Neil Patel and Jay Chaudhuri talk about their backgrounds and current roles in government

WASHINGTON : The Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA) kicked off its Summer Speakers Series on June 26, by hosting an evening with Neil Patel, staff secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney, and Jay Chaudhuri, special counsel to the North Carolina attorney general.

An audience of about 50 people gathered to hear Patel and Chaudhuri discuss their respective backgrounds and their current roles in government.

Kapil Sharma moderated the informative session, and after each speaker’s presentation, questions were taken from the audience.

Ram Uppuluri, a former candidate for Congress who ran in 1994, surprised Chaudhuri, who had worked on his campaign, by showing up with vintage campaign literature Chaudhuri had created. Uppuluri’s presence added an element of the unexpected to what was already an exciting evening, and many in the audience took the opportunity to pose questions to him as well. Chaudhuri expressed pleasure that his former boss had attended the event to support him.

Chaudhuri commenced his remarks with a pitch to work for state governments, as a reminder that opportunities for political involvement exist outside the Beltway.

He also discussed his experiences working for the Uppuluri campaign by emphasizing that he was selected to represent the campaign because of his strengths, and not by virtue of his ethnicity. Chaudhuri then pointed out that Indian-American candidates face a distinct challenge when adding other Indian Americans to their staff because it may seem that there are “too many” of them.

Chaudhuri also discussed being an Indian American in the South and took questions regarding whether he had ever experienced bias because of it. This led to an interesting dialogue about Indian names and the American political world, and the difficulties that can occur when the two intersect. Neil Patel, the evening’s other featured speaker, began his remarks by acknowledging the heavy turnout of interns in the audience. He then discussed his role at the White House and what it is like to be an Indian American in a Republican administration.

The audience listened attentively as he pointed out that he does not work on foreign policy, and that, in fact, there is someone else in the White House who focuses on India and speaks better Hindi than he does.

He then went on to make the critical distinction between being ethnically Indian American and considering his ethnicity a part of his duties. “I’m Indian, but being Indian is not my job,” said Patel.

One of the more memorable moments of the evening occurred when an intern in the audience asked Patel to compare the Indian-American community to the Jewish lobby, and he responded by pointing out that Jewish Americans organized around one unifying cause —Israel. Patel returned a question to the intern by asking, “Tell me what our one issue is?”

The exchange of ideas continued until moderator Sharma reluctantly ended the evening, but it was clear that many members of the audience were still interested in learning more from the three accomplished community leaders.

Even after the program formally concluded, clusters of people surrounded Uppuluri, Patel and Chaudhuri for additional information.

The next event in IACPA’s Summer Speakers Series was scheduled for July 10, when Neera Tandon of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was to address the community. For more information, contact the Indian American Center for Political Awareness at .