‘Breath of fresh air’: Kamala Harris’ presidential run inspires Minnesota’s South Asian community

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for their free newsletter to receive stories in your inbox.

Sourav Bhunia plans to volunteer for a political campaign for the first time in his life. 

The Shoreview resident, who immigrated from India to the United States in 1986, will campaign this year for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The fact that Harris is half-Indian will “probably have a little bit of resonance” in motivating the Indian diaspora to vote this November, he said. Political attacks on Harris’ Indian and Jamaican heritage calling her a diversity candidate will only heighten that, Bhunia said. 

“The fact that she is racially out of the mainstream, just like Obama, has a different kind of appeal,” Bhunia said. “It’d be nice if the country was truly colorblind … but we are not, so it’s kind of a breath of fresh air, and something different.” 

If sentiments like Bhunia’s carry across the country’s South Asian population, they could have a big impact in November’s presidential election. Indian Americans make up the largest Asian ethnic group in the nation as of 2020, and are emerging as an important voting bloc.

Minnesota is home to a sizable Indian community of about 50,000 people, 60 percent of whom are U.S. citizens through birth or naturalization.

Enthusiasm for Harris was on display at the state Capitol this month at IndiaFest, celebrating India’s independence. Several patrons stopped by a Democratic-Farmer-Labor booth that distributed campaign material for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Vishala Pamulaparthy and Madhu Annamraju, who are active with the Minnesota Asian Indian Democratic Association, said their views on abortion rights and immigration align with Harris and Walz.

“Immigration is very much on top of our mind from our community, and that’s something we’ll be looking at in her policies,” Pamulaparthy said. “We are going to be doing door knocks. We want to get voters out. That is going to be critical.”

Political organizers say Harris’ candidacy as the Democratic Party nominee for president is energizing South Asian voters across the country. Harris could become the first woman and Indian American president.

“It is really exciting for folks to be able to see someone who has come from a similar lived experience, a similar background, now a candidate for the highest office in the land,” said Anjuli Cameron. 

Cameron, executive director of SEWA-AIFW, a Brooklyn Center-based nonprofit focused on family wellness in South Asian communities, also plans to volunteer for the Harris campaign. Politics run deep in Cameron’s family; she said her grandfather was a freedom fighter in India during its independence movement, which culminated in the country’s independence in 1947.

South Asian voters and voters of color aren’t supporting Harris just because of her ethnicity, Cameron said, but “because her policies align with what is important for those communities, and that’s the difference.” She cited Harris’ views on abortion access, gun control and immigration as issues that resonate with South Asian communities. 

Several South Asian community members who spoke to Sahan Journal celebrated the prospect of an Indian American president, and highlighted other factors that will influence them in the upcoming election. 

But not all are convinced about voting for Harris.

Asma Zubair, 36, who is Pakistani American, said she and her family are upset with the U.S. government’s funding of Israel’s war against Hamas, which has claimed the lives of about 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the United Nations. The conflict began when Hamas attacked Israel last October, killing more than 1,500 Israelis and kidnapping more than 200 people. 

“It’s incredible that there’s a woman running. I was excited when Hillary [Clinton] was running. But [Kamala] has been supporting the genocide,” said Zubair, a Shakopee resident. 

Zubair voted for President Joe Biden in the last presidential election, but is disillusioned with Democrats and does not plan to vote this fall.

“If I had to… I would be supporting Trump,” Zubair said. “I don’t support a lot of the things he believes in, but what the government was when he was here, it was good for businesses, the economy was a little bit better. It didn’t feel like we couldn’t afford things.”

An emerging voting bloc

The nation’s South Asian diaspora includes people who trace their heritage to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives and Afghanistan. 

Indian American Impact estimates that 36,000 South Asian Minnesotans are eligible to vote. The organization is a liberal-leaning advocacy group based in Washington D.C. that engages South Asians politically.

About 6.2 million people in the United States are of South Asian descent, according to Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact. Approximately 4.4 million South Asians are Indian American, a group that recently surpassed Chinese Americans to become the largest single Asian ethnic group in the country.

About 2.98 million South Asians in the United States are eligible to vote, said Patel, adding that they are a big enough voting bloc to swing battleground states in the presidential election.

“When you look at Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, all of these states have a large enough South Asian American electorate to really be the margin of victory in a race,” Patel said.

For example, he said, Biden won Georgia in 2020 by just 11,000 votes, and eligible South Asian voters in that state number around 103,000. 

In the last decade, South Asian representation in elected offices skyrocketed, growing from less than 50 elected people in local, state and federal offices in 2016 to more than 300 today. That includes five members in Congress and Harris’s rise from California attorney general to U.S. senator to vice president. 

Minnesota’s contribution to that growth includes Minneapolis City Council members Aisha Chughtai and Aurin Chowdury, Duluth City Council Member Azirin Awal, Eden Prairie City Council Member PG Narayanan, Eden Prairie school board member Debjyoti “DD” Dwivedy and South Washington County Schools board member Simi Patnaik.

Patel estimates that roughly 70 percent of South Asian voters chose Biden in 2020. He said most South Asian voters agree with Democrats on issues like abortion rights, health care and immigration. But he acknowledged that Harris has to work on issues like the Israel-Hamas war, which he said “undoubtedly weighs heavily on the minds of South Asian Americans,” because many are Muslim like most Palestinians.

“The vice president is committed to building trust and actively working to secure the support of all Americans, including on this issue,” he said.

Potential fractures between Harris and South Asian voters don’t end with the Israel-Hamas issue. 

Defense attorney Satveer Chaudhary, a former Minnesota state representative and state senator, said most mainstream Democrats approach immigration issues in ways that don’t align with how Indian Americans experience the immigration system. Chaudhary became Minnesota’s first Asian American legislator when he was elected to the House in 1996.

Democratic Party politicians often focus immigration agendas on undocumented immigrants, said Chaudhary, who represented Columbia Heights, Hilltop and parts of Fridley and New Brighton in the state Legislature for 14 years. But many Indian immigrants follow a legal path to immigration, and have spent years — even decades — waiting for a visa. 

“They look at the attention that Democrats give to undocumented immigrants versus the long wait and huge expense they went through simply to follow the rules,” he said of Indian immigrants. “There’s some elements that wonder if the Democrats are really on their side.”

Unique immigration issues

Indian immigrants make up Minnesota’s third largest immigrant community at about 30,632, after Mexican and Somali immigrants, according to Minnesota Compass, a data project at Wilder Research.

Indian Americans’ reasons for immigrating to the United States are distinctly different from other immigrant communities, which are often displaced from their home countries due to political strife, Chaudhary said. 

“Largely, they come to America through the higher education system, or they already have a fairly high paying job,” he said of Indian immigrants. 

Because of these factors, Chaudhary said, Indian Americans are more likely than other immigrants to vote for Republicans because of concerns about issues like high taxes. 

Bhunia, a medical device engineer, said he thinks Indian Americans tend to be fiscally conservative. While he agrees with some Republican ideas, he feels the party has “always seemed a bit unwelcoming to immigrants.”

“That strain has always been there,” Bhunia said. 

Indian Americans in Minnesota are also more spread out geographically than other immigrant communities, like the large concentrations of Somali residents in south Minneapolis or Hmong residents on St. Paul’s East Side, Chaudhary said. 

Many Indian immigrants come to the United States to attend college and then apply for H-1B visas to work here, often in the tech or engineering fields, Chaudhary said. Applications for the H1-B visa have faced big backlogs; more than 400,000 applicants are currently seeking 85,000 visas.

Indian immigrants who come to the United States under an H-1B visa can bring their foreign-born children under the visa, but those same children face deportation when they turn 21 if their parents have not obtained permanent residency. That issue with foreign-born children, sometimes called “documented dreamers,” is the biggest issue facing the community, Chaudhary said. 

Neither the Democratic nor Republican party is addressing the matter head on, he added.

Chaudhary helped found the Minnesota Asian Indian Democratic Association in 1994 to organize on issues impacting the community such as discrimination, the dangers of high cholesterol and mental health issues related to pressure from being perceived as “the model minority.” 

“It was assumed that because the community did well economically, that [discrimination]wasn’t an issue,” Chaudhary said of mental health issues.

Excitement among non-voters

Chandrika Kalludi, a 22-year-old graduate student at Concordia University, is excited about Harris. 

“For an Indian woman to potentially be president, it’s great to hear,” said Kalludi, who moved from India to Minnesota last year to pursue a degree in information technology management. “I’m surprised.” 

Kalludi is among the roughly one-third of Indian expats in Minnesota who cannot vote, mostly because of immigration status. 

That’s the case for Divya Keshavamurthy, a Burnsville homemaker in her 40s. Keshavamurthy said she’ll be cheering for Harris from the sidelines even though she can’t vote. Keshavamurthy wants to see a woman president, and is “really proud” of Harris’ Indian heritage. 

“I don’t vote and a lot of us, for being immigrants, don’t have that opportunity right now,” Keshavamurthy said. “But we’re definitely excited to have somebody represent our country.” 

Mohammed Anik, who moved from Bangladesh to Minnesota last year to study pharmacy, wants Harris to win because he believes she will be better on immigration issues. He noted that his uncle has been in the United States for 10 years and is still in the process of becoming a citizen.

Anik, who can’t vote, has been more engaged in the politics of Bangladesh, where protestors ousted the prime minister earlier this month. Working from a cell phone kiosk at the Eden Prairie Center, he glanced through videos of military crackdowns on student protestors in Bangladesh. 

Anik said he is not afraid if Trump wins this fall, “because there is freedom in this country and you have the right to talk,” unlike the limited freedom of expression in his home country. However, he’s used to a woman head of state because Bangladesh has had multiple women leaders. 

“Woman or man doesn’t matter,” Anik said. 

Issues like abortion access and parental leave will persuade Lalita Jyoti to vote for Harris. Jyoti, 36, grew up in the United States and became a citizen eight years ago. 

She’s expecting her first child next month, so she’s been thinking about parental leave.

“It’s like six to eight weeks in this country,” she said. “Even dogs get better maternity leave than that.”

Jyoti, who was born in Nepal and is of Nepali-Indian heritage, said she recently found out about Harris’ Indian roots. 

“For South Asian people, I’m sure that will be a reason why they go for her,” Jyoti said. 

Jyoti said she wants to see a woman president, and that she’s frustrated that female candidates are scrutinized more than their male counterparts. Her husband told her he wasn’t sure Harris was the best candidate to beat Trump “just because she’s a lady,” Jyoti said. 

“I don’t know why, for ladies, they’re like, ‘She’s not good enough,’” Jyoti said. “But for men, they don’t say that.”

Editor’s note: This story was written by Joey Peters, a reporter for Sahan Journal.

Staff multimedia journalist Dymanh Chhoun and community engagement manager Hannah Ihekoronye contributed to this report.