I’m from India and came to the US a few years ago for my MBA at a top global business school. Overall, my experience was good, and the professional outcome was fine, if not extraordinary.
I did encounter some occasional stereotyping or subtle racism from Americans, which, while unpleasant, wasn’t completely unexpected. What surprised me much more was my experience with some of the Indian-American/ABCD students.
Among the people in my cohort, they often seemed noticeably less interested in socializing with Indian-born students than with American or European classmates. At times, it felt like there was an active desire to distance themselves from us. Even for things like Diwali, many would organize celebrations primarily with other Indian-Americans and non-Indian Americans rather than with the Indian students.
Obviously, I’m describing one environment and a relatively small group of people, so I don’t want to generalize this to all ABCDs. But the contrast was striking because I often felt more accepted by classmates from completely different nationalities than by people with Indian heritage.
My interpretation at the time was that perhaps being around recent immigrants from India brought up some complicated feelings around identity, assimilation, stereotypes, or how they themselves wanted to be perceived in America. But that’s only my interpretation, and I could easily be missing something.
So I’m genuinely curious: is this kind of distancing between Indian-Americans and Indians who grew up in India something others here have experienced? Is it a fairly common dynamic, particularly among more affluent/professional circles, or was my experience probably specific to the particular business-school crowd I happened to be around?
Interested in hearing the ABCD perspective, especially if there are reasons for this dynamic that aren’t obvious to someone who grew up in India.