In the warm Georgia heat, Kannan Udayarajan is sipping chai and talking politics at an Indian restaurant in a small strip mall in suburban Atlanta.
There used to be only one Indian restaurant here, Udayarajan says, in this corner of adjoining suburbs at the edge of Forsyth County.
“Now in a 10 mile radius we probably have 40 to 50 at a minimum.”
The exponential rise in Indian restaurants follows a wave of Desi immigrants here. Desi is a term many people from the South Asian diaspora use to describe themselves. These immigrants are no longer primarily landing in traditional South Asian strongholds, like California and New York, but are also reshaping states like Texas and Georgia, helping transform metropolitan suburbs into some of the most diverse spaces in American life. Indian Americans now make up the second largest immigrant population in the United States.
Udayarajan says he’s been a political junkie ever since he came to America for work in 2007. He hadn’t planned to stay, but he got married and had kids, and in 2018 he became a citizen. Still, he didn’t get involved in local politics until 2020, when former President Donald Trump was running for his second term. Udayarajan organized in his own community, helping register Indian Americans to vote, sometimes teaching them about American democracy.
“Joe Biden won Georgia by 11,780 votes,” he says. “And Forsyth County polled 16,000 brand new Democratic votes in that election. So we made an impact.”
South Asians are one of the most progressive Asian American communities, a realignment that dates back to 9/11 and the policies and racial animus that followed. A recent Pew Research Center study found that 68 percent of Indian registered voters identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning.
Two years ago, Udayarajan became the head of the Forsyth County Democratic Party. He says this year, he believes Desis could again make the difference in a battleground state like Georgia.
'Lotus POTUS'
Udayarajan is joined at the restaurant by Ashwin Ramaswami, a 25-year-old who was born and raised just a few blocks away in Johns Creek. Udayarajan asks Ramaswami if he thinks the South Asians here are excited about Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination for president.
“I see a huge amount of excitement,” Ramaswami tells him. Udayarajan asks if it’s more among the immigrant community or among folks who were born here?
“I think everyone,” Ramaswami says. “It's so different to have a presidential nominee called Kamala, right? Kamala is a Sanskrit word.”
A meme circulating on messaging apps and other social media has been hard to miss. The meme goes that in Sanskrit, Kamala means “lotus,” but in America Kamala means POTUS -- President of the United States.
“The ticket’s been supercharged for the Desi community,” Ramaswami says. He points out a personal overlap: Harris’ mother is from the same village as his mother in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
“People can see the connections, they can see their own stories in her, because politics -- a lot of it is about the policy, but it's also about can you trust the person you're going to be electing.”
Ramaswami left John’s Creek to go off to school, and then work. Now he’s returned and is making a run for Georgia state Senate. He’s part of another growing group -- young South Asian Americans running for office.
Indians are having a political moment
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this past summer, South Asians gathered everywhere: Delegate meetups and happy hours and networking lunches.
“For all the years that I've been involved in politics, I've been part of the broader Asian American community,” says Ann Lata Kalayil, co-founder of the South Asian American Policy and Research Institute. “But more recently, we've started talking about South Asian Americans.” She points out the number of times she heard “Indian American” mentioned on the DNC stage and in the media to describe Harris. “There's a real sense of pride, you know?”
Deep Singh Badhesha grew up in predominantly white Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I was the only South Asian there,” he says. “I was always trying to find my identity, but it was hard,” he says, because no one at school looked like him. He describes experiencing a classic Asian American childhood experience -- the lunchbox moment. “Your mother will make you a deliciously cooked Indian dish” Badhesha explains, “and you'll bring it to school and you open it up and everyone's like, oh, what the hell is that gross food?”
He says when it happened to him he felt like an outsider, so he broke off parts of himself to fit in.
“I used to actually be a super Republican and libertarian person because I used to look for folks like Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley. And I'm like -- ‘oh this is where South Asians look like they're having acceptance, right?’”
Then he went to college and met South Asian peers.
“They instilled a lot more pride in who I was,” he says.
Badhesha believes things are different now.
“Being in this moment and seeing a lot of young folks in particular who see themselves in the Democratic Party -- who see themselves in Ro Khanna or Pramila Jayapal -- and of course Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, you know, it's like a huge moment for South Asians.”
The limits of representation
Back in the Atlanta suburbs, another group of South Asians are meeting to talk politics, but there is no celebration over Harris’ nomination.
“It stings, right?” says Anjali Enjeti. “I mean, boy, would I love to celebrate a Black, Jamaican, Indian woman.”
Enjeti says she cannot support Harris because of the Democratic party’s political, military and financial support for Israel, and what is happening in Gaza and in other parts of the Middle East.
“It feels like a betrayal that when we finally get somebody who we can relate to in some way, to have them support and enforce a genocide is -- it's just devastating.”
Israel stands accused of war crimes and genocide in front of the International Criminal Court, whose preliminary finding is that it is plausible Israel has violated the convention against genocide. Israel and the Biden administration strongly deny the charges.
Enjeti and Harris are both half Indian, and they can each trace their roots back to southern India. Enjeti says that is where the similarities end.
“I think identity politics is a trap,” she says. “It is a trap to think that somebody's shared demographics or community has anything to do with your values.”
Enjeti is sitting with Farhana Rahman, remembering 2020. They registered voters and knocked on doors and drove people to the polls.
“We were screamed at,” Enjeti says. “We faced very real physical threats. We risked it all for Biden to win in Georgia.”
“That same me has done nothing this election cycle,” Rahman adds.
Rahman says as a South Asian American Muslim, she believes another Trump presidency is an “existential threat to democracy,” even potentially to her own safety. But she says she doesn’t feel safe now. She says she’s afraid to speak out against the conflict in Gaza and she’s reluctant to tell colleagues and acquaintances that she is Muslim.
“I feel like I have to hide my identity,” she says. “It’s unfortunate, but the level of Islamophobia, just making it so prevalent -- people can say horrible things to Muslims, and it's completely okay.”
She believes she has faced more Islamophobia and repression in the past year than she did after 9/11.
“After October 7th, it has become extremely dividing to the point where being a Muslim automatically means you are pro-Hamas and [an] anti-Semite.”
Rahman says she still doesn’t know who she will vote for on Election Day, but she says the options only fill her with sadness and fear.
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