Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
When I was in middle school, somebody asked me, ‘Does your house smell bad because you are Indian?’ I realized that being Indian didn’t just mean my skin was brown. It was my first experience of a racist taunt.
I began to understand that racist jokes about Indians were becoming commonplace; they were usually followed by laughter, even from people who otherwise considered themselves socially aware. Nowadays, I see so much anti-Indian hate expressed in classrooms and on social media that it feels as though the norms of hiding blatant racism do not apply anymore.
Has this created a sense of normalized hate against Indians in America? Comments about food smelling bad or assumptions that Indian kids are “nerdy” or socially awkward once passed as harmless observations. We rarely questioned such remarks because pushing back was seen as being too sensitive.
Now, mocking comments like this have become so frequent that they may not even be recognized as anti-Indian racism anymore.
This is even more obvious online. Comments on social media pages may likely include a racist jab if there is an Indian in the video – AI videos of Indians making food unhygienically are appearing fairly often in posts. The comment sections refer to ‘Indian’ stereotypes that would be deemed unacceptable if aimed at other ethnic groups, and are liked, shared, and laughed at by viewers.
There were over 44,000 slurs targeted towards South Asians in extremist digital spaces in just May and June of 2024, according to aapiequalityalliance.org. It appears that hate speech against Indian Americans is growing more normalized.
Perhaps one reason is that Indian Americans are perceived as a model minority. On average, they have the highest household income, estimated to be around $150,000 in 2023. Indian Americans dominate the fields of medicine, engineering, and tech compared to their population size.
Do these factors make Indian Americans immune to racist remarks simply because they may be more successful than other American communities? Is anti-Indian hate permissible because they seem to be doing fine?
What makes Indian Americans targets?
“There is definitely a difference in how they are seen in media and politics,” says Talvin Dhingra, a student at Tufts University, even though “Indians aren’t totally seen as different in younger circles.”
Media representation has played a significant role in shaping these viewpoints. On American television and in movies, Indian characters have historically appeared in minor roles or have been cast as racial stereotypes. In Phineas and Ferb, the Baljeet character is a fully fledged ‘nerd’ – good at math, gets great grades, and gives Phineas and Ferb advice when they have an academic question. Apu from The Simpsons is another stereotype – a convenience store owner with an Indian accent, despite being played by Hank Azaria, a white actor.
Portrayals like these don’t just reflect stereotypes; they reinforce them.
When people grow up seeing a particular group repeatedly mocked on screen, it becomes easier to justify mocking them in real life. A 2010 study by the National Communication Association found that television stereotypes influenced viewers’ perceptions. Participants who frequently saw African Americans and Latinos portrayed in stereotypical ways were more likely to associate them with crime and laziness, shaping how they viewed these groups in the real world.
“Overall, the study suggests that television continues to be a dominant socio-cultural agent that influences racial attitudes,” says Srividya Ramasubramanian, author of Television Stereotypes and Affirmative Action. “Because cultural stereotypes are often taken for granted as common sense, viewers might not be conscious of the ways in which they shape their policy opinions.”
For younger Indian Americans, this environment can be especially damaging. Teenagers are already trying to figure out who they are, and casual racism can shape that process in subtle ways.
“I remember not having any Indian role models to look up to in television and the media growing up. It definitely made me somewhat accept that Indian Americans weren’t meant to be ‘popular’ or ‘cool,’” says Kavi Kumar-Warikoo, an Indian American high schooler from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Mental Health Foundation says that racism lowers self-esteem and causes shame, as a result of questioning identity. Some Indian kids grow up feeling embarrassed by their names, their food, or their culture.
“I think when I was younger, I didn’t always realize the meaning behind jokes directed towards my race, but looking back now, it’s obvious that it was because Indian hate is normalized. Even now in high school, you hear jokes and comments about Indians that are just seen as ordinary,” said Kumar-Warikoo.
When racism becomes normalized, it sends the message to young people that certain parts of their identity are acceptable targets for ridicule.
This isn’t to say that Indians experience racism in the same way as every other group, or that all forms of discrimination are identical. Indian racism isn’t something systemic like anti-black racism, but racism doesn’t need to be systemic to be harmful.
Shaping identity
Small comments, like calling Indians smelly, repeated jokes, and constant stereotypes, add up. They shape how people see Indians and how Indians see themselves.
What’s striking is how little public attention this issue has received in the past, but now advocacy groups are noticing and documenting the trend, as are some of the mainstream media. A new survey by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace examines the rising concerns among Indian Americans about discrimination, particularly in the context of recent U.S. policy changes and growing geopolitical uncertainty. Stop AAPI Hate is documenting the rise in anti-Indian sentiment, stating that it has spiked online by 115% in the last two years, while CNN has reported on how racists are now openly targeting Indian Americans
Growing up, these anti-Indian comments didn’t actually make me believe I smelled bad or was only good at math, but they subconsciously played a role in my life. I went out of my way at times to prove that I was like the other kids, playing sports and eating American food. While I didn’t realize it at the time, it made me somewhat reject my Indian identity.
If American society truly believes that racism is unacceptable, that belief has to be applied consistently across every ethnic group. Challenging normalized anti-Indian hate isn’t about demanding special treatment. It’s about asking for the same basic respect that society claims to value.
Real progress means questioning the jokes we’ve grown used to laughing at—and listening when people say they’re hurt, even if we’re not used to hearing it.