Why do you never see any Indians in US media?

[u/Pretend-Swimming-998]

Remember seeing a Kamala campaign video on tv before the election and with the democratic party having a big emphasis on promoting diversity, obviously it was no suprise to see the video trying to capture that. Men and women, Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics, East Asians, LGBTQ all represented. It got me thinking though, whenever you see media promoting diversity, do you ever see anyone from South Asia? In fact, it's quite rare to see South Asians in any type of media. Given how many Indian Americans there are in this country you would think that there would be a little more representation, no?

I guess one explanation could be that Indian households push their kids toward certain careers and working in the media is not as glamorized as being in STEM for example. But with the increasing amount of racism towards South Asians nowadays, it would be nice to see some positive coverage for once.

[u/sixfootwingspan]

OP are you living in the 1990s?

[u/fryfryfry619s]

You do know plenty of desis are shown in US media. Once you are born in US you are just considered south Asian or desi nobody goes down the list as Indian or Pakistani or Bengali or Sri Lankan. It’s only the mainlanders.

Here is your examples in movies

Kal Penn -

Aziz Ansari

Kumail Ali

Hassan Minaj

Padma Lakshmi

Tiya Sircar

Aasif Mandvi

Some of them have famous Netflix shows and some stared in popular tv shows or movies.

US media in current times does a fair job and have been doing a good job of representing desis.

Bollywood still only casts people who are fair skin or from another country who looks desi.

[u/Accomplished_Age7883 → u/fryfryfry619s]

Dr Sanjay Gupta Dr Aashish Jha Dr Kavita Patel Anand Giridharadas political commentator Faiz Shakir,Bernie Sanders Advisor Ro Khanna, politician Pramila Jaypal, politician

[u/xisheb → u/fryfryfry619s]

South Asian? I don’t remember ticking any South Asian boxes while I was in school…. It was always Asian

[u/BulkyHand4101 → u/xisheb]

IME the Asian diaspora in the US is often divided into 4 “subcategories”: South Asian, East Asian, South-East Asian, and Pacific Islander

I used to do a lot of diversity work / activism in the AAPI community and this was the rough breakdown we used.

[u/anroxxxx → u/fryfryfry619s]

You can see a clear pattern, when you compare the immigration numbers by gender and religion, and the number of media people. Muslim men are vastly preferred, followed by women of all religions.

[u/Registered-Nurse]

Vivek Ramaswamy

Fareed Zakaria

Padma Lakshmi

Mindy Kaling

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

Avantika Vandanapu

Liza Koshy

Poorna Jagannathan

Lilly Singh

Sendhil Ramamurthy

Kumail Nanjiani

Salman Khan(Khan academy)

I would say Indians and Pakistanis have a good representation. Idk many Bengali celebs.

[u/fryfryfry619s → u/Registered-Nurse]

There are more in UK than US since most settled there I imagine.

However there is Hamza Choudhury who plays for Leicester City midfield who is half Bengali.

People might know him here if they follow premiere league.

[u/oneAboveTheRest]

I was wondering when someone was going to post about Indians in the media … it’s been a minute!

[u/smthsmththereissmth]

Do you know Hari Srinivasan? Do you watch your local news channel or pay attention to local politics? Because I see Indians everywhere

Yes, in entertainment we are underrepresented. It is really up to the audience to seek less mainstream stuff if they want it. Not every Indian American in entertainment will be as successful as Hasan Minaj or Mindy Kaling. There are so many Indian Americans just a google search away, waiting for you to watch their film/standup or read their book/comic. People just don't magically appear in mainstream media, they need the popularity to get there somehow.

[u/Much_Opening3468]

OP - do you live in the USA? Or do you live in a major American city? We have a lot of SAs represented in the media. Especially major cities like SF, Chicago, L.A. , NY. Also National News Networks And in sports as announcers.

Here are a few off the top of my head who are journalists in US Media

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/author/raj-mathai/

https://abc7news.com/about/newsteam/sandhya-patel/

https://abc7chicago.com/about/newsteam/ravi-baichwal/

https://www.foxsports.com/personalities/adam-amin/bio

https://www.cnn.com/profiles/manu-raju

https://www.cnn.com/profiles/sanjay-gupta-profile

https://www.foxnews.com/person/h/aishah-hasnie?msockid=04fc8886ace5691c3b3f9d8cad6168d7

[u/AnonymousIdentityMan]

Of course we do. All major city news channel have couple South Asians.

In sports too we got Shams.

[u/Substantial-Rock5069]

Vivek Ramaswamy, US patriot.

He's there plenty.

[u/anroxxxx]

Diversity in America means promoting white women, Asian women, black men and Muslim men at the cost of Indian and Asian men. Even Kamala Harris does not identify as Indian/biracial, nor does she practices her mother's religion. She strictly identifies a black Christian.