Indians who played a role in US politics before Kamala Harris plus 7 more reads for Indians abroad

Diaspora Reads

Picking up from the candidature of Indian-origin Kamala Harris in this year’s US elections, Dinyar Patel in the Atlantic writes about the roles Americans and Indians played in each other’s politics, including forging links under the banner of anti-British feelings on both ends.
Karishma Mehrotra in the Indian Express takes a look at the Indian-Americans playing a role in the campaigns on both sides of the US presidential elections.
How are the Republicans and Democrats courting the diaspora? The BBC’s Brajesh Upadhyay takes a look at outreach efforts from both campaigns.
“For [Rishi] Sunak, meetings with groups of Conservative Party lawmakers help him reach out and forge a network of support in Parliament. For the lawmakers, it’s a chance to meet someone many expect to one day move next door — to No 10, the prime minister’s home,” writes Stephen Castle in the New York Times.
“I write, produce, direct and act because I have no other choice in today’s Hollywood,” writes Sujata Day in Salon. “Decision-makers with the power to greenlight projects constantly elevate new talent because ‘he reminded me of myself’ and that doesn’t apply to folks who look like me. If I didn’t fill every single one of those key positions, I would not have a job.”
Emily Flitter in the New York Times writes about Montu Patel, “a one-man army battling for the survival of his business” – eight budget hotel franchises in the US owned by his family.
“Congress ought to reform the H-1B visa system. But the Trump Administration is rushing through new rules, without notice and comment, that will hurt small employers under the false premise that US tech workers are threatened during the pandemic by foreigners,” says a Wall Street Journal editorial.
“My book extends the migration scholarship by showing how places beyond the homeland and hostland—-elsewhere—-shape how immigrants view themselves–ie, self-identification with elsewhere–and how these places shape how others in the hostland view these immigrants—-ie, identification of immigrants by others in relation to elsewhere.” Tahseen Shams, author of Here, There and Elsewhere, speaks to Laila Omar on Chapati Mystery.