Negotiating Legitimacy
South Asian Republicans and Strategic Assimilation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17819929 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Madhavi Tandon (0000-0002-2898-7244, University of Colorado Denver, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-26 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2056-6085 • E-ISSN: 2056-6085 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/rep.2026.10067 |
| OpenAlex | W7155488464 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
This study explores how four prominent Indian American Republican leaders: Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kash Patel, and Harmeet Dhillon navigate and represent their ethnic, religious, and immigrant identities within a party shaped by conservative and assimilationist norms, and the strategies they employ to downplay their differences with conservative ideologies while reinforcing their alignment with conservatism. Using Postcolonial Theory and DesiCrit, this qualitative, multiple case study examines their rhetorical and visual strategies, speeches, debates, interviews, news, and imagery. The analysis uncovers patterns of representation and ideological framing that these leaders use to mobilize or erase ethnic and cultural identities. Findings indicate that while these figures project racial diversity, their calibrated performances rarely disrupt dominant power structures, exposing the paradox of representation in conservative politics. This inquiry foregrounds the conditional nature of inclusion and the constraints placed on racialized subjects within systems that remain tethered to normative whiteness and Christian hegemony
Cultural assimilation · Ethnic group · Framing (construction) · Ideology · Immigration · Negotiation · Normative · Rhetorical question · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity
Whiteness as Property
Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma
The Racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in the United States
Toward an Asian American Legal Scholarship
Desis Divided
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education
Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth
The Origins of Ethnic Activism
Immigration and Political Incorporation
Racial microaggressions as a tool for critical race research
On the utility of Asian critical (AsianCrit) theory in the field of education
Byte‐sized nationalism
"A Critique of "Our Constitution Is Color-Blind
Mapping the Margins
South Asians don't count as Asian
From bi-racial to tri-racial
Diversity Matters
The myth of the civic nation
Rethinking 'Acculturation' in Relation to Diasporic Cultures and Postcolonial Identities
How Ethnic Origin Shapes Political Preferences
A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
Not a Metaphor
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |