Having excelled in almost every field, Indian-Americans are now preparing to flex their muscles in the US politics, the area where they continue to be under-represented.
SILICON VALLEY: Having excelled in almost every field, Indian-Americans are now preparing to flex their muscles in the US politics, the area where they continue to be under-represented.
This sentiment was echoed in Silicon Valley, where Indo-American community leaders joined technology experts, venture capitalists, elected officials, aspiring politicians, doctors, academicians and film personalities at the inaugural conference of the Indo-American Council (IAC) on Saturday.
Addressing the conference, Vinod Dham, often referred to as the father of the Intel Pentium, said it was important for the community to get more active in politics and become an important political force to and have a voice at the table.
Congressman Mike Honda, who is also the Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said, "If we don't have a voice in the political arena, our community goes without notice."
With so many successful business leaders, the Indo-American community already had the skills that are important in politics, Honda told a large audience, which included leading Indian entrepreneurs such as Dham, Kanwal Rekhi, Kailash Joshi and Talat Hasan.
Underlining the need for Indo-Americans to get politically active, Steve Westley, the former State Controller of California and one of the founding executives of eBay said, "someone needs to decide whether we continue this tragic policy to limit H1-B visas when we desperately want more technology talent.
"Someone needs to decide whether we continue to allow people to use the Patriot Act to pick out people and decide whether they look American enough. We need more Indo-Americans at the table."
Westley urged the Indo-American community to learn from the Jewish lobby group -- American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) -- and take a leaf out of their book and sponsor Congressional trips to India.
Among other practical tips that he gave to the community were to mentor the younger Indo-American political aspirants; help candidates with fund raising; and create a national database of all Indo-Americans.
The day-long IAC conference included several panel discussions on mainstream American issues that are of particular interest to Indo-Americans, including US-India relations, US-India trade policies, innovation, outsourcing and immigration.
Vinod Dham said that for him the conference was a huge priority as he was at the stage when he was looking to give back meaningfully.
"I can think of nothing more important as a legacy of our generation than helping establish a political voice for our community."
Kanwal Rekhi, one of the IAC trustees, said "we created TiE to encourage our youth to become entrepreneurs. Now, we are creating IAC, a political educational organisation, to encourage our youth to participate in political process and to seek a seat at the table."
Among other speakers at the conference were San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, film actor Kal Penn, Indian-American elected officials' Minnesota state representative Satveer Chaudhary, Iowa state representative Swati Dandekar, Ohio state representative Jay Goyal, Kansas state representative Raj Goyle and Fremont council member Anu Natrajan
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