Indians And The Assimilation Question
South Asians have their own way of fitting in America–and it doesn’t speak highly of them
The world’s wealthiest man is back to criticizing mass immigration. Elon Musk abruptly switched from saying America needs “high-skilled” South Asian migrants to warning about the dangers of South Asian grooming gangs in the U.K.
Elon should be commended for drawing attention to the horror of Pakistani men preying on British minors. However, he still wants more Indian migrants. Defenders of these immigrants will insist they are completely different from Pakistanis. They apparently assimilate, unlike the Muslim groomers.
Throughout the debate over Indian immigration, both sides resorted to the matter of assimilation to defend their side. Indians say they do assimilate, their critics say they don’t.
The answer to this question depends on what one means by assimilation. Indians adopt the surface level features of America. They speak English (in a thick accent among the first generation), they love pop culture, and they seem entrepreneurial. For many, that would count as assimilation. But there’s more to it than that.
Indians still see themselves as something different from Americans. They still see themselves as Indians with their own interests and agenda apart from the general public. The surface level assimilation allows them to gain incredible amounts of political and economic power, while the lack of “real” assimilation enables them to transform the country to suit their ethnic interests.
The proficiency in English distinguishes Indians from other immigrants. I once lived in a very diverse neighborhood. My neighbors were from all over the world: Arabs, Chinese, Russians, Hispanics, Africans, Indians, etc. Every group talked to their kids in their native tongue–except for Indians, who spoke English. In order to do anything in America, you need to be fluent in English. We all experience more people who can’t speak it in our country, and it’s an outrage. However, those people are going to amount to little. English is required to succeed in this country.
Indians’ grasp of English allows them to digest our popular culture. Desis get comically into what’s popular here. (Think Vivek Ramaswamy rapping Eminem lyrics at campaign events.) Depending on the area they live, they will go above and beyond to look like they fit in. If black culture is the norm, then Indians speak in Ebonics and wear baggy clothes. If prep is the norm, they will exclusively wear polos and salmon pants. If country is the norm, they will ostentatiously wear cowboy boots. If the NFL is king, they will buy several jerseys and demand to watch it every Sunday. Most Americans wouldn’t go this far to fit in. It isn’t quite authentic, but it is something.
Despite this adoption of American clothes and sitcoms, Indians still cling to a separate identity. They care deeply about politics in the homeland and flock to hear Modi speak when he visits America. Unlike other immigrants, they insist on giving their kids Indian names. Historically, immigrants over the time gave their kids Anglo names. Indians, on the other hand, stick with Vivek and Priya. They will do this even if they marry a non-Indian. Indians, obviously, have a very different religion from most Americans. The massive Hindu temples and statues they’re building across the country illustrate their attachment to a divergent identity.
The cultural trait that arguably sets them most apart is their commitment to caste. Hindus still see themselves in the social structure of their homeland. Caste discrimination is a huge problem for industries with lots of Indian workers, such as Big Tech. Caste defenders oppose bans on it, saying it will discriminate against Hindus. They don’t want to give up this tradition, no matter how assimilated they appear.
The caste mindset influences how they approach Americans. Anyone who has interacted with Indians notices that they will either talk down or suck up to you. There is no in-between. If you’re a server, prepare to be treated like a shudra. If you have money, prepare to be treated like royalty. Americans really don’t like that attitude. There’s an informal equality in the way we speak with one another. It’s bad manners to talk down to someone, especially a waitress. It’s embarrassing to be overtly obsequious to the rich and powerful. But Indians don’t follow these standards.
During the uproar over the H-1B visas, many Indians revealed their utter disdain for Americans on social media. They reveled in the idea of replacing us and taking our jobs. They derided whites as dumb, lazy, and belonging in a trailer park. There was this assumption that they would make for a high caste in the U.S., proudly ruling over the people who built this country. It doesn’t speak well for their assimilation to openly exhibit this disdain.
Imagine these folks wielding immense economic, political, and cultural power over the country. Sure, they will speak English, they will know who LeBron James is, and some of them will build successful companies. But they won’t respect the people, its heritage, and traditions. America is just a place to make money for them. Their desire to bring infinite South Asians here illustrates their commitment to make this country the new Bharat.
If you want to see how our history will be treated by Indian immigrants, a great place to look is Manisha Sinha’s new book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction 1860-1920. The book drips with disdain for whites, even for ones who were progressive. White suffragettes are excoriated for being racist. Northerners are castigated for failing to impose a sufficiently brutal military regime on the South. Abraham Lincoln is criticized for punishing Indian (the other kind) marauders. Businessmen are depicted as irrevocably greedy. And of course Southerners are painted as absolute monsters. The only good guys are Amerindians and blacks. A few whites do get praise, but usually only with qualifications. Sinha ends her book by strongly implying we need another reconstruction to erase the things she doesn’t like about America.
While many academics write in a vein similar to the 1619 Project, I’ve probably never read a work filled more with seething contempt for white Americans than The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic. God help us if this reflects the outlook of our future Brahmin overlords.
Indians may not be forming grooming gangs and they probably aren’t members of Tren de Aragua, but allowing unlimited numbers of them still causes problems. These problems just aren’t as obvious or as socially acceptable to discuss.
America has a right to remain the country the Founders intended it to be. Mass Indian immigration threatens that, and so it is just to oppose it. We don’t want the ways of Mumbai to reign supreme over the Rust Belt. We want America to remain American.
Typically a good sign of assimilation is giving your child an Anglo name and distancing yourself from your old religion and culture. I’ve certainly known some Indians who follow that label but it’s likely not the majority.
Many South Asians I knew also became totally deracinated- they still had a vague ethnic identity but they really didn’t ID as Indian or whatever in any meaningful way, some adopted Anglo names and married outside their ethnic group. As it happens those ones were less likely to be interested in chasing the levers of power. The strivers hold on to their ethnic identity.
The mainstream conception of being an American is so shallow today that any immigrant assimilation amounts to marvel movies, rap, and speaking in ebonics.
Even if there was a robust, mainstream conception of being an American immigrants will never fully integrate because the Internet allows them to be connected to their home countries.