Indian-Americans regularly encounter discrimination: Survey

Washington, June 9

Indian-Americans, who constitute the second-largest immigrant group in the US, regularly encounter discrimination and polarisation, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The report, ‘Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results from the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey’, draws on the Indian-American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), a collaboration between the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and the University of Pennsylvania.

The findings of the report are based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,200 Indian-American residents in the US conducted between September 1 and 20, 2020, in partnership with the research and analytics firm YouGov, it said in a statement.

“Indian-Americans regularly encounter discrimination. One in two Indian Americans reports being discriminated against in the past one year, with discrimination based on skin colour identified as the most common form of bias.

“Somewhat surprisingly, Indian-Americans born in the United States are much more likely to report being victims of discrimination than their foreign-born counterparts,” said the report.

According to the report, Indian-Americans exhibit very high rates of marriage within their community.

While eight out of 10 respondents have a spouse or partner of Indian-origin, US-born Indian-Americans are four times more likely to have a spouse or partner who is of Indian-origin but was born in the United States.

The survey found that religion plays a central role in the lives of Indian-Americans but religious practice varies. PTI