Can We Please Stop Calling Jindal An Indian Now?

Louisiana governor and the GOP’s “great beige hope” for 2012 Bobby Jindal was on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night.  So great is the Republican hope for Jindal that we’ve already begun discussing it less than two months after the inauguration of President Obama.

At 37 years old, Governor Jindal is an impressive young man.  By all accounts, I think he’s the kind of Republican that I respect. I don’t agree with most of what he believes, but I respect him.

Educated, ethical (as ethical as a politician from Louisiana can get, anyway) and ambitious, Jindal represents the mirror image to President Obama.  A Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker.  Or maybe more like a Faith to Buffy.  Or a Spike to Angel.  Thankfully, I’m just shy of being geeky enough to come up with something clever here.

Many of you probably already know that he declined when asked to submit his name for the McCain vice presidency.  Like the good ol’ boy Southern politicians of the 19th and early 20th century, he’s going to have to be asked several times until he offers a reluctant, yet highly calculated, “Well, alrighty, if y’all really, really want me to, I’ll serve ya’.”

(And please don’t let that drawl confuse you, the man is an Ivy League educated Rhodes scholar.  This only proves my point that gifted minds can and do use the phrases “alrighty” and “y’all”).  I think this act is slowly ingratiating him into the heart of the American people… mind crushingly boring rebuttals to Presidential addresses notwithstanding.

And, now, let us finally get to the point.

In case you haven’t noticed, Bobby Jindal, born “Piyush (prounounced pee-yoosh) Jindal” is of the Indian ethnicity.

He picked up the name “Bobby” while watching “The Brady Bunch.”  (Do you even remember Bobby, Governor?  He was the youngest one who tattled on all the other Brady kids and was hall monitor at school?  My next post on Jindal: What kind of kid looks up to Bobby Brady?!)

Anyway, this name changing business is fine.  I have no problem with Indian/Pakistani people who genuinely bear or have intentionally adopted anglicized names.  Never mind, that I have stubbornly endured thirty three annoying years of having to say “It’s pronounced Fie-Kah, like the tax.”  So, Harrises, Rogers, Sonias, Petes, Robs, Marys, Sophias, Adams, and Saras can just rest easy.  This isn’t about that.

I do get a little annoyed when I hear people from the subcontinent or of its origins say one of the following, though:

“Did you know that the governor of Louisiana is Indian?”

“There are lot of South Asians in Americans politics, take Gov. Jindal, for example.”

No.  The governor of Louisiana is not Indian. 

He.  Is.  American.

And this is not me that is saying this.  It’s him and his lovely red clad Nancy Reagan channeling wife, Supriya, on their shameless promo for the 2012 election. “60 Minutes“.

Asked if their family maintains any of the Indian traditions, Supriya Jindal told Safer, “Not too many.”

“No, they’ve been here for so many years that…,” her husband said.

“Years that we’ve sort of adapted. And we were raised as Americans, you know? We were raised as Louisianans. So, that’s how we live our lives,” Supriya Jindal explained.

He’s a classic example of the American melting pot. This oyster and crawfish-eating Louisianian tends to downplay his ethnic background

…

“He clearly presents himself as true blue American,” Safer remarked.

“And he is the genuine article. He’s deeply, by nature, deeply conservative, deeply patriotic.”

And, you know, that’s fine, too, if they don’t celebrate Indian traditions.

But, you know what I find exasperating?

Aside from the sad masses of Indian expatriates all over the world attempting to appropriate Governor and Mrs. Jindal as Indians when clearly they don’t want anything to do with being Indian?

I find it irritating that there’s an implication that if you do celebrate your heritage that you were somehow not raised as an “American.”

A “classic example of the American melting pot” does not include dismissing one’s heritage.  Classic examples of the American melting pot incorporate their heritage, and they assert its value as an integral part of being American.  Right?

The Jindal family’s choice not to identify closely with their Indian heritage is fine with me, and I don’t disparage it.  It’s not necessarily a classic example of the melting pot, though.  It’s an example of the shedding of one identity for another.  This is a respectable and legitimate American phenomenon among immigrants concerning ethnic identity.  One of many.

It is in no way a proof of inherent patriotism or American-ness, though.

Chinatowns, Little Italys, Cinqo de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and countless other ethnic celebrations are American entities, now.  They may have originated elsewhere, but these celebrations exist as pieces of American heritage because a few citizens refused to downplay their ethnic identity in attempts to be perceived as more American.

These infusions are, in my eyes, a gift to the American people.  Something that enriches all of our lives.

These inclusions are the classic examples of the “melting pot.”  More so than say, the choices that seek to “downplay” identity.

I respect the Jindal’s choices to not celebrate their heritage, but the underlying assumption that this makes them more American or more patriotic is just… a little sad.

And infuriating.

For those of you who missed it, you can watch Jindal’s interview on “60 Minutes” right here.

UPDATE: Gov. Jindal didn’t actually decline the nomination.  He did not submit his name when asked to for the “vetting” process by the McCain campaign.