From ABCD to EFG: What PM Modi's US visit means to the Indian Americans

The visit of Narendra Modi to the US has drawn the usual hysterical media coverage. What has been obvious is the huge presence of Indian Americans during the visit. Now three million strong, they are the most educated of all minorities in the US – after Taiwanese Americans. Modi’s visit has become a coming out party for them. The first problem is what to call them. Indian Americans sounded too much like American Indians – the original inhabitants of the North American continent – so officially they’re classified as South Asian Indians, or simply desis, as they prefer to call themselves. Today, most of them would wince at the old ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) stereotype. Nowadays, the word “confident” gets substituted for “confused” and more power to them for that. On the EFG part of the acronym it should read Especially from Gujarat. So now we’re on to “American Born Confident Desis Especially From Gujarat”. How’s that for a mouthful. Confidence and Angst [caption id=“attachment_1735209” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Indian Americans at the Madison Square Garden in New York during Modi’s speech on Sunday. Reuters[/caption] This is an increasingly confident community, confident enough to have a self-congratulatory coming out party. The party at Madison Square Garden was quite the blowout, and about time too. It’s been a long road for many of them. That road began with the early sixties legislation that ended immigration discrimination on national lines. This, in effect, started large scale immigration from the sub-continent. The generation that came in the sixties and seventies is moving into the sunset. That generation, now parents and increasingly grandparents, came to work in the typical professions - engineering and medicine. Unlike other waves that came into the US, this lot was the most educated in America’s long history of immigration, the wave of European Jews on the eve of World War Two aside. Highly educated and mostly professional, calling them the “poor and huddled masses” that was the Statue of Liberty ideal, would be a stretch. Their children - the next gen – are now spreading their wings. The vast process of assimilation into American life is happening with them. The accents are perfectly American, as would be natural in children born and raised there. With the parents, there was always that tortuous slipping in and out of an American accent. The next gen has a wider perspective, and because of the official classification, sees itself as South Asian, a funny distinction in a country like India, where the term South Asian simply does not exist. The next gen also has the luxury of doing what it’s interested in. The parents were too busy setting themselves up, and establishing themselves in a strange land. Their paths – by definition - had to more conventional. The next gen makes their way on to American campuses as ABCDs, and there meet the FOBs. That’s Fresh Off the Boat, the term used for the current generation of Indian students on campus. A smorgasbord of identity clashes ensures, an uneasy coexistence as the ABCDs meet their parents face to face amongst their own age group. An array of unwritten rules governs that interaction. The powerful assimilative forces of the melting pot have worked their way through. The ABCDs share a peculiar relationship with fellow students from the land of their ancestry. There are the predictable concerns on identity. There is much anxiety-induced rambling on the net, most of it revolving around the issue of identity. Lacking the assured links to India that the parents who grew up there have, the next gen creates its own connections. These scratches on their minds come with their own sets of issues. Sites like Sepia Mutiny – now defunct – are their voice, intoning the angst of the second generation. Thankfully enough, the next gen has the ability – highly unusual in India – to laugh at themselves, and the stereotypes that come with the assimilation dilemma. They’re even producing – in the ultimate symbol of assimilation – that most American of institutions, the stand-up comic. Politics? Really Of all the career paths the next gen has chosen, the move into politics has been the most unusual. Two serving governors, no less, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal. Both still very young, and Republican, one might note. There’s no presence in the Senate, but there’s the odd representative in the House. Given that America’s 50 governors and 100 senators almost always get the first crack at presidential nominations, might it not be expected that an Indian American will run for president one day. And win! The appointment of Richard Varma as the next US ambassador to India marks another milestone in the community’s progress. This is a mixed blessing though. The undercurrents are always stronger when appointing an Indian American to such a post. On the one hand, there is the tendency for the appointee to always bend over backwards to prove his Americanism. On the other hand, there is the emotional pull of the country of origin. Expectations are so high, they’re almost unfair. On the Indian side, the expectation would be for Varma to speak perfect Hindi, and when something in God-awful American-accented Hindi comes out, the tendency is to cringe. These sorts could carry a lot of baggage as compared to, say, the patricians of the generation of US ambassadors just after Independence - Bowles, Cooper, Bunker, and Galbraith among them. Lots will depend on how they handle these pressures. This is also very important from the standpoint of the Indo-US relationship. Given the political abdication of the relationship on both sides, the relationship is being increasingly driven by bureaucrats. Most of the mid-level to senior-level bureaucrats at the State Department that handle the relationship, tend to be Asian Indian nowadays. Understanding the Indian American mindset, therefore, becomes particularly important when thinking about the Indo US relationship. At 1 percent of America’s population, they are also at the cusp of political influence. Given how tight fought US presidential elections are, both parties must be eyeing them just for this reason. They will have political clout if they vote as a bloc at presidential elections, but there’s little indication of that so far in their voting patterns. Right now, there’s no indication that they’ll be like (say) immigrant Poles of an earlier generation who always voted Democrat. The old cliché of the first generation of immigrants always voting Democrat is also turned on its head. These guys vote across the board. They’re simply too educated, and their self images too diverse, to be taken for granted. At work in all this is the clash between the pull of American assimilation and the pull of the home country that the parents felt. For the parents, India is fading fast, just another dream within a dream. The parents wander between two worlds, one dying and the other, yet to be born. Sometimes for the parents’ generation, the contrast between the real and the imagined India comes out shockingly during their visits to the country they left behind. In fact, India is changing so fast, that they often feel out of date when they do return on visits. Many talk disapprovingly of changing socio-cultural mores, especially on topics like divorce and relationships. Almost as though they mentally cannot let go of the India of the sixties and seventies they left behind. But the next gen are American, and have no doubt about where their loyalties lie. These diverse pulls also manifest themselves, and find an outlet in, a certain jingoistic patriotism. Here identity and religion combine in a volatile mix. There’s oodles of Hindu pride on display. To a person, they’re all BJP supporters and this accounts for the tremendous show put on for Modi on his visit. Modi’s muscular patriotism plays right up their alley. Some years back, the extent of BJP support around the bylanes of Elizabeth, New Jersey had to been seen to be believed. After Modi’s victory, that support is even more prominent. Adil Rustomjee is an investment adviser in Mumbai. Comments are welcome at a_rustomjee@hotmail.com .