A fundraiser for the political super PAC, Americans4Hindus (A4H), was held on Sunday, June 4th, at Japra Mahal in Fremont, California.
This PAC (Political Action Committee) was formed with the intention of supporting political candidates who would stand up for the rights of Hindu Americans and represent them at all levels of the US government.
This fundraiser was geared towards funding the reelection campaign of Shri Thanedar (Democrat), a United States Congressman representing Michigan’s 13th Congressional district. Mr. Thanedar has also graciously accepted the invitation to chair the Hindu American caucus.
Addressing the gathering, he praised the accomplishments of Indian Americans and their involvement in the community, “I really appreciate your passion, your activism, to make our nation, make our communities, make our people even better.”
The Congressman regaled the audience with the story of his journey from a small town in the state of Karnataka, India called Belgaum (now Belagavi), near the border with the neighboring state of Maharashtra, to a member of the United States Congress.
A native Marathi speaker – he has even written a book in the language– he also speaks Kannada. Hailing from a large family that fell into financial hardship, he saw coming to the United States as a ticket out of poverty.
At 24 years of age, he had a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and he applied to and got accepted to a PhD program in Chemistry at the University of Akron, Ohio, the academic center best known for polymers.
Virginia:
Many people could relate to Mr. Thanedar‘s struggle in getting his US visa for the first time. He reminisced, “All I had to do was go to the American Embassy. In those days, you had to go and stand in line as early as 5 am. My number got called at 11 o’clock (am).”Unfortunately, his visa application was rejected, leaving him disappointed and in tears. The US Embassy official – her name was Virginia –even tried to console him.
After two more unsuccessful attempts, he got a letter from his professor at the university, stating that Mr. Thanedar’s expertise was needed in the former’s research on electric batteries, thinking that this would help. Unfortunately, it did not.
Miraculously, his fifth attempt was successful. It turns out Virginia was on vacation in the United States at that time! The audience laughed. Ironically, Mr. Thanedar now sits on the Committee on Homeland Security in Congress.
He had to make sacrifices that many immigrants are aware of, such as, not being able to travel to see his aging parents while on a student visa (F1) lest he not be able to re-enter the US.
Career success, setbacks and rising from the ashes:
After completing his PhD, Shri Thanedar soared to new heights in his career in pharmaceutical drug manufacturing. He bought a laboratory for several thousand dollars when the owner was about to retire and turned it into a multimillion-dollar company.
At one point, it was valued at $200 million. Mr. Thanedar wanted to sell a part of his company for $135 million. But, a week before that, Lehmann Brothers collapsed.
Mr. Thanedar recounted, “And imagine, that sale never happened. The private equity that wanted to buy that could not get the finance.”He had a loan of $24 million from the bank to acquire a lot of little companies all over America to build this big structure. “The bank got impatient and saw that they could sell all my assets and recover 100%”, he said.
Prior to this, he had won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award twice.
He moved with his wife and children from Ohio to Ann Arbor, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, a city with a high rate of poverty. He recouped his losses and when he sold his company, he shared $1.5 million from the sale with his employees. He won the Ernst and Young award for the third time.
Shri Thanedar saw that children from poor families in America don’t have access to the same education and opportunities as their richer counterparts. At some point, he realized that he wanted to give back to society, and to the country that gave him so much. Therefore, he made a foray into politics.
As a Congressman, he uses his power to help those who are going through similar struggles as his. Mr. Thanedar elaborated, “I am probably one of the only members of Congress who has gone through this – visas, quotas, and Green Card backlog. And that’s where my passion comes here for. We need a strong immigration reform. There is a lot of different bills that me and my staff are working on currently to make the immigration process more fair, especially the legal immigration process.
He said he was deeply touched by the faith that people had put in him, people who did not look like him or speak like him. The district that he represents has a sizable number of African-Americans. Indian Americans are a small minority.
Dr. Romesh Japra, the host and the Founder of Festival of Globe (https://www.fogsv.org) and this newsweekly, and a leader of the Hindu and Indian American community, said, “We all achieved our American dream, some of us still going through the process, we want to help those who are going through it right now. And our coming generations, they should continue to get these opportunities that the United States of America provides.”
He added, “The first election, right after you come in, there are a lot of sharks out there who think they can grab you because after two or three terms, it becomes very difficult.”
While A4H has endorsed Shri Thanedar, Dr. Japra said endorsements alone would not work and pledged a financial contribution to Mr. Thanedar’s campaign. Americans4Hindus has a Multicandidate PAC through which they can support many candidates.*
One of the speakers was attorney, Jaspreet Singh. Expressing his admiration for Mr. Thanedar and extending his support, Mr. Singh said, “Being a member of Congress in this country, coming from India is a big achievement. We need people like him in the Congress.”
He shared his own background; his father having been a judge in a high court in India. Having gone to school at Wayne State University, Mr. Singh is very well-acquainted with Michigan and has many clients and relatives there.
Explaining how political engagement was important for every community, he shared the story of a Jewish immigrant to the United States who had fled persecution in Europe. A successful man, he lost everything there but managed to rebuild a thriving business in the United States despite a lack of formal education. This gentleman said that they talked about this in synagogues, “Every single Jew child here should go to school, they should become doctors, engineers, or lawyers and we should get involved politically. One mistake that they did – back in Germany, they only made money. They were not politically involved at all.”
Mr. Singh talked about the racist attacks on Sikhs and South Asians after 9/11 and emphasized Hindu-Sikh solidarity.
Suhag Shukla, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), said, “We are a people who are hardworking. Hindu values, or Dharmic values are human values and that’s why we have been able to integrate so well into this country,” she said and emphasized, “This is my country, and this is your country. We are ALL American and we have to not lose sight of that.”
About the controversial SB 403 that seeks to include caste as a protected category against discrimination along with race, gender, and others, she said that everyone has a race and gender and added, “But not everyone has a caste. What caste does is it stereotypes every single one of us in this room.”Ms. Shukla warned about the implications of the bill if passed into law – that it would not just impact people’s interactions with their employees and colleagues but also affect admission into California’s public university system. The Cal State system has recently added caste to its non-discrimination policies.
Mihir Meghani, HAF Co-Founder said, “SB 403, the fact that this bill was introduced without our legislators coming to all of you and saying, ‘What’s your thought about this bill that’s going to impact your community specifically?’ shows exactly what Jaspreet ji said – that we haven’t created a strong enough voice yet despite all the financial success we have.” He added that it was time to put their money towards their well-being and those of future generations in the Hindu American community and that they needed to create institutions and groups, “What’s unique about A4H is that it’s the only Hindu super PAC in this country.”
Meghani is incidentally also from Michigan, having grown up there and graduated from Wayne State University. He lauded Shri Thanedar’s authenticity and down-to-earth nature, just like the state that the Congressman represents. He concluded that if people wanted their representatives to stand with them and work with them, it is important that they also support them.
The afternoon wound up with a delicious lunch organized by Dr. and Mrs. Sunita Japra and generous contributions by attendees.
[*Additional References: google.com, thanedar.house.gov, clerk.house.gov, Wikipedia.org, hinduamerican.org, americans4hindus.org]
Lakshmi Iyer
India Post News Service
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