Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

Is there already a “Draft Goyal” website?

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Hottest rumor of the day (passed to me from co-blogger Anna)? Twenty-nine year-old Jay Goyal is being considered by Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio for the soon-to-be-open Lt. Governor position. I blogged about Jay just last month, speculating he’d make a run for Congress. This wouldn’t be a bad gig either. Strickland is reportedly looking for “someone with considerable youth and a like-mindedness on issues.” From Ohio Daily:

OhioDaily has learned that Governor Ted Strickland’s search for a Lt. Governor may be nearing completion and his short list includes at least two members of the House leadership team : Mansfield-area Representative Jay Goyal, and Toledo-area Representative Matt Szollosi. Goyal is the House Majority Whip and Szollosi serves as the Speaker Pro Tempore.

In 2006, Goyal became the first Asian-American elected to the Ohio Legislature, and at his current age of 29 would likely become one of the youngest (if not the youngest) Lt. Governors in the country. In addition to serving as Majority Whip, Goyal is Vice President of Goyal Industries, a manufacturing firm in Mansfield specializing in metal fabrication and transportation equipment. His full bio appears on his campaign website here, but it doesn’t mention that Bibi Magazine, “the largest-circulated South Asian fashion magazine in the country,” named Goyal as one of the Bibi Sexy 7 : the 2007 Sexiest Men of the Year. [Link]

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Guest Blogger: PhillyGrrl

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Our newest guest blogger comes to us from (yes, you guessed it) Philadephia. She is a journalist and blogger who many of you are probably familiar with by her comments on SM, or by reading her blog:

PhillyGrrl is your (almost) typical phillygrrl. She likes talking about Philadelphia all the time. It got a little annoying. Especially after she sent out 50+ forwards every day, annoying her friends and relatives to no small end. Now she annoys the general public with the random things in her head. She also writes for uwishunu and Phawker. [Link]

Don’t worry. She will not be writing only about desis in Philadelphia. She will probably cover some from Pittsburgh as well. I also expect her to reveal some interesting links between South Asian Americans and the Continental Congress. Please join me in welcoming PhillyGrrl.

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Desi doctors ubiquitous…even in propaganda

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As I blogged about a couple of days ago, the Republican party sees the health care health insurance debate as “Obama’s Waterloo.” They intend to break him. As part of that campaign they have been circulating the following flyer which they title, “House Democrats’ Health Plan.” The purpose is to try and communicate that the Democrats’ plan is a hot mess that will be the end of the world. Scary things like “IRS” are prominently highlighted. It is by no means the Republicans alone that put out unhelpful propaganda like this, but this example is a particularly disgusting commentary on how far our political discourse has sunk:

Click for higher res image

My eagle-eyed friend Ankur, a physician, spotted that the icon of the doctor in the bottom right corner looks like a desi woman. She does to me too (but it makes no difference even if she is Hispanic for the following point). Now take a look at the yellow box with the arrow feeding in to the doctor. It reads “Cultural and Linguistic Competence Training.” This training is important because it allows doctors to better serve under-served minorities. However, the implication here is flipped. The woman is a minority so a mere glance would imply that the Democrats’ health care plan would use taxpayer dollars to teach language skills to foreign doctors. Or cultural skills maybe? The entire poster is a menu of scare tactics but this one is particularly ill-conceived. I wonder if AAPI has any opinion about this.

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Thanks to all who donated to SM!

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Dear readers,

We reached our fundraising goal in about 48 hours and we now have enough in our account to pay our server costs for a little over a year. Chaitan will be removing the Paypal icon later tonight. We would like to extend our deep appreciation to the dozens of you who sent in a contribution whatever the amount! We will strive to live up to the trust you have placed in us.

I would also like to single out the following individuals who sent in especially large sums:

-Our own website admin Chaitan

-Gurminder M.

-Susan F.

-Katherine W.

-Navdeep G.

-Jayanand V.

-AK P.

And for those of you who have sent a check in the mail, I thank you in advance. Any amount we receive over what we need for this next year will simply be applied to the following year (so it will be longer before we ask again).

Thanks again to all the wonderful readers, including those who have given in the past.

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Multiculturalism’s Effect on Our Foreign Policy

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In the new issue of World Affair’s Journal Scott McConnell, co-founder and editor-at-large of The American Conservative, pens an intriguing and provocative essay investigating the effects our increasingly multicultural society will have on the future of U.S. Foreign policy. In particular, he cites the growing influence of the Mexican-, Asian-, and Arab-American communities, as well as the unforseen and lasting effects of the 1965 Immigration Act in reshaping our “nation’s identity.” A new identity is emerging that is taking us away from the messianic and interventionist view our nation had adopted for the past 70 years:

… the backers of the 1965 act did not imagine huge demographic changes: there would be, they claimed, some modest increase in the number of Greek and Italian immigrants but not much else. The sheer inaccuracy of this prediction was already apparent by the early 1970s. The 1965 Act allowed entry of immigrants from any country, so long as they possessed certain job skills or family members living here or had been granted refugee status themselves.

The family reunification provision soon became the vital engine of immigrant selection. By the 1980s, it had greatly increased numbers of Asians and of Hispanics–the latter mostly from Mexico. The European population of the country was now in relative decline–from 87 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 2008. If immigration continues at present rates (and barring a long-term economic collapse, it is likely to), by 2040, Hispanics will make up a quarter of the American population. If that does not guarantee a somewhat different foreign policy, there is also the prospect of a substantial expansion of America’s once miniscule Muslim and Arab populations. [Link]

The author summarizes that at the beginning of the 20th century America was “hyphenated nation” and that our multi-polar society had the effect of tempering our foreign policy ambitions, especially when contemplating entry into a conflict. Even at the beginning, our founding fathers, most notably Washington, believed that America had a special destiny and that we would eventually populate the entire continent and run our experiment of freedom and democracy free from the baggage of past conflicts in the old world. That isolationist view was later fortified by the fact that immigrants coming to the U.S. from different European communities, with competing viewpoints, served to some degree as a system of checks and balances in the 19th century. Pearl Harbor had the effect of sweeping away differences between the views of different European-American groups and helped forge what the author refers to as a “national identity” (“national white identity” might be more appropriate).

…America’s intra-European divisions began to melt away quickly after Pearl Harbor, as military service became the defining generational event for American men born between 1914 and 1924. The mixed army squad of WASP, Italian, German, Jew, and Irish became a standard plot device for the popular World War II novel and film. The Cold War generated a further compatibility between ethnicity and foreign policy. East European immigrants and refugees emerged to speak for the silenced populations of a newly Stalinized Eastern Europe. Suddenly, all the major European-American groups were in sync. Italian-Americans mobilized for mass letter-writing campaigns to their parents and grandparents warning of the dangers of voting Communist. Greek-Americans naturally supported the Marshall Plan. [Link]

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Cute or Fashion Crime?

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Ok you all know how I felt about this:

Today, a picture of her newborn Ikhyd popped up on her Twitter account. The kid, minus the outfit, is mad cute. But… I am totally against killing albino ladybugs just so that the baby of a wealthy singer can be dressed like this. Can we get PETA up in here or something? Acts of Fashion Fug against a child should at least be a misdemeanor. I’m just saying. And why does this look like a mug shot?

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Please help keep SM on the web!

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Dear valued SM Readers,

It is time once again for us bloggers at Sepia Mutiny to extend our empty hats and ask for donations to keep this blog running for another year. Remember, every time you visit our site it costs us money (my Amex Blue is bleeding red right now). We don’t bother you guys with any money-making ads on this site, nor do we sell out to the man and write what he asks us to write for cold cash. Do you really want us to plaster marriage ads all over the blog?

Much like NPR and PBS hold an annual pledge drive, we are asking you to donate whatever you can via our Paypal link. Keep in mind that we haven’t asked for any donations in over a year. If you don’t want to use Paypal but would rather mail in a check, then write me at abhi [at] sepiamutiny dot com for a mailing address. Donations will keep our website ad-free and crap-free for a year provided we can reach our target of $1000. That shouldn’t be difficult if some of the 7-10 thousand readers we get a day send in a pittance.

In the past year we have redesigned our site and have additional tweaks in the works based on your feedback. Within 24 hours you will also see us featuring artwork by South Asian artists. We would like to continue to make improvements but can only do so with your help now.

In addition to your donations now, over the course of year you can also help us out by buying a book, music, or other item you see written about on our site through our Amazon a-Store link (we’ll soon put up a permanent link). It will give us a nominal commission on each item sold that goes toward paying the bills so as to increase the time between pledge drives. SM can also be download for your Kindle.

Thanks in advance from all of us, and let us know if you have any questions by using our “Contact” link.

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Mid-summer political round-up

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I have just been too busy this summer to write about my favorite topic: desis in politics. Politics waits for no man however, and there is much afoot. First, most have heard by now that the Republicans want to make healthcare reform “Obama’s Waterloo.” If that be the case who better to play the part of Gebhard von Blücher than the exiled Kenneth the Page Governor Bobby Jindal? The healthcare policy wonk is back baby:

“Governor Jindal has seen enough,” said Curt Anderson, a consultant for Jindal. “As a health-care policy expert, he strongly believes that the House Democrat[ic] plan would be a disaster for the long-term health of the American people, and the long-term health of the economy.”

That Jindal is adding his voice to the chorus of Republican critics of Democrats’ approach to President Obama’s chief policy priority — Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele will offer his own critique today at the National Press Club — is evidence that the youthful governor sees a role for himself in the national policy debate despite a rocky introduction to the country earlier this year.

Jindal, who is widely regarded as one of the rising stars within the Republican party, was chosen to deliver the party’s response to Obama’s February address to Congress. His performance was, to be charitable, weak and turned him — briefly — into fodder for the late night talk shows due to his resemblance to one Kenneth the Page. [Link]

If I was an angel on Jindal’s shoulder I would tell him to keep a low profile. There is no need to be the Republican casualty of the week this far in advance of ’12. And speaking of Republican casualties, how is Nikki Randhawa-Haley surviving the Sanford debacle? Not so bad as far as the money goes. She is hanging in at a respectable third place:

U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett — The congressman from Oconee County raised $500,000 in the second quarter; cash on hand, $975,011.

State Rep. Nikki Haley — The Lexington state representative raised $204,000 in the second quarter and now has $193,555 cash on hand.

Attorney General Henry McMaster — McMaster, of Columbia, raised $232,490 in the second quarter after raising $300,000 in the first quarter. McMaster ended the quarter with $1.1 million in cash on hand. [Link]

Recent reports indicate that Barrett’s campaign (or those tangentially associated with it) may be using dirty tricks against Haley. Continue reading →

Progress!

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Finally, the law has changed. Congrats to at the activists in India that made it happen! Our hats off to you.

In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.

“Discrimination is antithesis of equality,” the judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision that is the first in India to directly guarantee rights for gay people. “It is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual,” the decision said.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” [Link]

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