三年级时，我从韦斯特切斯特的学校回家，告诉父母我想成为犹太人。
In third grade, I came home from school in Westchester and announced to my parents that I wanted to be Jewish.
我的大多数朋友都是犹太人。他们的家庭有学校日历上已有的节日和在社区中根深蒂固的传统。除了我哥哥，我是唯一的祆教徒。我的一本高中教材甚至称该宗教已经灭绝。代课老师总是念错我的名字。多年来，我想改名 — — 不是因为我不喜欢它，而是因为它在我自我介绍之前就先把我介绍给了别人。
Most of my friends were. Their families had holidays the school calendar already knew about and traditions with a settled place in the neighborhood. I was the only Zoroastrian besides my brother. One of my high school textbooks even called the religion extinct. Substitute teachers stumbled over my name. For years I wanted to change it — not because I disliked it, but because it introduced me before I could introduce myself.
父母从未告诉我要同化。他们用行动示范：优秀的学校、专业职业、在美国机构中的成就。这种教导从未明说，这使得它更难以争辩。我得出了一个8岁孩子会得出的结论：如果差异造成摩擦，就减少差异。
My parents never told me to assimilate. They modeled it instead: excellent schools, professional careers, achievement inside American institutions. The instruction was never spoken, which made it harder to argue with. I drew the conclusion an 8-year-old draws: If difference creates friction, reduce the difference.
数据表明，我们的人口群体并不是未能同化，而是同化得太好、成就太高。
The numbers suggest that it is not that our demographic has failed to assimilate, but that we have done so too well and achieved too much.
本周，我在想起那个孩子之后，得知伊利诺伊州奥罗拉的一名19岁男子据称试图在印度教寺庙实施大规模枪击。根据检方的说法，嫌疑人告诉同事，他“等不及要杀死印度人”，但因步枪卡壳而被迫放弃袭击。周四，众议员拉贾·克里希纳莫尔蒂透露，他在枪击未遂期间正在该寺庙祈祷。
I thought about that kid again this week after a 19-year old man allegedly attempted to carry out a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in Aurora, Illinois. According to prosecutors, the suspect told co-workers that he“couldn’t wait to kill Indian people” but had to abandon the attack when his rifle jammed. On Thursday, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi revealed that he was praying at the temple during the attempted shooting.
此次未遂枪击是右翼反南亚偏见日益加剧的最新令人寒心的例子。仇恨组织研究中心的一份最新报告用数据说明了这一难以忽视的现象。研究人员发现，在2025年1月至2026年6月期间，X平台上约有542,000条针对南亚人的仇恨帖子。与2024年1月相比，月均发帖量增长了240%。近一半的帖子将南亚人描述为入侵者、抢走工作的人或人口威胁。
The attempted shooting is the latest chilling example of increasing anti-South Asian bigotry on the right. A recent report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate put numbers to something that has become difficult to miss. Researchers identified roughly 542,000 hateful posts targeting South Asians on X between January 2025 and June 2026. Monthly volume was up 240% since January 2024. Nearly half of the posts portrayed South Asians as invaders, job thieves or a demographic threat.
克里希纳穆尔西众议员抨击特朗普将注意力放在“美国人民所期望之外的优先事项”上 2026年8月9日 数据表明，问题不在于我们的人口群体未能同化，而在于我们同化得太好、取得了太多成就。上月下旬，极具影响力的右翼活动家克里斯·鲁福和极右翼图书出版商乔纳森·基珀曼发布了一期播客，讨论他们所谓的“印度问题”——并主张印度裔美国人无论如何都无法被同化，尽管他们取得了成功。
Rep. Krishnamoorthi slams Trump’s focus ‘on priorities other than what the American people want’ August 9, 2026 The numbers suggest that it is not that our demographic has failed to assimilate, but that we have done so too well and achieved too much. Late last month, hugely influential right-wing activist Chris Rufo and far-right book publisher Jonathan Keeperman published a podcast discussing what they termed “the Indian Question” — and arguing that Indian Americans could never be assimilated despite their successes.
鲁福和基珀曼的讨论源于得克萨斯州铁路委员会共和党提名人博·弗朗西斯的一条仇恨帖子。得克萨斯大学橄榄球队在击败排名第一的俄亥俄州立大学后次日，弗朗西斯发布了一张南亚裔学生在看台上庆祝的图片，他写道：“我听说今年UT的毕业典礼看起来就像这样，”“我不相信。问题显然比任何人想象的都要严重得多。”1965年移民改革开放了国家对技术移民的大门，随之而来的印度裔社区建立了美国精英制度宣称要奖励的那种简历。
Rufo and Keeperman’s discussion was sparked by a hateful post from Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission. The morning after the University of Texas’ football team came back to beat top-ranked Ohio State French posted an image of South Asian students celebrating in the stands“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” he wrote, “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”After the 1965 immigration, reforms opened the country to skilled migration and the desi community that arrived built the sort of résumé that American meritocracy claims to reward.
这些学生正在进行美国生活中最熟悉的仪式之一：戴着牛仔帽观看橄榄球比赛。如果同化真的是问题所在，这张照片就会明确地回答它。但弗朗西斯却把这张图片当作某种入侵的证据。其中一名学生拉胡尔·科达利挥手拒绝了人们为他辩护时给予的赞美——他们说他已经足够同化。
The students were performing one of the most familiar rituals of American life: cowboy hats and a football game. Had assimilation really been the question, the photograph would have answered it definitively. Instead French made the picture evidence of a sort of invasion. One of the students, Rahul Kodali, waved off the compliment he was offered by people rushing to defend him as sufficiently assimilated.
“我去看球是因为我喜欢这支球队，”他说，“不是为了展示某种文化适应。”但弗朗西斯并没有衡量他们的资历并发现他们不足。他只是看到了他们的脸，就止步于此。
“I’m going to the games because I like the team,” he said, not to offer some demonstration of cultural adaptation. But French did not weigh their qualifications and find them lacking. He saw their faces and stopped there.
同化在普通意义上是真实且不值得一提的。人们会吸收一个地方的特质并归属于它。我的家族在几代人中也如此，这造就了我今天的生活。但问题不在于适应本身，而是当适应不再是一个过程，而变成一种试镜 — — 即正确的资历按正确的顺序排列，就能决定一个人的美国身份，而归属感变成了你必须证明的东西，而不是你本来就拥有的东西。
Assimilation in the ordinary sense is real and unremarkable. People take on the texture of a place and belong to it. My family did, across generations, and it built the life I have today. But the trouble is not with adaptation itself, it begins when adaptation stops being a process and becomes an audition — that the right credentials, in the right order, settle the question of Americanness when belonging is something you are made to prove rather than something you have.
得克萨斯州共和党人博·弗伦奇因种族主义帖子遭到反击 2026年9月15日 印度裔户主家庭的中位数家庭收入在2023年达到151,200美元 25岁以上的印度裔美国人中有77%持有学士或更高学位 这种程度的成就承诺了一种交易：足够的资历能够消除外来者的问题；你可以变得如此出色，以至于没人会告诉你你不属于这里。你不能。
Texas Republican Bo French receives backlash over racist post September 15, 2026 Median household income for Indian-headed households reached $151,200 in 2023 77% of Indian Americans over 25 held a bachelor’s or advanced degree Achievement at that level carried the promise of a bargain: that enough credentialing could make the question of foreignness disappear; that you could become too accomplished to be told you did not belong. You cannot.
弗伦奇的反应，鲁福和基珀曼对“印度问题”的严肃对待，右翼对南亚人（包括共和党人）的仇恨浪潮 — — 这一切都证明了这场试镜永远无法通过。这些学生拥有资历。但这毫无意义，因为反对的从来不是缺乏融入。而是他们的肤色。
French’s reaction, Rufo and Keeperman’s serious treatment of “the Indian question,” the waves of hate against south Asians (including Republicans) from the right — all this is the proof that the audition can never be passed. These students had the credentials. It changed nothing, because the objection was never to a lack of fitting in. It was to their skin color.
“特朗普运动”的“核心”部分是“对有色人种的厌恶”：贝尔彻 这就是8岁的我当时无法知道的。他在小事上是对的 — — 熟悉确实能减少摩擦，至少在代课老师或放学后聚会的层面上。他在它能带来什么方面是错的。他认为，只要有足够的熟悉，他是否属于这里的问题最终就会停止被提出 — — 归属感是一种他可以获得并保留的资历。
‘Central’ part of Trump movement is ‘aversion to people of color’: Belcher That is what 8-year-old me could not have known. He was right about the small part — familiarity does reduce friction, at least at the level of the substitute teacher or the after school hangout. He was wrong about what it buys. He believed that with enough of it, the question of whether he belonged would eventually stop being asked — that belonging was a credential he could earn and then keep.
我赢得了这些。我曾就读于四所常春藤盟校。奥斯汀的学生们戴上牛仔帽，为长角牛队呐喊。克里希纳穆尔西当选为国会议员。这些对那些已经决定我们棕色面孔意义的人来说，毫无意义。这些也触及不到那些已经认定印度面孔是需要被解释或消灭对象的人。
So I earned them. I went to four Ivy League schools. The students in Austin donned cowboy hats and screamed for the Longhorns. Krishnamoorthi got elected to Congress. None of it moves anyone who has already decided what our brown faces mean. None of it reaches a person who has already decided that an Indian face is a thing that requires explaining or exterminating.
印度裔美国人被告知，成功就是我们属于这里的证明，但如今，我们的成功越来越被用作我们不属于这里的证明。我想改名字，因为我认为这样能让其他人更容易认出我的归属感。
Indian Americans were told that success was proof we belonged but, increasingly, our success is being used as proof that we don’t. I wanted to change my name because I thought I could make my belonging easier for other people to recognize.
错误不在于我不想融入，而在于我曾相信我的美国身份曾经属于他们来认证。
The mistake was not wanting to fit in. It was believing that my Americanness was ever theirs to certify.
这篇帖子《一次未遂的大规模枪击事件，是对我这样的印度裔美国人的又一声寒意警告》 MS NOW
The post An attempted mass shooting is another chilling message to Indian Americans like me MS NOW