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    • Indian-Americans in New Jersey absorb Kamala Harris’ election defeat
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    Indian-Americans in New Jersey absorb Kamala Harris’ election defeat

    Umito Posted on

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    For many members of New Jersey’s large Native American community, Kamala Harris’ stunning defeat by Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election is a bitter pill to swallow, especially after predictions of a tight margin election race collapsed and Trump fought his way to the White House.

    Harris is Indian and black. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a breast cancer researcher who moved from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to California.

    The weekend before November 5 coincided with Diwali celebrations in the South Asian community. But missing the gatherings and elaborate meals was a small price to pay for Parul Aneja Khemka and other Native American volunteers seeking Harris-Walz.

    Story continues below photo gallery.

    In the final rush of carpools and bus rides to Pennsylvania and after-work phone and text banking, even the tradition of cooking sweet dishes to mark Badi Diwali, or “Big Diwali,” has been reduced to concoct a “halvah” or symbolic candy. said Khemka, co-chair of the New Jersey chapter of South Asians for Harris. Her family’s Diwali lights were lit only on the day of the festival.

    Khemka was with fellow co-chairs Karan Virmani of Scotch Plains and Radhika Menon Sharma of Marlboro on a bus to Pennsylvania early Saturday morning, returning at 9:30 p.m. Despite their efforts, Harris lost Pennsylvania, a blue-walled state that was critical to Democrats’ victory, paving the way for Trump’s victory.

    “There was only one measly kheer prepared at my house for Diwali,” Sharma said. “We did what we could, but we kept it to a minimum.”

    Virmani is the CFO of a logistics company, Sharma is a tech worker, and Khemka is a volunteer parent advocate. All three are naturalized citizens who immigrated in the 1990s or early 2000s. Indian Americans lean Democratic, 68% to 29%, according to Pew Research. So for this group, Harris’ defeat was shocking, after six weeks of trying to get out the vote in Pennsylvania.

    Canvassing in Pennsylvania

    Door-to-door canvassing targeted all voters, while phone banks targeted South Asian voters. Some South Asian Muslims were unwilling to vote, protesting the rising death toll and destruction in the Gaza war, Sharma said, but overall the roughly 200 South Asian volunteers in the New Jersey for Harris felt like they had made progress in the neighboring movement. State.

    “The general consensus was that Harris had the votes needed in Pennsylvania, which is why I think we’re still in shock,” Virmani said.

    “I feel depressed. I’m almost numb,” said Virmani, who began volunteering in 2019 with South Asians for Biden and felt Trump voters weren’t listening. Trump’s presidency in 2016 motivated Virmani, a father of two, to volunteer for the 2020 Biden campaign. Trump’s MAGA platform has been criticized as divisive and fear-mongering, demonizing immigrants and rejecting rights reproductive health of women.

    “As a country, we’re at a point where we’re going to learn by actually seeing what’s going to happen over the next 18 to 24 months,” Virmani said. “I say this because it eats at me. By voting for Trump, women, for example, voted against women’s reproductive rights. Trump’s Muslim voters forgot his ban on Muslims. Latinos forgot to be treated as rapists and murderers by Trump.

    “When I saw what Trump was capable of doing in 2019, I kept asking myself, ‘Is this the America I want them to grow up in, where they could be discriminated against based on their appearance or what they eat?’” Virmani said. of his children. “That’s not the case. So what can I do? What is in my power?”

    “We did a fantastic job prospecting,” Khemka said. Harris’ defeat means all Democrats need to think about where “we missed the mark with messaging.” I think we have a lot of soul searching to do.”

    “We need to step up and discuss what motivated these votes,” Khemka said. “I’m less angry and more upset that we weren’t able to have this discussion honestly.”

    “People did not agree with his policies”

    “I don’t know if there’s anything more to it than what the results show,” said Priti Pandya-Patel, a New Jersey Republican and Native American. “I don’t think Harris lost because she was a woman. I don’t think she lost because she was Indian. I think she lost because she didn’t have a “experience and that people did not agree with his policies.”

    Pandya-Patel said the rising stock market was proof that Trump’s victory was a good sign.

    Ridgewood resident Niti Mistry, a supporter of Democrat Andy Kim, who won the Senate seat formerly held by former Sen. Bob Menendez, attended his victory speech in Cherry Hill Tuesday night and took a different stance. Misogyny and racism may have played a role, she said, but there are plenty of reasons to vote for Harris that aren’t tied to her identity.

    “She is a smart, competent politician and better equipped to lead than Trump, in my opinion,” Mistry said. “That’s why we should have voted for her, and it’s the loss and it’s the shame.”

    Gender and Race Politics

    The biggest disservice to Harris was Democrats putting her in the race at the last minute, when President Joe Biden dropped out, said Patricia Campos-Medina, a Latino activist and labor leader who ran against Andy Kim and lost in the New Jersey Democratic Senate. primary in June after Tammy Murphy withdrew from the race.

    “The Democratic Party should have held primaries and they should have let her be a candidate so she would be better known to the entire electorate,” Campos-Medina said. “Instead, she absorbed all the anger, all the anxiety that people feel about the economy right now.”

    “I don’t subscribe to the politics of despair,” Campos-Medina said. “Harris’ candidacy was a miracle, as a woman of Black and Indian heritage.

    “America was not yet ready to move beyond its gender and race politics, which accept women as supporters of leaders, but not those capable of being leaders,” she said. declared.

    “I hope women look at this with courage,” Campos-Medina said. “We have to keep running.”

    Umito
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