IMPRESSIVE IMMIGRANTS. Dr. Balu Natarajan, right, from Hinsdale,
Illinois, poses for a photograph with his son Atman Balakrishnan, 12, at
the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in this May
29, 2018 file photo. Since 1999, 29 of the last 35 Scripps National
Spelling bee champions were Indian American. And most of those winners
are the offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student
or work visas. The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and
their spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and
cultural impact of the nation’s second-largest immigrant group. (AP
Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Balu Natarajan, an 8th grade student at Jefferson Junior High School
in Woodbridge, Illinois, holds his trophy with the aid of William R.
Burleigh, vice president of Scripps Howard Newspapers, sponsor of the
National Spelling Bee, after he won the competition in Washington, D.C.,
on June 6, 1985. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File)
From The Asian Reporter, V34, #6 (June 3, 2024), pages 11 &
12.
National Spelling Bee reflects the economic success
and cultural impact of immigrants from India
By Ben Nuckols
The Associated Press
When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the
Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, a headline on an Associated Press
article read, "Immigrants’ son wins National Spelling Bee," with the
first paragraph noting the champion "speaks his parents’ native Indian
language at home."
Those details would hardly be newsworthy today after a
quarter-century of Indian American spelling champs, most of them the
offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student or work
visas.
This year’s bee took place during the last week in May at a
convention center outside Washington and, as usual, many of the expected
contenders were Indian American, including Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan
Khedkar, Ishika Varipilli, and Bruhat Soma, the eventual champion.
Nearly 70% of India-born U.S. residents arrived after 2000, according
to census data, and that dovetails with the surge in Indian American
spelling bee champions. There were two Indian American Scripps winners
before 1999. Of the 35 since, 29 have been Indian American, including
three straight years of Indian American co-champions and one year (2019)
when eight champions were declared, seven of Indian ancestry.
The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their
spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and
cultural impact of the nation’s second-largest immigrant group.
As of 2022, there were 3.1 million India-born people living in the
U.S., and Indian American households had a median income of $147,000,
more than twice the median income of all U.S. households, according to
census data. Indian Americans also were more than twice as likely to
have college degrees.
Indians received 74% of the H-1B visas for specialized occupations
approved in fiscal 2021, and a record total of nearly 269,000 students
from India were enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities in 2022-2023,
according to the Institute of International Education.
Those numbers paint a picture of a high-achieving demographic that is
well-suited for success in academic competitions.
Ganesh Dasari, whose daughter and son each made multiple appearances
at the Scripps bee, holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the
University of Cambridge and was recruited to the U.S. to work for
ExxonMobil on an H-1B visa. He quickly obtained a green card.
"Me and my wife, we came from a similar background. We both
benefitted from having the education ... so we put a lot of emphasis on
educating our kids," Dasari said. "We basically introduced them to
anything academic, and a couple of sports, but clearly there was a bias
in our thinking that education is a higher priority than sports."
In his 2016 address to congress, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
mentioned "spelling bee champions" among his country’s contributions to
the U.S. while that year’s co-champs, Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar,
watched from the gallery.
Even among Indian American spellers, a particular subgroup is
overrepresented: families from the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana, where Telugu is the primary language. Hyderabad, the capital
of Telangana, is India’s information-technology hub and the region
supplies many H-1B visa recipients.
"Whenever we go to the spelling bee events, everybody speaks that
language," Dasari said. "We realized there are so many people from the
same state."
Deval Shah, the father of last year’s champion, Dev Shah, grew up in
the northwestern state of Gujarat and proudly noted Dev was the first
spelling bee champion of Gujarati descent. The parents of the 2022
winner, Harini Logan, are from Chennai in the southern Indian state of
Tamil Nadu. Shah is an engineer, his wife is a physician, and both of
Harini’s parents were trained as software engineers.
India-born parents of kids with an affinity for spelling have a
network of similar families to provide guidance and support, as well as
access to organizations like the North South Foundation (NSF), which
offers academic competitions aimed at the Indian diaspora.
"The reason Indian American immigrants really dominate, the main
reason is the North South Foundation," Shah said.
When Harini won her first NSF spelling competition, Ganesh Dasari was
one of the judges, and "he was literally chasing us down" to tell them
"Harini has tremendous potential to be on the national stage," said
Rampriya Logan, Harini’s mother.
Ishika, a 13-year-old from Spring, Texas, who competed at Scripps
this year for the third time, woke her parents at 6:00am the day after
she lost a third-grade classroom spelling bee, saying she wanted to
participate in more bees. Her mother, an IT manager who immigrated to
the U.S. in 2006, then reached out to ask advice from other families
from the Houston area whose children were high-level spellers.
The relative wealth and stability of Indian American households could
lead observers to conclude their children are benefitting primarily from
a privileged upbringing. The truth is more nuanced, said Devesh Kapur, a
professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a
co-author of The Other One Percent: Indians in America.
"It is important to note that the children participating in the
spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant
families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian
American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting," Kapur
said.
Natarajan, a Chicago-based physician and healthcare executive, now
serves as the volunteer president of the NSF, and he experienced the
spelling bee as a parent when his son, Atman Balakrishnan, competed. He
said he sometimes feels out of place because he was born in the U.S. and
he admires the grit of India-born parents and their children.
"It’s hard to describe, but it’s a very specific mindset that just
drives effort and in many ways drives outcomes and sustainable success,"
Natarajan said.
Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012.
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