#10 Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi in conversation
Pod with the ACLU's Chief Product Officer, Deepa Subramaniam
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Catching Fire 🚀 your news roundup
📺 Hasan gets heat: toxic workplace accusations circle Patriot Act
We all witnessed Ellen’s fall from grace earlier this year. Now a certain South Asian comedian stands to face a similar reckoning. Several individuals — particularly women of color — have come forward on Twitter to levy accusations about a toxic work culture on Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Though some women shared their stories over six months ago, the news has yet to hit mainstream media in any meaningful way — until now.
This op-ed has been circling the interwebs, resurfacing the allegations and suggesting that Minhaj’s progressive fandom has shielded him from facing repercussions on the public main stage.
🇺🇸 Transition Trailblazers
A number of officials joining President-elect Biden’s administration encompass one of our favorite phrases: South Asian Trailblazers. Count among them, Dr. Vivek Murthy, 19th Surgeon General of the United States who’s been tapped to co-chair the Covid-19 task force, and also Neera Tanden, the rumored frontrunner for the Head of the Office of Management and Budget role — not to mention the transition trailblazers catalogued below.
VP-elect Kamala Harris is but a first in what is turning out to be a cascade of South Asian leaders rising to political power. We’re oh so here for it.
📖 Six Short Reads from Seminal South Asian Authors
From our Social Media Lead, Saransh Desai-Chowdhry:
Now that Thanksgiving has slipped away and we’re on the cusp of traversing the uncertain terrain that is our first pandemic-polluted winter, stock up on wisdom and gauge a range of South Asian voices across genres and borders in easily digestible doses:
Short Story — “Hell-Heaven” by Jhumpa Lahiri
Essay — “A Lesson in Injustice” by Prajwal Parajuly
Short Story — “Nawabdin Electrician” by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Poem — “The Seven Stages” by Meena Kandasamy
Novel Excerpt — “Where do old birds go to die?” by Arundhati Roy
Essay — “The Dilemma of a Liberal Hindu” by Gurchuran Das
Hot off the Pod 🎧 Deepa Subramaniam, Chief Product Officer @ ACLU
Subscribe to know when the pod drops tonight. Deepa currently serves as the first-ever Chief Product and Digital Officer for the ACLU. She’s been a trailblazer in the digital product design and development space, with more than 15 years of product leadership across renowned organizations.
After spending a decade at Adobe in product, she led product at charity: water, a non-profit that provides clean water to populations in the developing world. During the 2016 election, Deepa led digital product efforts for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Before landing her current role at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she served as the VP of Product and Design at Kickstarter, and launched her own product consulting business, Wherewithall. Most recently, Deepa was named to Fortune’s 40 under 40.
Fireside Chat 🔥 Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08)
Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi is an American businessman and politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017. Krishnamoorthi is a member of the Democratic Party and serves on the House Oversight Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. Krishnamoorthi attended Princeton for his engineering degree and went on to Harvard Law School, after which he served on two of Former President Obama’s congressional campaigns.
The podcast with Congressman Krishnamoorthi drops in the next issue! Read on for excerpts.
You moved from India to the United States when you were very young — just three months old. You’ve spoken about how you and your family lived in public housing projects and we were on food assistance for some time. How did that shape your policy agenda when you ran for office?
It's fair to say that my upbringing had a powerful impact on me from a very young age. After my parents establish themselves in Peoria, Illinois, we ultimately entered the middle class. So it had a powerful impact on me because essentially, we were able to survive and prosper in the United States because of a lot of assistance, but it wasn't just food assistance or public housing. It was the access to an excellent public education, and all the benefits of ‘membership,’ so to speak. It was membership in the greatest club in the world which is being a permanent resident of the United States. And because of that I think that we essentially worshiped at the altar of America every night at the dinner table. It became a religion to celebrate America, everything about it, and its government. And I remember my father said, ‘Think of the greatness of America, and whatever the two of you do — your brother and you — just make sure this country is there for the next families who need it.’ So that became a mantra for us every night. And it became the North Star of my personal compass.
What sort of impact has the South Asian community had with respect to your campaigns and how you think about policymaking priorities?
They've had a huge impact. My own constituency comprises around 750,000 people, but between 8 to 10 percent of the constituency is of South Asian origin, which is one of the highest concentrations in the country. Of course, the vast, vast majority are still white. But the interesting thing is that the South Asian community — whether they're Indian origin, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, have really established themselves. They have established a good reputation and name, so to speak, for the community, such that the vast majority of the constituency is very comfortable electing an Indian American to Congress. And that’s even when they can't pronounce my name. I'm not joking — they literally cannot pronounce my name and they just know me as ‘Raja’ at this point. These same South Asians have supported me in other ways: they’ve worked on my campaigns, they've donated to my campaigns generously. But most importantly, they have only asked for one thing, and that is be the best Congressman that I can be. And in that request is an eloquent appeal to the ideals of America. It’s about what America represents, a request to make sure that we remain the land of immigrants: being the free, the brave, the proud, the generous, the compassionate people that we were attracted to when we first came to this country. That appeal is really what animates and motivates me every day and it’s often because of this community.
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