I can’t get over how much I have in common with Usha Vance, wife of the Republican vice presidential candidate. We both grew up in Southern California with immigrant Indian parents who came to America in the ‘70s. She could have easily been the kid sister of my best friend, an Indian American woman who grew up in an upper-middle-class suburb of San Diego, minutes away from Usha Vance’s childhood home.
Usha is a name shared by two of my beloved aunts. One a professor, like Usha Vance’s parents, whose name I would marvel to see on the spines of books. Another who didn’t get to finish college, who served love through her special pressed triangle sandwiches brimming with a delicious shaak of curried vegetables.
I can easily conjure a picture of Usha Vance’s childhood, back when she was named Usha Bala Chilukuri. Growing up in a predominantly white suburb, with highly educated Indian immigrant parents, an expectation of academic excellence, her parents passing on their Telugu language, culture and Hindu values through a close-knit Indian community…