nwasianweekly.com
August 25, 2007

At the India Day celebration, IAWW president Debadutta Dash (left) thanked Murthy Kalkura for coordinating Camp Bharat, a cultural camp attended by 150 Indian American youths this summer.

Indian Americans build foundation for future

Though it’s one of the youngest of all the Asian communities in the Greater Seattle area, the Indian American community has come a long way in the last few years.

The Indian American population has increased rapidly in the last two decades, especially on the Eastside, where Microsoft and dozens of other companies have hired Indians as programmers, engineers, scientists and mathematicians. Some of these employees have gone on to start successful businesses of their own, like Naveen Jain, founder of InfoSpace. They have also started families and contributed to the economy and cultural diversity of the Puget Sound area. The influx of Indians has benefited our region in countless ways.

The exuberant spirit of this growing community was evident at last Saturday’s celebration of India’s Independence Day at the University of Washington’s HUB Auditorium on Aug. 18. About 350 people, both young and old, commemorated the 60th year of democracy in India through music, dancing and a lavish Indian dinner. Implementing democracy in Asia is no small feat; the Indian American community has every reason to fete this milestone.

There are also many successes within the community worth celebrating. The leadership, for one. Individuals like Habib M. Habib and Debadutta Dash value cooperation over grudge-holding, progress over living in the past. They encourage their fellow East Indians to celebrate their culture and history while also reaching out to people of different ethnicities. Habib and Dash know their community has a lot to gain by building bridges with other groups, so they actively work to create and sustain these friendships. The Independence Day program was a result of those efforts; the diverse speakers included Northwest Asian Weekly and Seattle Chinese Post Publisher Assunta Ng and Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman Jr.

Instead of isolating themselves within their own languages and customs, the leaders of the East Indian community have reached out in the hopes that others will follow.

We are impressed with how savvy and sophisticated the Indian American community has become in its relatively short history in this region. It has developed all kinds of connections in government, business, community activism, social services and the arts. Recently, it even organized a summer camp attended by 150 young people — a program important to any community looking ahead to its future.

We applaud the community-building efforts of the Indian American community. Some communities, for whatever reasons, take generations to figure out what they want and how they will get it. We’re glad to see the East Indian community taking advantage of its wealth, education and technical skills to build a strong foundation for the future.

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