How South Asian Women Have Mobilized for Kamala Harris

August 5, 2024 2:42 PM EDT

On July 23, nearly 9,000 women joined a Zoom call organized by a grassroots effort called South Asian Women for Harris to rally behind presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The call featured speakers like Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and comedian Mindy Kaling, who spoke of their shared South Asian heritage. “Culturally, I was raised to keep my head down and to not make a stir, and that is the opposite of what Kamala Harris has done with her life and I love her for that,” Kaling said. “And because of that strength, she’s going to become the next president.”

59-year-old Harris, who was born in Oakland, Calif., to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s during the civil rights movement, has long identified as both Black and South Asian. If elected in November, she will make history by becoming the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first South Asian American to hold the nation’s highest office.

During her time in politics, the vice president has also frequently nodded to her Indian roots. In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, she detailed her primarily Indian upbringing, writing that her mother and maternal grandparents “instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots.” At the same time, she wrote that her mother “understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters” and was “determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.” Harris went on to study at the historically Black Howard University, where she joined a Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Harris’s biracial story has become a prominent talking point during her presidential campaign, particularly after Republican nominee Donald Trump questioned whether she was “Indian or Black” during an annual convention for Black journalists on July 31.

Reactions among the South Asian community have since ranged from critics accusing Harris of pandering to the group for political gain to supporters who denounce Trump’s comments as a racist attack and say that Harris should not have to choose between her Indian and Jamaican roots.

They also counter criticisms of Harris downplaying her Indian heritage in the past, pointing to examples where she hosted the White House’s biggest Diwali celebration in 2022, or when she and Kaling cooked masala dosa, a South Indian staple, in a 2019 viral video. On Instagram, TikTok, and X, social media users have embraced memes that pay homage to her roots. One post reads, “In Sanskrit, ‘Kamala’ = lotus. In America, Kamala = POTUS,” referring to her first name, which translates to the name of India’s national flower.

Harris’s nomination also comes at a time of heightened South Asian representation in U.S. politics. Currently, five Indian Americans, all Democrats, serve in Congress, including Rep. Jayapal in the state of Washington. Among the Republicans, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were two of the most prominent candidates in the 2024 Republican primary, along with Usha Vance, the wife of Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.

“Indian Americans want to be seen and heard in American politics,” says Sara Sadhwani, an Assistant Professor of Politics at Pomona College in California.

In the last two decades, the Asian American population has more than doubled in the U.S., according to census data, with Indian Americans now accounting for the country’s largest Asian group. States like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan are home to large Indian-American communities, which experts say have become a formidable force in deciding the fate of the presidential election, including Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Despite 62% of Asian American voters identifying as Democrats, however, Biden lost significant support between 2020 and 2024 among Indian American voters and Asian American voters more generally, according to Karthick Ramakrishnan, the executive director and founder of AAPI Data. Still, this loss of support did not translate to increased support for Trump. In May, many Indian American voters indicated they did not know who they would vote for between Biden and Trump in November’s election.

“These insights tell us that it was more likely a reflection of frustration with Joe Biden or a lack of inspiration and enthusiasm among Asian American voters,” Ramakrishnan says. “My expectation is that with Harris in the spotlight, she could win back many of those voters, though, perhaps not to the same levels that Obama enjoyed in 2008 and 2012.”

Sadhwani, whose research found that nearly 60% of Indian Americans say they would vote for an Indian American running for office regardless of their party, says that voting for Harris in November will likely “satisfy for the majority of Indians, both their partisan preferences and their desire to see more Indians elected to office.”

So far, the polls are favoring Harris. According to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released on July 30, Harris wiped out Donald Trump’s lead across battleground states by riding a wave of enthusiasm among young, Black, and Hispanic voters. Another survey conducted by AAPI Data/AP-NORC in May found that more than half of South Asian Americans surveyed had a positive view of Harris, while a third survey conducted in July found that 44% of Asian Americans had a favorable impression of Harris, compared to 34% for Trump. The Indian American Impact Fund, an organization that supports Indian Americans in political office, has also reported a 700% uptick in voter registration in under 72 hours—with a majority of those being voters under 35—since launching the website, desipresident.com.

While the 2024 presidential race has seen legitimate Indian American candidates from both parties, Sadhwani says the difference with Harris is that she has “owned both of her identities.”

“In 2020, when Kamala Harris took the stage at the Democratic National Convention, she spoke of her Chithis [aunties],” she continues. “These are cultural references that every Indian American and many Asian Americans could relate to.”

In South Asian culture and diaspora, “aunty” is an affectionate term, sometimes used as a caricature, to refer to an older woman. The July 24 call by the South Asian Women for Harris—which collectively mobilized thousands of volunteers and donors and raised over $250,000—also paid tribute to the “aunties” for doing the heavy lifting. “That common thread that we all share, which is that auntie network, can make anything happen,” says Palak Sheth, the founder of Post March Salon, who helped organize the call.

The organizers say they were inspired to bring people together on Zoom after seeing Win with Black Women host a similar call that was attended by 44,000 people and raised $1.5 million for Harris in just under three hours. To them, Harris’ background has the potential to bring together a large coalition of voters, reflecting the diverse, multicultural, and multiracial America that exists today.

“We're in a moment in American history where there’s a concerted effort to erase who we are and our identity as being part of America,” says co-organizer Anurima Bhargava, the Founder and Director of Anthem of Us.

“America has a real hard time holding more than one intersection when it comes to race, gender, or disability," says Bhargava, referring to Trump’s recent remarks. "We have a hard time understanding that we are so rich and we are so layered, and that we're messy.”

To her, that means “having a woman or having a person of color in a boardroom is immediately suspect or seen as DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion], so there’s a real question of who gets to be in the room,” she continues.

At the same time, Sheth adds that the group’s support for Harris goes beyond just her racial identity. “She has built her career towards fighting injustice, which is a unique thing to do in our community, and something that I admire more,” she says.

With racial identity becoming a major point of discussion and debate ahead of November’s election, Ramakrishnan adds that Harris’ candidacy has also shifted the conversation to spotlight multiracial identities—one of the fastest-growing demographics in the U.S. More than 33 million Americans identify as being of two or more races, a number that grew by nearly 25 million people in the past decade, according to the 2020 Census.

These conversations have a very real impact on attorney Mansi Shah, the former president of the South Asian Bar Association and another co-organizer of the South Asian Women for Harris Zoom call, and will be front of mind when she heads to the polls in November.

“My daughter is adopted and biracial, but happens to be growing up in an Indian family,” says Shah. “That’s her story to tell someday, but I want it to be in a country where she's accepted for who she is, and which can hold space for all of it.”

‘Lotus for Potus:’ How South Asian Women Have Mobilized for Kamala Harris

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