Zachary Roman, Contributing Writer
What does America look like to you? What should it look like? As our country becomes more divided by the day, as we barrel toward midterms that will soon feel like life or death, as the polarization of our politics continues to strain our democracy, these questions become more crucial to ask. If we as a country do not agree on the answers, how can we ever be united again?
Last week, the University of Texas beat Ohio State in what was one of the most electrifying football games of the season thus far. UT’s social media page posted a photo of students celebrating the win in the stands and some of the most shocking, vile and infuriating discourse I have ever seen came out of it.
Bo French, a Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, retweeted the photo with the caption “I heard UT’s graduation looked like this last year. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now far worse than any of us could’ve possibly imagined.”
The “problem” he is referring to is brown people.
The photo from UT’s social media page featured mostly Indian-American students. They were wearing UT merch, celebrating the comeback win and screaming their heads off because that is what you do at a college football game.
This was Americans being Americans — nothing more.
UT is a public, state university with 89% in-state students. Only 9% are international students who are not citizens of the United States. These Indian-American students are exactly that — American.
French has since doubled down on these comments. He went on a radio show the Monday after the game and said statements like, “I didn’t know the game was played in India,” and “I didn’t know we were watching a cricket match,” and “The America we grew up in no longer exists.”
We hear over and over again from the right: “It’s not about race — these immigrants need to assimilate. They need to adopt Western culture and customs.”
Well, here you go. You got what you wanted. Second-generation immigrants, who were born and raised in Texas, doing “American” things, wearing the “right” clothes, speaking the “right” language, even cheering for and celebrating the “right” sports teams. Yet, MAGA is still complaining. They still somehow have a problem with this.
That is because it is not, has not and never will be about assimilation. It has always been about race.
I want to be clear here: not everyone on the right is a “white replacement” nutjob. That is a smaller, yet growing, sect of the MAGA movement that is louder than the rest. Maybe I am being naive but I would like to believe that we do not live in a country where the 77 million people that voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election believe that.
With that said, the current talking points from MAGA about immigrants are some of the most racist conversations that I have ever seen. The islamaphobia these people spread makes my stomach churn. When Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, ate rice with his hands (God forbid we eat things with our hands,) conservative spokesperson Charlie Kirk literally threw a tantrum about it. The constant fear-mongering over “Sharia law” when their own Christian Nationalists do not even want women to interact with each other without supervision or live for long periods of time without a man, is ridiculous.
When I went online trying to voice my opinion in comment sections, I was called some of the most offensive, racist things I have ever been called. Never in my life have I had my “Americanness” questioned just because I have an immigrant mother from India.
I was told to “go back to my country,” that I was a “Dalit” (the lowest rank in the Hindu caste system) and that I would always be only a “Dalit” to them. I am often in political spaces, especially online and this obviously creates strong emotions. However, I have never been more enraged, offended and disgusted by how these people treated me purely because my mom was born in a different country.
My mother was born in India and lived in Lagos, Nigeria for most of her adolescence. She met my American father in her early 20s and they started their married lives with almost nothing. My mother’s first job in this country was waitressing at Pizza Hut. She and my father put themselves through undergraduate school while working full time. She then went to a top 25 business school in the country, graduating second in her class (the first in her class was an Indian man).
She is now the CEO of her own company and she and my father have built the most textbook definition of the “American dream.” My mother has been an American citizen for longer than she has not. She has contributed more to this country economically than most Americans do in their entire lives. To call her or her children “non-American” is an insult to the very foundations of this country.
Immigrants come to this country, work hard, pay their taxes, contribute to our economy and gain their citizenship, only for our country’s thank you to be disrespecting them, their families and their culture.
According to the Pew Research Center, immigrants are just as likely to graduate with a bachelor’s degree as American-born citizens. Over 30 million immigrants are in the workforce and 52% of immigrants in this country are proficient in English, with 72% and 75% from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, respectively.
Second-generation immigrants often match or exceed the educational prowess of third (or more) generation immigrants. Forty percent of all Fortune 500 companies have a founder who was an immigrant or was the child of one. Immigrants are also more likely to become entrepreneurs, according to NBC News.
To speak directly to those previously mentioned “white replacement nutjobs”: If you are worried about being “replaced,” then do not be replaceable.
Two-thirds of the U.S. population that are considered illiterate are made up of U.S. born citizens, with white people making up the largest percentage of illiterate individuals, according to the National Center For Education Statistics.
No one is stealing your spots in universities or in the workforce. Those Indian-American students at UT earned those positions. They were not “stolen” from anyone. UT will automatically accept the top 5% of Texas high school graduates beginning in 2027, according to the Texas Education Agency.
These students were most likely the best of the best in Texas. They were the most qualified and deserving of these spots, so they got them. If there are white people who feel that those spots were “stolen” from them, maybe they should have been more qualified. Maybe they should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and work harder. Maybe they should do what immigrants do and then they would get the jobs they think are owed to them.