New York, NY —
South Asian immigrants in New York City are a small part of the city's population..but they are expected to play an outsized role in tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries...especially for Democrats. WNYC's Arun Venugopal asked some South Asian Americans whether they were leaning toward Hillary...or Obama.
REPORTER: About 2 dozen people settle into a bar on the Upper West Side. They're mostly 20 and 30-somethings, of Indian or Pakistani ancestry. Tonight, they're enlisting with South Asians for Obama. The suggested entrance fee is 20 dollars, but there's also a brisk sale of Obama buttons, at 2 dollars a pop. Everything is decidedly grassroots. And that's how one of the organizers, Hrishi Karthikeyan likes it.
KARTHIKEYAN: It's not about who can write the biggest check. It's about inspiring a broad swath of our community to get involved with this campaign.
REPORTER: The event is part of a flurry of fundraisers and outreaches by South Asians for Obama in the days before Super Duper Tuesday. At the other end of the scale was a series of fundraisers last year, organized by Indian Americans for Hillary. The most lavish one was in New York. About 12 hundred people showed up, including Deepak Chopra, and by the end of the night about 2 million dollars was raised.
CLINTON: It is important in this new era in which we live, that the relationship and partnership between India and the United States deepen and strengthen....
REPORTER: The event was organized by Sant Singh Chatwal, a hotel owner who has been aligned with the Clintons since 1991. His son, Vikram Chatwal, is also a Clinton bundler - and when he got married 2 years ago, in Rajasthan, the guest of honor was Bill Clinton. Sant Chatwal says the community is already closing in on his goal of raising 5 million dollars for the Clinton campaign.
CHATWAL: Indian-Americans community over here, is really not an ordinary community. It's one of the richest community. Our per capita is highest, better than Israeli's, Japanese, Korean, Chinese. And we want to also send a message.
REPORTER: There are about 3 and a half million South Asian-Americans -- a little over 1 percent of the U-S population. But because of their wealth, especially among Indian-Americans, their influence is disproportionate to their size. According to exit polls from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, South Asians overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. In the 2006 Congressional elections, 80 to 85 percent of South Asians voted for Democratic candidates, and in Virginia, where Senator George Allen made his infamous macaca remark, it was 95 percent. That was enough for even a small minority to hand the election to the Democratic candidate, Jim Webb, and in turn, hand Senate control to the Democratic party.
Those voting numbers appear to be borne out by fundraising figures. Recently, Little India magazine found 21 Indian-American bundlers - or bigtime political contributors who gather donations from others. Sixteen of those bundlers - and the most ambitious ones - were for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and were committed to raising 50 thousand dollars or more.
All of this is adding up to influence on certain issues. Take outsourcing. In 2004, John Kerry made it central to his platform. And then, suddenly, it became a non-issue. Rajen Anand is a supporter of Hillary Clinton.
ANAND: It was Indian-American influence that made Kerry to tone down his outsourcing rhetoric. No doubt about it.
REPORTER: This time, outsourcing has not become an election issue. But last summer, an aide to Obama caused an uproar by circulating a memo highlighting Clinton's ties to Indian outsourcing groups. The document referred to Clinton as the Democrat from Punjab. Preeta Bansal is the former solicitor general of New York and serves as an advisor to Obama.
BANSAL: What he says is he was madder than he's ever been in his political life at his own operation. He said this could be the end of our campaign. He realized right away how bad it was, how hurtful it was. I mean, he got it.
REPORTER: The issue was smoothed over when Obama quickly reached out to the Indian community, and for most prominent Clinton supporters the memo is no longer an issue. But older, and wealthier members of the community maintain strong support for Hillary Clinton. They say she is a far more seasoned politician who has deep ties to South Asia and understands issues like security.
But both sides say Obama is drawing young South Asians. Many of them say they're not interested in what he can do for the community, and that he represents a break from traditional politics.
One well-known South Asian supporter of Obama is, somewhat improbably, one of the stars of the stoner comedy Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and the TV show House.
Kal Penn's been actively campaigning for Obama on college campuses. He's committed to this campaign because it makes him feel like he's part of something big. Just as his grandparents felt, fighting alongside Mahatma Gandhi.
PENN: My grandfather being thrown in jail, my grandmother marching with her friends. I didn't realize until very late in high school, probably really early in college, the real significance of those stories, [CUT: I sort of always just happened in my mind as the stories your grandparents tell you.] Realizing what those struggles and sacrifices meant to me really resonates in a lot of things Senator Obama has said: Had nobody stood up for anybody in the past he wouldn't have the chance to do what he does now.
REPORTER: The tight primary race may be dividing voters so far. But activists say as the general election approaches, South Asians will put their forces, and money, behind the Democratic candidate, whoever that is. For WNYC, I'm Arun Venugopal.