India, Nov. 12 -- Amish Shah, a physician and former Arizona state legislator, is set to join Congress in January after flipping Arizona's 1st congressional district, one of the most closely watched races of the US midterm elections. The son of an Indian immigrant mother who came to the US to study in 1969, Shah will be among the six Indian American members of the House of Representatives. Speaking to HT on the sidelines of a press conference in Washington, Shah discussed his family's journey to America, the rise in anti-Indian sentiment, and the future of US-India ties.

It was the late 1950s, in Zaveri Bazaar in Bombay. A man named Mark Howard, a retired judge from Michigan, was wandering around. This was before cell phones. It was a ho...