JOHNS CREEK, Ga. (AP) — A drive into Atlanta’s sprawling suburbs takes you past cultural centers, schools and places of worship that opened as the city became the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.
The diversity of growth is clear: shops and brightly lit billboards advertise in Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Hindi. The changes were stark even for the residents who witnessed them.
“When I was growing up, there were a handful of Indians,” said Hemant Ramachandran, an Atlanta lawyer who grew up in Gwinnett County, a brief drive from Atlanta and in the heart of Georgia’s fast-growing Asian American community.
Some Atlanta suburbs are becoming Asian-American
In some parts of Gwinnett, as well as neighboring Forsyth and Fulton counties, most census tracts and schools are now majority Asian American, according to county and Census Bureau data.
“It’s grown a lot since I was a kid. It was definitely not like where I grew up or anywhere else in metro Atlanta,” Ramachandran added.
Vice President Kamala Harris arrives in Georgia on Tuesday for what her advisers are calling the biggest campaign event since she became the likely Democratic nominee. The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, she will try to win the votes of a region where Asian American voters – often particularly Indian American communities – will play a crucial role in the election.
Harris’ identity as a woman of Indian descent has sparked kitchen table conversations in many Asian American and immigrant households in the Atlanta area and motivated local activists. For many in Atlanta’s Indian American community, Harris’ story strikes a particularly chord.
“The South Asian community here is pretty excited because this is really unprecedented,” said Ashwin Ramaswami, a 24-year-old technology entrepreneur and candidate for the Atlanta State Senate for a contested seat that spans much of Atlanta’s affluent northeastern suburbs.
Indian Americans in Politics
Harris’ rise comes at a time when Indian Americans are enjoying particularly high visibility and influence in politics.
Five Indian Americans are in Congress. Usha Vance, wife of Ohio Senator and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, is also Indian American, as are two of the most prominent candidates in the 2024 Republican primaries, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was one of the first lawmakers to ask Harris for support after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
According to a recent U.S. census, Indian Americans now make up the largest population group among Asian Americans. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan have relatively huge Indian American communities that could prove decisive in a close race for the Oval Office.
There are seven Asian-American representatives from both parties in the Georgia legislature. In the northern counties of Fulton and Gwinnett, high school auditoriums now regularly serve as venues for classical Indian dance performances. Events such as the Johns Creek International Festival attract thousands from across the region.
Buoyed by Democratic voters’ enthusiasm for the possible vice presidential nomination, Harris’ campaign has stepped up events in Georgia. On Saturday, 300 Harris supporters gathered in Forsyth County, a longtime Republican stronghold that has become increasingly competitive as it has grown in size and diversity.
Does a common identity mean votes?
Of course, Harris’ identity as the first Asian-American and African-American vice president doesn’t necessarily translate to vote gains. Indian Americans and Asian Americans as a whole are a very diverse bloc by any measure. In conversations with more than a dozen Indian-American voters, many said they didn’t know much about the vice president’s record and thought her background was engaging but irrelevant to the campaign.
“I don’t have a great perspective on Kamala Harris so far,” said Ashish Sahu, a software engineer from Alpharetta, a city in the Atlanta metropolitan area with about 65,000 residents. Sahu said he expects to “hear more about her in some debates or during her campaign.” He added that in his personal life and in the wider Atlanta area, most people are “pretty educated and independent and are waiting to see who the best candidate is.”
Atlanta attorney Ramachandran said, “The way I see it, I feel like the more representation we have, the less important it is.”
He did not feel that prominent Indian-born politicians were particularly conscious of their heritage and sometimes sat in completely different political camps. However, he added that many in the Indian diaspora, like many immigrant communities, “feel a kind of pride, almost reflexive, that comes when people say, ‘Look, this person came from the same place as me.'”
And he and Harris had at least one experience in common.
“The same beach where she walked as a child was the same beach I walked as a child when I visited my grandparents,” Ramachandran said.
A group called South Asian Women for Harris organized a phone call last week that drew more than 4,000 women and raised more than $250,000 in about two hours. Participants on the call included celebrities such as Mindy Kaling and Jayapal. The congresswoman spoke about working with Harris on legislation when Harris was in the Senate and Harris’ strength in advocating for reproductive rights.
A country where everything is possible
Participants on the call were spread across the country, and many expressed enthusiasm to support Harris through fundraising or campaigning. Panelists urged them to stay involved.
Organizers credited the “Win with Black Women” campaign, which marked the beginning of a flood of support calls involving tens of thousands of black women and raising well over $1 million.
“A lot of people are very excited. My photo album is just filled with WhatsApp content from all corners with Kamala Harris stuff,” said Tanbir Chowdhury, president of They See Blue New York, a Democratic group that targets South Asian voters.
About half of AAPI Americans identify as Democrats, while about a quarter identify as Republicans. About a quarter identify as independent or do not identify with a political party, according to a May AAPI Data/AP-NORC poll. The results were similar among AAPI adults of South Asian descent.
More than half of South Asian adults in the United States had a positive opinion of Harris in the poll.
Chowdhury warned that Democrats still have a lot of work to do to get a message about border security across to South Asian voters, and that issues such as the cost of living and other economic concerns are at the forefront of South Asian voters’ minds.
Ramaswami, the technology entrepreneur whose mother grew up in Besant Nagar, Chennai, India, the same neighborhood as Harris’ mother, said the vice president’s campaign is significant to him personally and he hopes the increased visibility of Indian-Americans bodes well for growing political and cultural influence.
“It’s nice to know that this is a country where anything is possible if you want to serve people and do the right thing, regardless of where you come from, what your background is or where your parents are from,” he said.
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AP writer Deepti Hajela and video journalist Joseph Frederick, both in New York, contributed.
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