The loudest I’ve ever heard my dad be in my entire life was when the Denver Broncos won their first Super Bowl ever. It was January 1998, and the John Elway-led team beat the Green Bay Packers, leading to screams and happy yelps outside on the balcony, as revelers celebrated on the streets.
More than any other sport, American football culture was inherently a part of growing up Indian American for me. (Honestly, I still don’t even know cricket rules.) I can still taste the stinging spiciness of the queso that one Denver uncle would make every year for Super Bowl parties with other Indian American families. Every year, my family’s text chain blows up about funny Super Bowl ads or the halftime performance. I basically maxed my credit card hosting a 2016 Super Bowl watch party when the Broncos beat the Panthers. I have lost Fantasy Football brackets more times than I care to admit. And by that, I mean every time.
So at first glance, when a photo of young college students celebrating at a University of Texas at Austin football game goes viral, it’s a familiar and happy sight. Fellow Brown kids enjoying an American football game.
But as you may have heard, that photo went viral in September after a candidate running for the Texas Railroad Commissioner tweeted the picture and wrote: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
It goes without saying that “problem” was meant to not just be a dog whistle but loud, inflammatory racist rhetoric. It suggested that one of the most American things isn’t for all Americans. It suggested that holding a beer, donning a jersey and screaming for your team is something not for all of us. That there are too many Brown people around these days — especially in our universities. That photos like that should have a lot less melanin.
Immediately when these things happen, our diaspora communities often turn to pointing out how Silicon Valley and Wall Street are increasingly led by South Asian Americans. How educated we overwhelmingly are. How wealthy our communities are, on average. How this country almost elected a president raised by a Chennai-born scientist. It’s easy to react to this viral photo with humblebrags about South Asian Americans.
But that’s not the point.
Tech and media executive Upasna Gautam, an Austinite herself, framed it eloquently on Threads:
The moment we answer racism with a resume, we risk accepting the premise that our presence requires a justification. Those students didn’t owe anyone an extraordinary achievement that evening. They didn’t need to be future doctors, founders, engineers or people who would someday stand on a stage.
They were allowed to be young people having a good night.
I agree it’s not the most productive to reinforce model minority myths. It’s not the time to justify our existence with Fortune lists, Spelling Bee trophies, and LinkedIn resumes. It goes without saying that we belong here — even as hate speech against us grows in recent years.
The Houston Chronicle recently ran an article with the headline: “From ‘model minority’ to public enemy.” A recent Vox podcast explained this bigger trend of some Americans, particularly on the right, feeling status anxiety about Indian Americans — with similarities to how some may have reacted to Jewish American communities over the years:
It’s not that Indian Americans are necessarily being stereotyped as antisocial, criminal, coming here illegally, so on and so forth. It’s more that they’re being seen as a status threat to a lot of particularly middle-class Americans, people who want their kids to rise to the top of their school, who want their kids to have the corner office. They want their kids to be able to get the most prestigious positions.
So when racist incidents like what happened in Texas blow up, how are South Asian diaspora communities supposed to respond?
It seems like there is no perfect response other than being unapologetic about who we are — from culture to food to ambition to … even football.
Football is one of the most American things. And as Americans, that’s something we can boldly enjoy, too.
I am waiting for the Broncos to win another Super Bowl so I can hear my own family’s screams of joy — loud, proud, and oh so American.
This article was first published on redwhiteandbrown.com
