 Will Nikki Haley become the first Indian president of the United States? And if she does, does that make her the first Asian president too? Yeah, we got to talk about it. This is going viral right now. I'm sure it's only going to go more and more viral as you know, election 2024 ramps up Andrew. Nikki Haley, a lot of people don't know. Both her parents are from India and she identifies as Indian, even though there's some controversy surrounding that. So we got to talk about the story of Nikki Haley, birth name Nimratha Rondawa. We got to talk about Bobby Jindal, birth name Piyush Jindal. And what does it all mean to be assimilating to a region, to not be assimilating to a region? And how do you identify in this crazy political sphere in 2023? So make sure you like, subscribe, and turn on your notifications. And we got to get into it. All right. First off, let's talk about Nikki Haley because she's trending in the news right now. She was a former governor of South Carolina. She was the first woman ever elected in that position. So shout out to her. She is running as a Republican. We're not going to get into politics and policies, guys. We are neither left or right. We're just going to talk about our Asian-ness right now. So does she identify as Indian is the first question? All right. She identifies as Indian. But I want to say she primarily uses the word minority, but she does not call herself Asian. Yes. I don't think she's ever called herself Asian. Correct us if we're wrong that she has. But that's what I found in my research. And I think that it is possibly because, like I said, I do not know, Andrew. I just done some research. I, from what I've seen, Indian Aryans or Aryan Indo people, which are primarily like, I guess people who are mixed with Persian or British in North India do not identify as Asian. But they could be, you know what I mean? Because I guess visually they would look either like half white or half Dravidian or they would be more looking like Middle Eastern or Greek or Sicilian. She kind of actually looks like Andrew Harmon, this actress mixed with John Kerry. So yeah. Like I'm just saying she got the job. She has the John Kerry change over on a huge Tim Grover fan, but he probably doesn't identify as Asian either because they're from this region, Andrew, where there's a lot of people who are either Anglo Indian, Aryan Indian or Parsi Indian, which is what Freddie Mercury was. And a lot of people didn't know that he was Indian either, because I guess like that whole region is very complex and mixed up over time in both ancient and modern ways. Right. So you're just saying that part of India essentially is considered more white. Right. They've been mixed with Aryan bloodlines over many, many, many generations as well as potentially very recently. Yeah. I mean, if you made me say, I think the Indians who definitely want to identify as Asian and be included in the Asian American narrative usually are, I don't want to say only, but usually South Indian. Right. You know. And speaking of South Indian Andrew, Kamala Harris is half South Indian. Yeah. However, guys, Nikki Haley on paper, I mean, based on her family, is more Indian than even Kamala Harris because Kamala Harris is only half Indian, although her mother is from South India. I believe that Kamala Harris is half Hindu. Bobby Jindal was was full Hindu, converted to Catholicism, actually became Opus Dei, which is like almost like the Navy Seals, secretive Catholicism. I believe that Kamala Harris was raised Protestant or like Baptist, which is more on the black side, the black Jamaican side. And Nikki Haley converted to Protestant Christianity. Minus Asian points on that. Right. I mean, I guess there's this quote. And just so you know that Nikki really does identify as Indian, she said, I'm the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a black and white world. She said it. She said she was brown just saying, I can't take that away from her. She said it. I'm not the judge of it. I'm not even India. And I have a lot of progressive Indian American friends, Andrew, that really roast Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley for adopting, you know, not to not going with her name in Ratha Rondawa. However, Andrew, I will say that this to be fair, Mindy Kaling and Cal Penn, who are both Indian American entertainers, also changed their names to be Anglicized to fit in the Hollywood as well. So it's not just people who are trying to be governors of like super red states that are adapting to like local Anglo cultural norms. I mean, to be honest, a lot of people in entertainment, whether it's Jennifer Aniston or John Stuart, changed their names to hide their background because they felt like that maybe I might hold them back or color how people view them. John Stuart's last name is Liebowitz, right? Yeah. And then Jennifer Aniston has like this long Greek name, you know, it's not Aniston. So I will say this though, to defend again against Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal has a governor's portrait where he has essentially had himself painted white, like super white. Like he looks like Pete Buttigieg in this. And then I would say that Nikki Haley has a huge controversy. Well, the controversy is back in 2001, it showed that she marked down for her voter registration that she was white. She said she was white. Is it because she was just like, well, in India, I'm considered like an Aryan Indian because actually she actually looks a lot like this Sicilian woman who became an Indian politician by marrying an Indian guy and had a son who's a politician. And she like always wears a sorry. And it's crazy because she almost looks like Nikki Haley, but she's full Italian. I mean, to be fair, Nikki's parents both look pretty Indian, but the way she turned out and the way she was born, she looks more white. So I don't know, it might be a genetics thing. As somebody who knows about 23 and me, Andrew, even amongst different siblings, sometimes that 25% or whatever, you know, European, it comes out differently in each kid because Kamala Harris has a sister who probably you would say looks Indian. But Kamala Harris herself looks white and black. You know what? Two questions really come to mind, David, that are important is one, how is the left, the Democrats going to react to this when Nikki Haley is running as a minority? Because you know how like, you know, being a minority and playing identity politics is very important right now because there's a lot of voters on both sides that are our colored people, right? So you might want to play to them and say, Hey, hey, I'm a minority. You got all the other minorities in our party. You know, you vote for me. And then the Democrats do that as well. Obviously well known for that. So I guess like, are they going to be like, Nikki, you're not more Indian than Kamala Harris. We got Kamala. But then she's going to be like, Kamala's only half Indian. Yeah. It might be the Jay Crowder designed to stop Jason Tatum. Oh my gosh. Because you got to get one swing man to stop another swing man. And then I got another question, David. What do you think Britain's saying right now? We have the real Indian candidate. We have Rishi Sunok. He has not changed his first name and he has not hid his Hindu background. Or do you think Canadians are like, oh yeah. Look at us. We got Jagmeet. Not like you Americans where you guys make them become like Anglos. We let our Indians stay Indian. And let's just get into some of the quick comments real quick. Some people say, man, she's just running so she can get rich because everybody knows even if you fail at being president, you become rich even if you lose. Yeah. Someone said, hey, Nimrata, go run against Modi and see how you fare. But I'm telling you the internet comments come from everywhere. They are hilarious. Somebody said, what's going to happen is she's just going to become strong in the primary. DeSantis is going to become strong because DeSantis is more of a right right candidate. I guess Nikki Haley is considered middle right and they're going to combine. She's going to be as VP to finally defeat Trump. So a lot of the Trumpians got a lot of conspiracies. I don't know. It sounds somewhat logical to be honest. I'm not a political strategist, but that makes some sense. Somebody that's also defending the middle right said, well, if everybody's saying that she didn't care about being Indian and she became so Anglo to appeal to the Anglos in South Carolina, how come her opponents during her first run for governor always posted pictures of her and Asari and all this traditional clothes to seed fear in people's mind that she was really weird and foreign. So basically saying she did have to fight through some skepticism and racism, obviously along the way. Although maybe she had the white face. I don't know. It's 50-50. So she does. She does know how it feels like to be a minority. I mean, she grew up with immigrant parents. Yeah. Okay. Other people were basically saying in the middle like, I'd really empathize with Nikki Haley because what if she just was super Indian and then she would lose and then we would never even know who she is and we wouldn't even be talking about her. It's a fair point, man. By the way, I got these comments from an Indian blog. That's why I did the accent. She says, oh, here's another comment. Jindal, Nikki Haley, Ben Carson, Michael Steele, they have all been metamorphced into old white men to such an extent that on the days when they don't see the mirror, they forget that they do not look like an old white guy. They are just one in their soul. Yeah. And I think that this is what a lot of minorities say on the left about people who take very right, middle right or right, right positions. I mean, there's a whole spectrum of political opinions, right on both sides. I would say this, Anna, what do you think? I mean, is it just assimilation? Somebody was saying, you know, some people call Anna Mae Wong, who was the first Oriental or like East Asian actress in America, a sellout. But was she just doing the best she could to represent in a situation that was really like no win? Like there was no win. So they're just trying to get the best win they can. But people look at it in the past and they still see it as bad because they just took the best situation out of all bad options. Like being proud really wasn't an option. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to depend on how much she tries to use it to her benefit. You know, if Nikki's going to be going around parading that she's a minority when she did mark down that she was white, but although that she does have an argument because her parents are Indian, I don't know. It's it's so tough. David, does it just come down number one, Andrew, to how you look? Does it just come down to how you look? Because I would say Bobby Jindal is almost more right, I believe, politically than Nikki Haley. But he has the Indian wife and he looks very Indian. So he's not even going to get the same opportunities to become president even though he ran in 2016 like Nikki Haley does. Because Nikki Haley still passes visually that emotional like you're part of the same tribe as me test. Yeah. I don't know. I guess it's an equation. I'm sure your looks, I think it makes up a significant amount. I'm not sure what, but. Because people have that visceral immediate reaction to the thing that doesn't look like them. I mean, I'd way rather vote for Nikki Haley than the Maratha Paratha of whatever her name is. Moving on to number two, Andrew, do political parties in 2023, and you mentioned this earlier, always need that they're like diversity check boxes now. Because like if they're running Kamala on the left, she's half Indian, half Jamaican. They got to run Nikki Haley on the right with DeSantis, right? That's just how it is. Is it like that Spider-Man meme where Kamala is pointing at Nikki being like, I'm more Indian than you? No, I'm more Indian than you. And Kamala's like, my mom's from South India. And then Nikki's like, both my parents are from India. Yeah, what? And then Kamala's like, maybe I look more Indian. Oh, what if Kamala's like, you're a white passing? Obviously, I do not think that she's going to say that because that would just bring up a whole lot of. We're just joking. But yeah, it seems like a funny instance. And point number three, Andrew, because we did the video previously, what do you think this does to have discussions about like, what does it mean for our Asians Indian? Because we were saying earlier, it seems like a lot of the white passing Indians, they kind of more identify as minorities, but not Asian. Whereas I know a lot of my South Asian friends that are more like way down there that are more clearly, I guess, have a different look. They definitely identify as Asian. Yeah, I mean, I think it comes a lot to how you're raised. But yeah, I mean, maybe India split. I mean, to be honest, like, I don't think all Indians think the same. I think maybe the ones more from the North, they identify less as Asian, you know, and then the ones from the South. And I guess, like, technically, be even based off the flow of, like, I guess European bloodlines, there is some logical explanation for that. Yeah, but I mean, we have Bengali friends and Bangladesh is closer to Asia. It was once part of India. But now, I mean- The most out of part of Pakistan. Oh, yeah. And then all Bengali friends, they all consider themselves Asian for the most part, you know. So I guess, I don't know, man, you guys let us know in the comments down below. What do you think about all this? Is Nikki Haley Indian? Obviously, she is. We can't take that away from her. But would you call her Asian? How do you feel about that? What if she starts, what if she starts bringing up that she's Asian? I'm not saying that she is. But what if she hits the campaign trail and is like, I'm the first Asian candidate for the Republicans. And you know what, I was funny, Andrew. A lot of the people on the Republican side was like, what does it even matter what she is? Quit talking about it. It's like, oh, okay. Now you guys have a candidate that looks very ambiguous. That's on your side. You don't want to talk about it. But when Barack was there, everybody wants to bring it up because his middle name is Hussein. And was he called Barry? Is it called Barack? Anyway, guys, it gets real crazy. Let us know in the comments section below. Hop hop boys, identity talks. Not scared. Until next time, we out. Peace.