Let’s Dream Big

Pia Nargundkar

When I was 13 years old, I won an essay contest sponsored by Comcast for AAPI Heritage Month. I got to film a commercial where I talked about my admiration for Patsy Mink, the first Asian American woman to serve in Congress, and where I voiced my dream to one day be the first Indian American U.S. Senator. 

Fourteen years later, Kamala Harris beat me to the punch. 

Of course, I was thrilled to see Harris get elected as U.S. Senator, then Vice President, and hopefully in a couple months, the first Indian American President in U.S. history. 

A Harris presidency excites me not just for the barriers it will break, but because it means as a nation we will have chosen joy over hate, progress over destruction, neighborliness over narcissism. 

Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy also had a chance to break barriers this election cycle, but their candidacies dismayed rather than inspired me. Instead of choosing the better but harder path of building a more welcoming America, they chose the well-worn path of scapegoating groups like the LGBTQ community and undocumented immigrants in their attempt to gain power.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has spent her career fighting for all families, from her time as a prosecutor specializing in child sexual assault cases to her time as Vice President where she worked to improve elder care and lower the cost of child care.

As President, Kamala Harris will work to address the issues that many South Asian Americans, and Americans at large, care deeply about – protecting our reproductive rights, reducing the horrors of gun violence, and making health care and prescription drugs more affordable. 

But first we have to get to work. In North Carolina, there are an estimated 70,000 South Asian voters in a state where elections are notoriously close. In 2020, Democrat Cheri Beasley lost her statewide race by just 401 votes out of nearly 5.4 million cast. 

South Asian voters can and will be a determining factor in this year’s election. So call up your chitti, drop some voter registration info in the family WhatsApp, and make sure everyone in your circle and community knows what’s at stake this fall.

And then let’s go make some history, so the next generation of girls can dream bigger and brighter than ever before. 

Pia Nargundkar is the Messaging Director at the Raleigh-based Progress North Carolina Action.