Indians facing identity crisis in US under Trump

By Dilip -
 40% of US colleges are seeing a decline in applications from international students. The largest drop reported was from India and China, who together made up 47% of the international students in the country in 2016.

A college student has shaved off his beard. A techie with a work visa is afraid he’ll never get another job. A young woman says she will never see Republicans the same way. It’s a confusing time for Indians in America. And while there is support within their neighbourhoods, and often outrage against the ‘tell them to go home’ attitudes surfacing in pockets of the country, the sense of being different, of standing out from the crowd, has become heightened since the start of the Trump administration.

Take Sushovan Sircar, a student at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He used to sport a luxuriant beard that completed his hipster look. Last month, the 28-year-old student of cybersecurity policy decided to shave. “I have become acutely aware of my skin colour in the last few months, after the rise of alleged hate crimes against Indians and Indians mistaken for ‘Arabs’,” he says. “The last two months have seen three violent attacks against people of Indian origin in Kansas city, Kent and South Carolina, which resulted in two deaths. I didn’t want to stand out any more than I already do, and my family back home has been worried too. So I shaved off my beard, and the absurdity of this fear is saddening,” he adds.

Trump denounces Kansas shooting in first address to joint session of Congress
Sikh man shot at in US, masked attacker shouted ‘go back to your country’

Development professional Apala Guhathakurta, 24, describes New York as a “safe bubble”. “The most notable change for me is that, anyone new I meet or make eye contact with, at parties, in the street, on the subway, I wonder who they voted for. I wonder if they think I don’t belong, that I should ‘go back to where I came from’,” says Guhathakurta, who moved to the US with her family at the age of 6... read more:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/i-wonder-who-they-voted-for-indians-facing-identity-crisis-in-us-under-trump/story-YM3yGRow8pNazHwDLYyx6K.html

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