Haley: Be tough, not disrespectful

New York, November 11

Nikki Haley, the first and only Indian-American to attain the status of a member of the US cabinet, has shared a piece of advice from her mother that propelled the child of Sikh immigrants to the high office: “Your job is not to show them how you’re different. Your job is to show them how you’re similar.”

She recounted to a TV interviewer on Sunday that in the small town of Bamberg in South Carolina where her mother wore a sari and her father a turban, she would get teased in the playground.

But when she got home, her mother’s advice was to stress the positives of her being an American.

Overcoming all odds, she became the Governor of her state in the southern part of the US, where there was deep-rooted racism, and went on to the cabinet.

She achieved these as a member of the Republican Party that is often criticised as being conservative and hostile to non-whites, women and immigrants.

The difference between the attitude ingrained by her Sikh family and that of some others of immigrant background surfaced when she was asked for her reaction to President Donald Trump telling four Congresswomen, who were immigrants or children of immigrants and critical of the US, to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

While conceding the President’s taunt was inappropriate, Haley said: “But I also can appreciate where he was coming from, from the standpoint of, don’t bash America over and over and over again and not do something to try and fix it.”

She told the interviewer: “I think that, you know, you have to be tough. But I don’t think you have to be disrespectful.” — IANS