Can we simply celebrate the moment? : ) Leave Biden and the whereabouts of his paws out of it? : ) One friend of mine summed it up well on WhatsApp: A big day for me as a woman, immigrant and person of color. I thought leaving out the "person of Indian origin" or South Asian was nice. More so, as Kamala Harris does not really identify herself as one. If she doesn't, then why bask too much in that reflected glory.
https://twitter.com/i/events/1325397179708567553?s=20 Kamala Harris' ancestral village erupts in celebration . amusing
This is a historical moment! A woman VP! A woman of color! We Indian can make her Indian roots a big deal but that’s not really the point. The point is that we finally have a woman of color in the Oval Office. A daughter of immigrants. Kamala Harris is a very accomplished woman and I admire her a lot. I admire her mom even more as she raised them as a single parent. She was an accomplished scientist and came to the USA on her own in 60s! I understand that she does not/ did not identify herself as Indian-American because I am sure my kids won’t either. They are mixed race (just like Kamala and her sister) and other then visiting India every year, they don’t feel strongly about their Indian heritage.
Yes, the woman in me is proud, the “Indian” in me is proud too . When I read more about her family, I really got the picture where Ms. Kamala Harris is coming from. Ms. Shyamala Gopalan was just 19 years old when she left India alone in 1958! After graduating from Delhi University, she went to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology. With a successful career and raised 2 daughters as a single mother!! Inspiring is just a short word..
Madam Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris I’m excited for our second generation immigrant daughters. Somebody that looks like them has shattered that glass ceiling. They truly identify only as American but they look different. Up until now my daughter told me the people in this country would never let someone like her become the POTUS. Now, she’s inspired. Even though we may not agree with her politics, she is the role model for all second gen immigrant children, especially the ones who look like her. People have started wearing “My VP looks like me” T-shirts. Both desi and black friends sent me pics of themselves with it. I’m hunting for one for the daughter now.
[moved from the Hindi imposition thread] This has already been forecast: This video came out in April 2020....already prognosticating the 2024 presidential election. South-Indian-Americans would have to strongly resist the imposition of the Southern-Twang on all parts of our country. We will have to support Kamala Devi Harris, and resist all attempts by Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley to impose it as the national speech:
Amazing victory for woman of color and one who had immigrant parents. Congratulations! (By the way, my 2 paise, I would think it is best that "Indian villages erupts, on news media" tones down the "Indian-ness" rhetoric coz she does not identify much with India and that is fair enough. She is American, identifies more with African-American heritage and so I think the India thing is being overcooked in media).
Ms. Kamala Harris didn’t identify much with her Indian heritage while growing up is pretty understandable in my opinion. There were only a few thousand Asian-Indians living in the United States in the 1960's, by the mid 1980s. But she didn’t completely forget her Indian roots either. In her nomination acceptance speech earlier this year, Kamala Harris had mentioned her aunts or chithis, as they are referred to in Tamil. Recently she listed idli with a “really good sambar” and “any kind of tikka”, as her favourite Indian dishes . It’s not just idli and tikkas. In her memoir, she writes, “My mother, grandparents, aunts and uncle instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots … we were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture. All of my mother’s words of affection or frustration came out in her mother tongue (Tamil) – which seems fitting to me, since the purity of those emotions is what I associate with my mother most of all.” Harris' maternal grandfather was deeply involved in India’s movement against colonial rule. Ms. Harris credits her maternal grandmother for the crusading civic spirit that both her mother and she inherited. I think these are enough reasons for the innocent Indian villagers to celebrate