Bobby Jindal impact on South Asian Americans.

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The 90-9 figure is totally ridiculous. There are too many wealthy Indians for whom voting democrat is against their financial interests. Also a lot of those 3.5 million south asians are not citizens and even if they were are many times not interested in voting. Sadly Jindal may cause many to vote for Mccain but I will still hold out hope the community is smarter than this. Overall though it would not make that much of a difference in the election.

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The 90-9 figure is totally ridiculous. There are too many wealthy Indians for whom voting democrat is against their financial interests. Also a lot of those 3.5 million south asians are not citizens and even if they were are many times not interested in voting. Sadly Jindal may cause many to vote for Mccain but I will still hold out hope the community is smarter than this. Overall though it would not make that much of a difference in the election.

Total nonsense. An Indian American is running a serious campaign for the nomination of the GOP in my state senate seat, and was very well funded. I will have to check out how he did. No, I didn't vote for him.

What did I say that was nonsense? Anyways what senate seat are you in? I never heard of this guy either.

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I need to correct myself again. I knew a Sikh man who was a "moderate Republican" but his father hated Bush and I got the sense he didn't like Bush either. I have no idea whether he would go for Obama or McCain. My sense is that many South Asians are moderate-to-conservative on economic issues but object to the Republicans on foreign policy. On the other hand if you approve of the nation-building going on in Iraq, that might be enough to tip the scales to McCain.

Absolutely right. Indians are pretty anti-war but because a lot of them tend to have money, they are also pretty conservative on economic issues. I think if the war was not going on and Jindal was selected on the ticket, the republicans could get upto 2/3 of the Indian vote. That will not happen this year though.

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My neighbor is a Hindu (at least I assume he is, and he has this Buddha looking  thing in his walkway, and  thinks Muslims need to be kept out of the US because they are dangerous). His father grew up in Tanzania or Kenya before decamping to London. And when he has parties, lots of Indian looking folks show up in SUV's. No greenies in sight! He teaches computer science at the local state university.

AHH Kenyans. Some of my best friends are African...kinda. It is surprising the number of Indians who are of African descent in California. And yeah we like to show off our money with SUV's. But we also believe in global warming and think something should be done. still we are keeping our SUV's :0

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Well you don't live in Orange County for starters.

I will try this weekend to try to find some harder data on this matter. I think Indians from India (not Pakistan or Bangladesh) are pretty evenly split politically, but I need to refresh my memory. Muslims have soured on Bush, no doubt about it.

Yes but both sides are against US war policy. But like I said if this was some other year, the republicans could expect a good share of Indian votes. This is mainly due to the wealth of the community and LV's will be even more wealthier than the average Indian.

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Well you don't live in Orange County for starters.

Well I just noticed lots of African Indians in California, North and South. I go to college in southern California and a majority of the students and my friends are socal ppl.

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BTW, Jindal's politically fortuitous conversion would hurt him among Hindus and muslims alike.

When did he convert exactly? I thought it was in his teenage years? But I could be wrong. You have an interesting point considering religion rather than race is more important in our part of the world. But then again these are Americans voting and they must have the same racial frame of mind as most Americans.

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BTW, Jindal's politically fortuitous conversion would hurt him among Hindus and muslims alike.

When did he convert exactly? I thought it was in his teenage years? But I could be wrong. You have an interesting point considering religion rather than race is more important in our part of the world. But then again these are Americans voting and they must have the same racial frame of mind as most Americans.

Teens, but that wouldn't matter much to them.

I don't think that we really have assimilated very much as a group, really.

Yeah very true but consider that many of us are recent immigrants. Trust me Indians were way more unassimilated back in 2001 or so. Places like Santa Clara were FOB central haha.

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Er what does "social ppl" mean? Where do you go to school if I may ask? UCLA?

HAHA sorry I will try sticking to english. What I was trying to say was southern california people. I just shortened it way down mainly because I am lazy. I am currently attending UCI by the way. Probably just down the road from you.

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Too much Orange County!!!!!!!!111111111111

Hey its a nice place to visit!!!!

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Too much Orange County!!!!!!!!111111111111

Hey its a nice place to visit!!!!

Yes, almost as good as Dodger Stadium.

Have you ever been  to "God's" county Xahar? 

Riverside?

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Well you might, if you become an avid golfer someday.  Other than that, you might not ever get there.

Oh you are talking about the gay part of Riverside county .. Well I think Riverside county is pretty socially conservative. In some way similar to the central valley.

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Well, this is what I have come up with so far, a poll conducted in September, 2004, and based on a small sample, the result is that Asian Indians split 53% Kerry, 14% Bush, and 30% undecided. So, it looks like I might have been in error in my assumptions.  I hate when that happens!

Interesting poll. The Vietnamese vote was a bit of a surprise. I did not expect that 60 point margin. The Indian vote in 2004 should not be surprising as it was during the war in Iraq. A lot of things were going wrong by then but was not being broadcast by faux news and its imitators. I think Indians read and watch too much international news to get swept up in the jingoism. The only community that might get caught up in it is the punjabi community. They are a very patriotic people with a strong tradition of military action. I know many signed up for the US army after 9/11.

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BTW, Jindal's politically fortuitous conversion would hurt him among Hindus and Muslims alike.

You sure about that?

I haven't seen any Indians voice complaints about Sonia Gandhi's Roman Catholicism.

Are you serious? Have you noticed how she is not the PM.

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BTW, Jindal's politically fortuitous conversion would hurt him among Hindus and Muslims alike.

You sure about that?

I haven't seen any Indians voice complaints about Sonia Gandhi's Roman Catholicism.

Are you serious? Have you noticed how she is not the PM.

Indian-Americans that is.

Do you have to be born in India to be PM?

I figure a Muslim would be more objectionable than a Christian and they've had 3 Muslim Presidents.

Yeah I guess Indian americans would not care too much about a catholic. The real problem has to do with her Italian ancestry. Nobody overtly brings up religion in India. It is not PC... even though all voting is done on religious grounds. Anyways sonia was going to become PM but people were threatening hunger strikes and other measures, so she gave up power to Manmohan singh. But she is still in effect the leader of the congress party.

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It seems like a sort of neutral religion. A Muslim would probably lose Hindu votes and vice-versa, but a Christian can transcend the conflict more easily.

Christian proselytizing in India is very controversial, in particular because they target the dalits and scheduled castes who have an unfavorable position in Hindu society. Some states have banned or persecuted Christian missionaries and churches have been burned.

I do not know how this issue plays among Indian-Americans, but at least in India Hindus have created a strong religious identity and act in its defense as much as people of other faiths do. There's a dynamic among immigrant communities of certain people "selling out," in the Jewish community it was people anglicizing their names and putting up Christmas trees and Christmas lights*, and it causes a lot of tension.

This is a long way of saying that I think converting to Christianity AND changing your name from Piyush to Bobby is not going to play well among Indian-Americans.

*I recognize that Christmas is not an exclusively Christian holiday and many non-Christians celebrate it, however, to many Jews it is a sensitive issue when other Jews do it. This is not the place for that debate.

You hit the nail right on the head when you describe Hindu India's number one problem with Christians. I think in America, Indian's are much more concerned about preserving culture and making their kids follow certain mores. So even though Indians may have a problem with "americanization"( i.e. alcohol and drug use, girlfriends/boyfriends in HS), they will not have a huge problem with an Indian who converted to catholicism but keeps acting "traditionally". I am very sure Bobby stands up to that standard. But if he got a divorce or something like that all bets are off.

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There are actually more Christians in India than there are Sikhs.

Not surprising, but the problem is with western missionaries that convert dalits and OBC. Hindu's feel that Christians are exploiting hinduism's past mistakes and the real fear is that by converting  these people they will somehow change the hindu culture of India. Very similar to those who bitch about multiculturalism here. Opposition to this and muslims in general has led to the development of this xenophobic ideology called hindutva. It says that all muslims, christians and jews should promptly leave India or basically accept "Indian" culture. Interestingly Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism are not affected at all, rather they are encouraged as some of the original religions of India. The BJP is the main proponent of this philosophy, and even though they will downplay it in polite compnay, this is how they rile up their base.

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Well, Sikhism, from what I understand, is a religion that's pretty much tied with the Punjabi ethnicity, whereas Christianity in India has a long history stretching from the St. Thomas/Syriac Christians, to those in Kerala or Goa who were converted by the Portuguese, to modern day evangelicals.  So naturally there'd be more Christians.  However, I've also read on BBC that not only Dalits turning to Christianity, but also Buddhism and possibly Islam(?), as they are religions that are more egalitarian in that they don't have caste systems.

Yes you are right that Sikhs come only from the state of Punjab. They are now spread all over India and all over the world, but all of their homelands is Punjab. Interestingly though, there are more hindus than sikhs there. Of course the hindu and sikh community are very connected in Punjab. Christianity has a long history in India and their concentrations are higher along the west coast where the trade of India was conducted. The problem is really with the evangelicals who convert these tribals and dalits to christianity. One thing you have to realize is that tribals and dalits are not hindu in the traditional sense. My version of hinduism and theirs is worlds apart. Thus I really do not think these people should remain "hindu" but I really do not want them to be islamic, as that is just asking for trouble. Buddhism is the best way in my opinion and many do get converted to it. But the thing is that the evangelicals are just so in your face that it is easy for these villagers to convert to christianity. The hindus that have a problem with that should hire some buddhists to go to these places and start converting promptly. But christianizing these villagers does not lead at all to a delition of their "indianness" so I really do not have a problem with the missionaries.