Indian-Americans Contesting Polls This Year

Atlanta’s Premier South Asian Newspaper July 2010 Tel: 404-235-4998 Free Copy More Indian-Americans Contesting Polls This Year Atlanta: Four Years Washington: (IANS) With the rise of ‘desi in state legislatures or worked on Capitol Hill, the Down The Line power’, as people of Indian origin call themselves, Washington Post noted Tuesday. a record number of Indian Americans are running Manan Trivedi, a doctor and Iraq war veteran, for public office this year. recently won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s In addition to Nikki ‘Randhawa’ Haley, who 6th Congressional District. Before running for Con- brushed aside al- gress, he served as a legations of mari- healthcare adviser to the tal infidelity and Obama campaign. an ethnic slur to Raj Goyle, who has As NRI Pulse reaches the four-milestone, we ask become the Re- served in the Kansas legis- experts in the areas of real estate, hospitality and publican nominee lature for three years, is run- technology, how world events and time have for governor in ning in the Democratic pri- affected their respective fields since 2006. South Carolina, mary in the 4th Congres- Pg 12....... Indian Americans Manan Trivedi Raj Goyle Reshma Saujani sional District, which in- are campaigning cludes Wichita. The Grand Indian Lunch this year for congressional seats in Pennsylvania, Kan- Reshma Saujani, a Democratic fundraiser in Buffet: Great Value? sas, California, New York and Ohio. the South Asian community, says she is the first More than a dozen others serve in senior Indian American woman to run for Congress. “All you can positions in the Obama administration, including “I always wanted to serve, but I never thought eat” buffet. Is US Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and someone with my name could actually run,” the range worth USAID chief Rajiv Shah. Saujani, who is challenging Democratic House the low price? Like Haley, most of the politicians in races member Carolyn B. Maloney in the Sep 14 pri- We posed this this year are second-generation immigrants who mary, told the Post. question to our volunteered for local political campaigns, served readers. Pg 6....... Full report on Pg 17........ Time Apologizes For Article On Indian-Americans Washington: (IANS) Time magazine has apolo- understand that reaction, we’d be better equipped to car that stopped on a dime to pick it up, or that African gized to Indian Americans after some of them took debate people on the other side of the immigration American kid who got marked absent at night school. umbrage at a humor piece, which they said has racist issue,” he wrote. The advocacy group South Asian “Although unlike Stein’s Indian American overtones, about the community in Edison, New Jer- Americans Leading Together (SAALT) launched an piece, in 2010 those other jokes don’t show up in sey, where every fifth resi- online petition asking the edi- mainstream media like Time magazine. I wonder dent is a native of India. tors of Time to organise a why that is...,” Penn added. “We sincerely regret panel discussing the article’s Writing about the changes in his home town, that any of our readers were impact and to dedicate a spe- Stein had written: “Eventually, there were enough upset by Joel Stein’s recent cial space in the magazine’s Indians in Edison to change the culture. At which humor column My Own upcoming edition to re- point my townsfolk started calling the new Private India. It was in no sponse from the Indian- Edisonians ‘dot heads’. One kid I knew in high way intended to cause of- American community. school drove down an Indian-dense street yelling fence,” the prestigious US Indian American ac- for its residents to ‘go home to India’,” Stein wrote. magazine said as the commu- tor Kal Penn, former as- “Sometime after I left, the town became a maze nity protest snowballed. sociate director of the of charmless Indian strip malls and housing devel- “I truly feel stomach- White House Office of opments. Whenever I go back, I feel what people in sick that I hurt so many people,” wrote columnist Public Engagement, too weighed in on the issue Arizona talk about: A sense of loss and anomie and Stein, who had given his own take on he had seen with a column titled “The Hilarious Xenophobia disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.” Edison, where he had grown up, change over the of Time’s Joel Stein” in Huffington Post. “I never knew how a bunch of people half a world years with the desi influx. “I want to applaud Joel Stein for his hilari- away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. “I was trying to explain how, as someone ous account of Edison, New Jersey in his Time Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of who believes that immigration has enriched Ameri- magazine article; it is unique and groundbreaking by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up can life and my hometown in particular, I was as Thomas Alva himself,” he wrote. that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we shocked that I could feel a tiny bit uncomfortable with “Critics might call Mr. Stein’s humor super-tired accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the my changing town when I went to visit it. If we could or as played out as the jokes about that cheap Jewish way to Mumbai?” Stein wondered..

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