India, Sept. 19 -- It seems that scarcely a week goes by without Indian Americans becoming targets of abuse. Whether they are attending a football game or building a temple, their place in the US is under increasingly hostile scrutiny. A recent Carnegie report, Indian Americans in a Time of Turbulence, found that, since the start of 2025, nearly half of those polled had frequently encountered racist social-media posts. Some of this harassment no doubt originates from outside the US.

But the animus clearly has a domestic base too. Snide remarks about Usha Vance's family or Vivek Ramaswamy's faith imply that, no matter their accomplishments, they are not truly American. What to make of such claims?

It is a mistake to brush aside nativism ...