Mar 02 2009
The politician formerly known as Piyush
60 Minutes did a great profile of Bobby Jindal last night. I didn’t know much about Jindal, except that he went to Brown and shouldn’t be allowed near a television camera following a speech by Barack Obama so it was pretty informative. What struck me the most was the length that Jindal has gone to Americanize himself, or appear more American to others.
Jindal speaks in ridiculously folksy, almost contrived southern accent. During or right after high school, he converted from Hinduism to Catholicism, and changed his name to Bobby from Piyush. Why Bobby? Bobby was his favorite character on the Brady Bunch. (It doesn’t get more American than that, right?) In a way, it’s hard to blame a guy with political aspirations for trying to engineer a more palatable story for his prospective electorate. But at the same time, it seems outdated in the age of President Barack Hussein Obama. And to do it to Jindal’s degree is almost pathological.
At one point in the piece, Morley Safer asks Jindal and his wife which Indian traditions, if any, they still kept. They couldn’t name one. They’re Lousianans, they said after an akward pause.
Since when is being a Lousianan or an American mutually exclusive with someone’s Indian heritage? While the reality on the ground has been quite different, the promise of America is that there is no orthodoxy for political or private life. That one can still keep the traditions of his ancestors, regardless of how exotice they might seem to others, and still be as American as the next guy. Chomping down one a juicy burger or talking a goofy southern accent doesn’t make you any more American.
Again, I can’t really blame the guy. I just don’t know what the political realities of Lousiana are. But it is weirdly tragic that he felt he had to reinvent himself so drastically, and in many ways so arbitrarily.
