Indian village feels proud as Trump achieves victory

Academic high-flyer and successful lawyer Usha Vance, the child of Indian immigrants, is the wife of Trump's vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

While 38-year-old Usha Vance was born and raised in a suburb of San Diego, people in her paternal ancestral village in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh prayed that historical ties would lead to improvements in their country.

“We feel lucky,” said Srinivasa Raju, 53, a resident of Vadluru, a village of whitewashed houses scattered among palm trees more than 13,450 (8,360 miles) from the White House in Washington. “We support Trump.”

The villagers had been praying for a Trump victory, and the Hindu priest Appaji said he hoped Usha Vance would do something in return. “We expect her to help our village,” said the 43-year-old priest, dressed in flowing saffron robes, after lighting a candle for Trump at the idol of the Hindu elephant-headed deity Ganesh. “If she can recognize her roots and do something good for this village, then that would be great.”

“Very good”

Usha Vance's great-grandfather moved from Vadluru and her father Chilukuri Radhakrishnan – a graduate student – grew up in the Indian city of Chennai before studying in the United States.

“Every Indian – not just me, every Indian – we are proud of Usha because she is of Indian origin,” said 70-year-old Venkata Ramanayy. “We hope that it will further develop our village.”

She has never visited the village, but the priest said her father came by three years ago and checked on the condition of the temple. “We have already seen Trump’s governance – very good,” Ramanayy said. “India-US relations have been very good during Trump’s presidency.”

Little is known about Radhakrishnan's first years in the United States, but JD Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy talks about how he came to the country with “nothing.”

Millions of Indians have taken similar journeys to the Chilukuris, and according to the most recent U.S. Census, Indians are the country's second-largest Asian ethnic group, growing 50 percent to 4.8 million in the decade to 2020. Usha, a practicing Hindu who studied at Yale and Cambridge universities, married JD Vance in Kentucky in 2014. They have three children.

'Inspiring'

But the story was different, about 730 kilometers (454 miles) southwest, in Thulasendrapuram, once the home of Kamala Harris' grandfather. TS Anbarasu, 63, said the Democrats' “fight” had encouraged girls to stay in school.

“She inspires this village,” he said. “Every school in the area knows Kamala Harris’ students.” Harris, 60, was born in California but was often taken to India by her mother. “When she comes here, we will treat her like the president of the United States,” Anbarasu said. “We are still proud of her. She is like family to us. When our family members fail, we don’t discriminate against them and treat them as losers, right?”