Indian Americans

"At the end of the day, I don’t think it had anything to do with my age; I was successful because I could speak intelligently about the products, and because I had, at the end of the day, a really high-quality product. Obviously, there was some initial pushback from customers due to my age, but it just got to the point where I found my niche and got into a rhythm."

"Everything I've learned in these nine years has been self taught — that's not to say I've had a lot of help along the way in terms of meeting so many amazing people in this industry. But I have always loved cooking, and I grew up cooking with my grandfather and my mother, and entertaining and cooking for people was always such of strong importance. And so I’ve just applied that same passion for food to truffles."

"I’ve never considered myself a strong reader or writer. When I was younger, I had some hardships with reading and writing, and I never thought of myself as someone who could pull this off. To a degree it was challenging. In my everyday life, I’m pretty private and reserved, so the hardest part was taking personal emotion and putting it on the page and putting myself out there…"

"Grafting solitude onto a character who would live it on the page seemed to provide me with a sense of catharsis."

"One thing that I came to learn about myself as a writer in working on this book is that my writing is often about who is happening moreso than what is happening. That is, I love creating characters who feel very true-to-life but who are almost so specific as to be mysteries to themselves as they are to other people."

"I think levity and humor can be used to tackle larger themes that are darker. Loneliness can be damaging, but when you’re feeling lonely, you do some of your most productive thinking. I wanted to show the idea of loneliness in that light – that humor works in tandem with the joy to be found in self-examination."

"In all my work, the things I’m invested in are empathy and compassion and trying to put human experiences on the page that I haven’t read before."

"We often hear all this rhetoric of “spare the rod and spoil the child,” discipline and punishment, and I just don’t believe in that. In all my years I haven’t come across an adult who, because they got an excess of love as a child, grew up to be a not-so-nice person. In fact, I believe exactly the opposite is true. And this isn’t rocket science, but I think that parents for understandable reasons sometimes forget that…"

"I think I was politicized at age five, once I started noticing the beggars on the streets, and children my age who had to rummage through dumpsters looking for food. But since I grew up in a middle-class milieu where we were always told that "that's just how things are," it never occurred to me that the social order could be changed, much less that I could play a role in changing it. It was only in my teenage years that I understood things about class and inequity and how there was nothing inevitable about it. **On when she became politicized in "AN INTERVIEW WITH THRITY UMRIGAR" in BookSlut (January 2012)"

"I always share this advice with my writing students: Tell the story of one person so deeply and completely, that in the act of going deep into that one person, something magical happens, and it becomes a universal story."

"Writing was my way to make sense of the world outside and inside my home. Despite the recollections of the adults in my life, I don't think I was a terribly articulate child. Writing was a way to give wings to the inchoate emotions and feelings inside of me."

"I came to understand that there are far more stories in the world than my own, and that there was a richness and a profound resilience in the lives of these women that I was working with that just astonished me. It just floored me. And witnessing that resilience, witnessing their strength, their warmth, their generosity despite horrible acts of violence perpetrated against them, I walked away from that job with a very clear idea of who I was as a writer and what I needed to write. And it hasn’t changed. It’s just a fist inside of me. It just sits there."

"My fingers are turning red, my nose is turning red, and that kind of cold, I was, of course, also unfamiliar with. And snow has always had an awe for me. The silence that takes over the world, and just. . . the absolute miracle of snow. I’ve never gotten over it, I have to confess."

"I think the only responsibility that writers have is to our own truth. If that happens to merge with contemporary issues, then yes, write that truth. But what we are haunted by is not a thing we choose. And that choice is most certainly not made by the latest headlines."

"I do believe that inside each of us, inside our imaginative lives, dwells every possibility in the human journey. It is a matter of access, I suppose. And the courage to access. I think we all have the same weapons: patience, imagination, hope, and the ability to be crucified and yet resurrect. I strive to be open to all of these."

"Through that process, I was just working on the outreach team, but because of that I was meeting people who were undocumented, people whose families were impacted by it, and obviously huge advocacy organizations. That stuff stays with you. It was, of course, the basis for some of the characters and some of their stories and the lives that they live…"

"I mean no disrespect to any of our current climate at all, but I have been an actor for almost two decades now, and this is a dream come true to be able to create a network comedy that just makes people laugh…What I love about comedy is that, like music, sports and food, it brings us all together."

"“I said, ‘This going to perhaps sound cheesy, but two of the things I love the most are making people laugh and America,’…I like patriotism. There is an underlying theme of patriotism in all of the Harold and Kumar movies for example. I love that feeling because it’s very much my sense of humor, which is sort of aspirational as opposed to cynical."

"I have a greater appreciation for how change actually happens. If something could change with the flip of a switch, it would have been done before. By the same token, there's always going to be a bit of a disconnect. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you're under 35, you're for marriage equality, you want to raise the debt ceiling, and you want better access to health care and entrepreneurship. But the average age in the senate is 62 or 63. Like most people who turn on the news, I think, OK, the members of congress are out of touch."

"I sat down by the computer to enter orders as the nurses cleaned and the s began to wake the patient. I had always jokingly threatened that when I was in charge, instead of the high-energy everyone liked to play in the , we’d listen exclusively to . I put “” on the radio, and the soft, sonorous sounds of a saxophone filled the room. I left the O.R. shortly after, then gathered my things, which had accumulated over seven years of work—extra sets of clothes for the nights you don’t leave, toothbrushes, bars of soap, phone chargers, snacks, my skull model and collection of neurosurgery books, and so on. On second thought, I left my books behind. They’d be of more use here."

"Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described, hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed."

"What patients seek is not scientific knowledge doctors hide, but existential authenticity each must find on her own. Getting too deep into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water. The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability. I remember the moment when my overwhelming uneasiness yielded. Seven words from Samuel Beckett, a writer I’ve not even read that well, learned long ago as an undergraduate, began to repeat in my head, and the seemingly impassable sea of uncertainty parted: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” I took a step forward, repeating the phrase over and over: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” And then, at some point, I was through. I am now almost exactly eight months from my . My strength has recovered substantially. In treatment, the cancer is retreating. I have gradually returned to work. I’m knocking the dust off scientific manuscripts. I’m writing more, seeing more, feeling more. Every morning at 5:30, as the alarm clock goes off, and my dead body awakes, my wife asleep next to me, I think again to myself: “I can’t go on.” And a minute later, I am in my , heading to the operating room, alive: “I’ll go on.”"

"She really took a large step toward demonstrating — not telling people, but demonstrating to people — she's a candidate who can go the distance."

"We are voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they are fighting to protect our reproductive freedom, our planet and our democracy."

"Harris’s fondness for pearls goes much deeper than any political stylist’s involvement. She proudly wears a single-strand pearl necklace and drop earrings in her 1986 graduation picture from Howard University, where she was part of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. AKA—the first Black Greek-letter sorority—has a legendary story in which they refer to their founding members and incorporators as the “Twenty Pearls.” Each new member is given a special badge decorated with 20 pearls upon initiation."

"Vice President Kamala Harris, who was a first-term senator from California before entering the White House, hasn’t been given the sort of immersive experiences or sustained, high-profile tasks that would deepen and broaden her expertise in ways Americans could see and appreciate."

"Ms. Harris has been a regular target of negative stories — about staff disarray and departures or her annoyance that White House staff members didn’t stand when she entered a room or even her discomfort in some media interviews. She has also faced double standards in how she is seen and judged, as many women and people of color are, including when they are firsts in jobs. But she’s also not the first vice president to be sniped at and frustrated by a job whose constitutional duties are to preside over the Senate and count electoral votes."

"With 13 days until the election, Kamala Harris will answer voter questions during a live town hall on Wednesday evening. CNN will host the one-hour-and-15 minute event from Pennsylvania, a battleground state both the Harris and Trump campaigns need to win to secure the White House. The network previously extended an invitation to Harris and Trump for an October debate, which Trump declined and Harris accepted."

"At her first campaign event with Biden, Harris acknowledged “all the heroic and ambitious women before me whose sacrifice, determination and resilience makes my presence here today even possible”...Crusading anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells, labor organizer Lucy Parsons, civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, Congressmember Barbara Jordan and countless other African American women leaders forged the path that Kamala Harris now walks, often at great risk and without recognition or reward."

"You have a record last night, a ceiling shattered. Senator Kamala Harris made history as the first Black woman to debate a white man in a presidential or vice-presidential debate. She was the first Black woman, Indian American woman. Reverend Barber, at one point during the debate, a fly landed on Pence’s head for nearly two-and-a-half minutes, prompting widespread commentary online. Professor Ibram X. Kendi, author of the best-selling book How to Be an Antiracist, tweeted, “As soon as Pence started denying the existence of systemic racism, the fly got him!” And you have a record last night, a ceiling shattered. Senator Kamala Harris made history as the first Black woman to debate a white man in a presidential or vice-presidential debate. She was the first Black woman, Indian American woman. The significance of this, in the last 20 seconds we have?"

"[T]here’s a great deal of frustration that there is this choice not only to nominate a candidate who is known as the author of what is actually called the Joe Biden crime bill, but that he’s gone and also selected a running mate who is known for being the top cop from California, the state that has the second-highest number of incarcerated people in America. And moreover, Kamala Harris is someone who has had these criticisms leveraged at her throughout, very early on, at the start of her campaign, and, to many people in the activist community, has done very little to assuage people’s concerns about her previous stances or to demonstrate the level of growth that we would like to see."

"Her trademark pearls have even launched social activist groups, including Facebook’s Wear Pearls on Jan 20th 2021 and United By Pearls, each with hundreds of thousands of members. Kamala’s distinctive style is elegant yet practical, modern yet timeless. Pearls are a key component of Kamala Harris’ style, and they have a long history in politics and power."

"The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates, only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus."

"I do interviews everyday. Everyone who asks gets to interview me. Sometimes I do 10 a day. President Trump also does many interviews. How could the Democrat Party choose a candidate who refuses to do an interview?"

"Harris' record in San Francisco and then as California attorney general, the top law enforcement official in the state, came under close scrutiny during the run-up to the 2020 primary. She has described herself as a "progressive prosecutor" and won her first term as district attorney on a platform opposing capital punishment... Shortly after she took office, Harris announced she would not seek the death penalty against a suspect accused of killing a police officer. On the stump and during her run for Senate in 2016, Harris touted her role in that tough negotiation with the nation's five largest mortgage service firms, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, and her work to strengthen — with mixed results — protections for homeowners targeted by predatory lenders. Harris pulled California out of the 2011 talks during a crucial moment, arguing that the deal coming into sight at the time — hammered out with other state attorneys general — was not strict enough on the banks... During the Democratic presidential primary... The left criticized Harris' record on criminal justice, from her election as district attorney in San Francisco to her time as California's attorney general. Those concerns were amplified after Harris' spectacular entry into the race in January 2019, when her announcement was greeted by an adoring crowd of 20,000 outdoors in Oakland, California. Her campaign would become the most expansively waged by any Black woman in American political history. Decades after Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972, Harris amassed more than $35 million dollars over 11 months, despite the challenges that Black women candidates face raising in money."

"I will just say honestly, I think there is a good chance that you are going to win the nomination … You in a general election fight against Donald Trump would be the funnest thing in the world to cover."

""Medicare-for-all," once widely considered a fringe proposal for providing health care in the U.S., is getting more popular. Several Democratic presidential hopefuls are getting behind the idea.... Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., endorsed the approach Monday...saying her aim would be to eliminate all private insurance. "Who of us has not had that situation, where you've got to wait for approval and the doctor says, well, 'I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this,' " Harris said. "Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on." ...The health insurance industry is already gearing up to oppose any "Medicare-for-all" proposals, according to The Intercept, an investigative news website."

"The Vice President favors pearls for a very specific reason. It is Harris’s consistent show of loyalty to her sorority sisters, the women who have been some of her most vocal supporters throughout her political career, that is perhaps her most obvious—and most endearing—tribute. Harris’s ever-present pearl necklace might seem like a safe bet at her inauguration today, but this particular piece of jewelry is imbued with symbolism. It represents her Howard University sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), the first African American Greek-letter sorority. The founders of AKA are often referred to as the “Twenty Pearls,” and in a show of honor and sisterhood, Harris has worn a pearl necklace at nearly every important life occasion since her graduation from college."

"Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office."

"Kamala Harris is a Black woman: It’s not complicated Kamala Harris could become the first woman to be vice president. And she’s a Black woman. Calling her Black does not erase her Tamil roots. Yes, she’s the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India. Acknowledge the depth of her. Also note Harris has written about her Hindu mother raising her and her sister to be proud, Black women."

"The jewellery has a symbolic meaning for the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris Ahead of the historic occasion, which will mark the first time a woman and a person of colour has been appointed vice president of America, social media users have been posting photographs of themselves wearing pearls, prompting the phrase “wear pearls on inauguration day” to trend"

"She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her."

"The Kamala Harris pearls ode is a nod to Alpha Kappa Alpha, the oldest historically Black sorority in the country, which Harris joined while at Howard University. The sorority’s founders are known as the Twenty Pearls, and Harris wears pearls in solidarity with her sisters."

"Influential Democrats don’t want Biden to retire because they know Harris can’t win in 2024. But he can’t dump her from the reelection campaign, for fear of infuriating what the Times calls "key Democratic constituencies.""

"Harris’s election was supposed to break down barriers. Instead, her legacy may also be to illustrate the folly of identity politics."

"I really don't get into politics, but the President's advisor, Jenna Ellis, just said that Kamala Harris sounds like me. Lisa said she doesn't mean it as a compliment. If that's so, as an ordinary suburban housewife, I am starting to I feel a little disrespected . I teach my children not to namecall, Jenna. I was gonna say I'm pissed off, but I'm afraid they'd bleep.."

"The junior senator from California on Thursday introduced the VoteSafe Act of 2020, a $5 billion piece of legislation that would satisfy what voting experts and advocates estimate states need to enact necessary reforms. Working closely with various secretaries of state, Harris crafted a bill that would standardize early in-person voting periods, mandating that each state have at least a 20-day period ahead of the November 3rd general election. It would also require states to permit no-excuse mail-in absentee voting for this election, allowing any citizen to submit such a ballot, regardless of explanation. The bill would also maintain minimum due process protections for each voter."

"The California senator Kamala Harris, participating in the hearing remotely, argued that Barrett’s positions on key issues were clear... Harris at one point asked Barrett if she had heard Trump’s vows to seat a supreme court justice who would overturn Roe v Wade and the ACA (Affordable Care Act)... Harris also pointed out that Trump nominated Barrett to serve as an appellate judge seven months after Barrett penned an article criticizing Justice John Roberts’ ruling upholding the ACA. Harris argued that showed Trump had been elevating Barrett to overturn the healthcare law."

"This monster that was on stage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night by the way, but this monster, she says no no there won’t be fracking, everything she said is a lie."

"She wouldn’t have any idea what happened. It would be like a grand chess master playing a beginner. We would lose our country or be in World War III. It could be that that would happen, too, because she’d get exasperated. She’s in no way able to handle him. He’s a fierce individual.”"