of view it is kind of dystopian. No big woop but its startling, call me a babe in the woods. Please do read it again if you’re inclined, the gist is your reading of history seems to suggest a strong elitist process, and I wonder your reaction to this realization as my reaction is basically “wow, that sucks”

26. Not physically scary, but rhetorically so you have a lot id.information at hand, you write quite.strongly, and it is hard to counter. Just being honest

27. the gist is your reading of history seems to suggest a strong elitist process, and I wonder your reaction to this realization as my reaction is basically “wow, that sucks”

    1) it is an elitist reading

    2) for the vast majority of human history the typical experience has been characterized by malthusian conditions. IOW, most people were poor, suffered a great deal, and had no access to medicine or political liberty (thomas malthus was a better describer than predictor; that is, he was describing human experience up to that point)

    to read it as dystopia is probably correct, and that is why i believe we live in utopia:

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/05/we-live-in-utopia/

    if you don’t believe #2 (as you say, perhaps you are a naive babe) i suggest you talk to a physical anthropologist and query him about the state of malnutrition and lifetime stress one can adduce from the nature of the teeth and bones of pre-modern remains. unless you were of the elite stress on the margins was called life.

    ironically, the period i’m describing is actually an exception. european aristocrats describe being taken aback by their encounters were american farmers who had a lot of land and could grow lots of food: because these commoners were the same height as they were and could look them eye to eye! something they had not experienced from the malnourished peasants of europe.

28. Appreciated, except my phrase was babe in the woods, don’t particularly like the other phrase, though its funny. Can you use your knowledge to increase the amount of the pie doleful out to the hoi polloi? The huddled masses could use help from people with this much skill

29. i have promoted this organization several times: http://www.givewell.org (one of the founders is a friend and i know his interest in increasing aggregate human utility is sincere)

30. Doleful — doled out

31. Just mean keep an eye out for if you can be on the side of the left out or subordinate people in society. Maybe you are, do not mean to presume different. History can read the way you suggest though, so fair play to you. And fare thee well

32. @Razib: I looked around and couldn’t find the link again. I remember hearing it in a webstreamed debate between two people about immigration policy I think on Matt Yglesias’ blog. It was one of those blogging-heads things that show up on the CAP sites from time to time. This was probably 3 years ago or so. At first I thought it was implausible too. But then I considered that “the area comprising the United States” covered not only the 13 colonies, but also the vast tracts of land still unsettled (or rather, settled by Injuns) between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. I could imagine most of them didn’t speak English beyond the basics you would need to trade.

33. well, 1776 is different than the 1790 census. so it’s not impossible consideration the immigration between 81 and 90 might bolster the british origin segment, and more french may have left the ohio valley and such. the main reason for skepticism is that i believe that

    1) the vast majority of blacks spoke english in 1776

    2) the majority of the white population was still british provenance

    i’ll probably look into this issue to add it to my R analyzable flat files 🙂

34. I suppose “pro-immigration lady debating on a liberal policy blog” is probably not the most credible of sources anyway.

35. No one ever talks about how Kamala Harris is a Baptist.

    Is that even true? The AP article you based your post on states that she worships at her mother’s Hindu temple.

36. project vote smart is usually credible about this stuff (they get a lot of data from the candidate), and she’s listed as baptist: http://www.votesmart.org/bio.php?can_id=120012

37. why does it matter for Bobby and Nikki but not Kamala or Ami?

    Republicans get special treatment because they are also the party of the religious right.

38. In the end, why does it matter for Bobby and Nikki but not Kamala or Ami?

    not to throw fan flames. but as ennis noted, bobby and nikki are somewhat different cases (i think i said something similar earlier too). bobby has burnished his religious conservative credentials, while nikki generally has focused on fiscal conservatism (though giving conventional lip service to social con talking poitns). whatever their inner psyche, bobby’s relationship to his pre-christian past as presented in his writings and testimony seem qualitatively different than that of nikki. personally at this point it’s his business IMO unless he runs for national office, but i can understand why hindus would have something of a beef with him. nikki seems a case where you’re looking to find something to play into your narrative. her religious transition seems to have been a relatively private affair which she didn’t proactively spotlight until she had to rebut misrepresentations. as for unitarians…uh, let’s get real here. they’re unitarians. that’s not a repudiation of ANYTHING, it’s an on-creedal “religion.” also, american unitarianism tends to be pretty accommodating to dharmic religions, and many of the early transcendentalists who were influenced by hindu spirituality were unitarian. kamala harris is mixed-race. and she’s mixed in a way that many south asians may find uncomfortable because of anti-black racism, and so there may naturally be no great push to claim her as “one of us.”

    back on topic. yeah, these are brown people running. some are christian, some are hindu, some other other stuff. but let’s get real and down to the brass tacks. they’re conservative. or they’re liberal. simple as that. if you lean left, you know who you’re going to vote for, no matter their color or religion. same as if you lean right. the rest is commentary.

39. @Razib & Yoga fire I said US was ‘almost’ homogeneous. Homogeneous in the sense they looked similar, same dating style, religion, meat-centric food, spoke same language (or learnt to speak)… There were other groups but they mattered little or none, unlike now where different groups enter politics, wield power to influence policies. As per my thinking it is easy to give good governance in a homogeneous societies(Unless they are promoting some kind of fundamentalism). Say for example, India has population problem but coming up with a good population control policy like China is very difficult since there are groups which think that the policy is to subdue them. Vote bank politics come into play when groups of people can identify themselves to be different from others. Since it is very difficult to appease all the groups, the governance will be slow & inefficient. There cannot be any revolution to overthrow the inefficient government because different groups have their own issues & no common issue will be strong enough to unite them. As a country rises they attract people from different countries & their society cannot remain homogeneous forever. Time will tell whether it is good or bad.

40. One again to all the idiots out there. Jindal and Haley changed there faith a long time before they chose to run for public office. I don’t think Jindal or Haley was thinking that far ahead.

    Also Jindal and Haley are not sellouts, but there parents however, just like my parents and the parents or grandparents of many people who read this blog. Any desi that left the motherland is sellout. Also what kind of message does it send when our parents/grandparents would leave India to live in country where white people are the biggest ethnic group[North America/Western Europe/Australia] and the christian faith is the biggest religon.

    Damn my parents for not giving me a chance to grow up in the Punjab.

41. The “sellout” argument does not stand up to much scrutiny, and is usually said by those who never had to make a difficult decision. My father was chastised by his own family for leaving India, and was probably called a sellout. My mom’s elder brother always gave her a hard time for leaving him to take care of their aging parents. They were the sellouts of their day. As far as politics goes, my dad was a Republican, but was so annoyed with Bush, he voted for Obama (which is what I wound up doing as well) . Does that mean we sold out our political beliefs?

    As Suki Dillon mentions, and has been said on this forum before, both Jindal and Haley converted well before running for political office. It does seem that converting to some denomination of Christianity makes the charge of sellout easier to levy from left-leaning brown folk. Kamala Harris does not seem to come in for this sort of religious scrutiny, but granted, California is a far different environment than South Carolina. But, here in Illinois, in the Democratic primary a couple of months ago, we had a promising young man named Raja Krishnamurthy run to be the Democratic nominee for comptroller. In his ads, the tagline was “Vote for Raja” – he never said his last name. He lost narrowly to David Miller, a black man. Was it because Miller had the right religion or color? Unlikely – while blacks are a sizeable voting block in the Democratic party, I don’t know what their turnout numbers are in primaries. Miller is a young technocrat in the Obama mould, ran a strong campaign that did not bring up any of his opponents at all.

    And for all the grief that Haley seems to be getting, keep this in mind. Through a bruising primary battle, Republican voters are about to select an Indian woman to be their nominee for governor. By contrast, in the Democratic primary that same day, voters nominated the out of left field Alvin Greene to be the nominee for U.S. Senate. Some South Carolina Republicans have behaved in an ugly fashion, but do South Carolina Democrats even know what is going on in their party?

42. Great post @ 39, Akash!

43. Yes I am ‘brown’ and live in the U.S. Sure some people may consider me a sell-out for being born in the U.S. But I have not voluntarily avoided my identity to fit in. My label of some of these politicians as sell-outs is IMO, keyword opinion.

    Yes I think some of them are sell-outs.

    Someone mentioned what are the ‘right’ reasons to changing your Identity.

    Some right reasons for converting to another religion might include actually converting to the religion due to your authentic belief in the religion, independent of any other factors.

    As for changing your name, there is never a right reason.

    Moving to another country for a better life is quite different from changing your name and religion in hopes that other politicians won’t make crude remarks such as ‘We already have another towelhead in the Whitehouse”.

    By tolerating the hate against yourself and than trying to conform to it by trying to be something more fitting makes you a sell out. But once again, that is IMO.

44. As for changing your name, there is never a right reason.

    Cough, cough.

    Indian examples:

    Krishna Banji – Ben Kingsley Faroukh Bulsara – Freddie Mercury

    Non-Indian Examples Jon Smilovitz – Jon Stewart Natalie Hershlag – Natalie Portman Barry Obama – Barack Obama William Jefferson Clinton – Bill Clinton

    Plus, it is still quite traditional for women to change their names when they get married.

    By tolerating the hate against yourself and than trying to conform to it by trying to be something more fitting makes you a sell out. But once again, that is IMO.

    When did Haley tolerate racial slurs?

45. KXB

    http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/04/nikki-haley-called-ethnic-slur-by-south-carolina-lawmaker/

    Let me correct myself about the name changing. I am talking about changing your name in a manner where people would not know your true identity.

46. Let me correct myself about the name changing. I am talking about changing your name in a manner where people would not know your true identity.

    Changing names is pretty common in Muslim circles. Would they be subject to such scrutiny?

    Of course, this can lead to pretty funny situations, such as the discussion of whether a certain famous boxer should be referred to by his birth name, or the name he adopted upon converting to Islam? (NSFW)

    Coming to America – Barbershop Scene

47. I said US was ‘almost’ homogeneous. Homogeneous in the sense they looked similar, same dating style, religion, meat-centric food, spoke same language (or learnt to speak)…

    right. that’s just false. or do you read a history i don’t? see Catholicism and American Freedom: A History for a precis for how distinctive the protestants found the catholic irish and germans. my point isn’t if you perceive catholicism and protestantism to be the same religion today; it’s whether they perceived them to be the same religion. there were religious riots regularly across the united states in the 19th century. does that sound like the same religion to you?

    Vote bank politics come into play when groups of people can identify themselves to be different from others.

    yes, see The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln; ethnic catholics were vote banks for the american democratic party between the 1840s and the 1960s. the issue isn’t a matter of subtle interpretation, you just seem to be aware of a totally different history from what i’m aware of.

    (there is a real issue though in regards to a functional perspective in anthropology whereby the narcissism of small differences only goes so far, but i don’t think you’re really drilling down to that level now)

48. Changing names is pretty common in Muslim circles. Would they be subject to such scrutiny?

    Not on this website.

49. . Some South Carolina Republicans have behaved in an ugly fashion, but do South Carolina Democrats even know what is going on in their party?

    lol.

50. akash, just so you know, i think you make good theoretical points. unlike others around here i do not dismiss robert putnam’s work. i just think you have the empirics off. even within the anglo-saxon protestant majority of the early republic there were important divisions; see Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America.