To former Vice President Mike Pence, he’s “Vih-veck.” To a “Fox and Friends” panelist on Thursday morning, he was “Vee-veck.” And to some Iowa voters, it’s “Vy-vick” — in the event that they mentioned his title in any respect.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur operating for president who has climbed the polls in current weeks, has branded himself as a political newcomer who, regardless of taking part in his first Republican debate Wednesday night time, appeared relaxed bringing the occasion to near-chaos a number of instances as he sparred with the likes of Mr. Pence and Chris Christie, the previous New Jersey governor.
A special hurdle he might face, nevertheless, is getting others to say his title appropriately.
The son of Indian Americans, Mr. Ramaswamy has each leaned into and away from his racial background. He has usually expressed gratitude that his mother and father immigrated to the “greatest nation on Earth,” and on Wednesday, he echoed a line from former President Barack Obama’s speech onstage when he launched himself as a “skinny guy with a funny last name.” (Mr. Ramaswamy has mentioned that “Vivek” rhymes with “cake” and pronounces his final title “Rah-muh-swah-mee.”)
When Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, requested after the controversy why Mr. Ramaswamy hadn’t corrected the mispronunciation sooner, the candidate laughed and mentioned, “I appreciate best efforts.”
Karthick Ramakrishnan, the director of AAPI Data, mentioned that as a result of Mr. Ramaswamy is operating as an “insurgent candidate with radical ideas,” it “wouldn’t make sense for him to start policing, or suggesting how others should be pronouncing his name.” (One of the “10 commandments” in Mr. Ramaswamy’s platform asserts that “reverse racism is racism.”)
“It’s a recognition that different people may be at different stages along the way in terms of even knowing who he is and how to pronounce his name,” Mr. Ramakrishnan mentioned. “He is trying to activate a generational kind of debate and divide in America that needs to be addressed and to move away from racial identity politics.”
Nicole Holliday, a linguistics professor at Pomona College, attributed the battle for some to pronounce names appropriately to quite a lot of elements, together with a sentiment that “English speakers in general expect to be accommodated everywhere in the world” and an absence of international language coaching within the United States from an early age.
Past presidential candidates from various racial backgrounds have confronted racist insults associated to their names. In 2020, David Perdue, then a senator from Georgia, confronted a backlash after he appeared to make enjoyable of Kamala Harris’s title at a rally simply earlier than the November election: “Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la, Kamala-mala-mala, I don’t know, whatever.” And some critics of Mr. Obama usually invoked his center title — Hussein — to falsely declare that he was Muslim.
Of the few distinguished South Asians in G.O.P. politics, many have used names pleasant to a less-diverse voter base. Bobby Jindal, the previous Republican governor of Louisiana, modified his title from Piyush to Bobby when he was in highschool. And Nikki Haley, one other Indian American within the 2024 presidential race, has lengthy used Nikki, her center title, as an alternative of her first title, Nimarata.
While the overwhelming majority of Indian Americans are Democrats, a 2020 survey of Indian American voters discovered that nearly 60 p.c mentioned they might be open to supporting an Indian American candidate “regardless of their party affiliation.”
Mr. Ramaswamy’s title mispronunciations are all too acquainted for South Asian Americans, mentioned Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor at Pomona College. But, she famous, the acknowledgment of such mispronunciations by Mr. Hannity and others might level to a “slow recognition” amongst Republicans that “not only do we need to diversify, but we’ll have to be respectful to some extent of the folks who we’re able to bring to the table.”
Beyond his title, Mr. Ramaswamy might “hit a ceiling” because of his Hindu religion, predicted Mr. Ramakrishnan, the AAPI Data founder.
On Wednesday, the conservative commentator Ann Coulter made a remark largely condemned as racist, on X, the location previously generally known as Twitter, that “Nikki and Vivek are involved in some Hindu business, it seems. Not our fight.” (Ms. Haley was raised Sikh however later transformed to Christianity.)
“Ann can tweet whatever she wants to,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy marketing campaign, mentioned of the remark. “Vivek has traveled this country and is very grateful for the warm support he has received from Christian voters across the country.”
Source: www.nytimes.com