The 2024 US Presidential election marks another milestone in Indo-US relations, with Usha Chilukuri Vance, wife of Vice President-elect JD Vance, bringing Telugu heritage to the White House. As an observer who has watched Indo-US relations evolve since the 1960s, this political development carries particular weight.
The Telugu-American population has seen remarkable growth, quadrupling to 1.23 million over eight years. Telugu now ranks as the 11th most-spoken foreign language and third most-spoken Indian language in the US. California leads with approximately 200,000 Telugu speakers, followed by Texas and New Jersey.
In Vadluru village of Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, where Usha’s family has roots, residents celebrated the Trump-Vance victory with traditional prayers. “We feel happy,” said Srinivasa Raju, 53, a Vadluru resident. “We support Trump.” Hindu priest Appaji, 43, expressed hopes for village development: “We expect her to help our village. If she can recognize her roots and do something good for this village, then that would be great.”
The political demographics show intriguing shifts. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace survey reveals Indian-American Democratic Party identification dropped from 66% in 2020 to 57% in 2024. Republican identification rose from 18% to 27%. Presidential preference shifted from 68% supporting Biden in 2020 to 60% favoring Harris in 2024, while Trump’s support increased from 22% to 31%.
Usha Vance’s professional credentials merit attention. A Yale Law School graduate, she worked at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in San Francisco and Washington DC (2015-2017) before clerking for the US Supreme Court in 2018. She returned to the firm in January 2019. Her partnership with JD Vance began at Yale, where they organized discussions on “social decline in white America,” as reported by The New York Times.
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The Indian-American population growth statistics tell their own story. US Census data shows Indians became the second-largest Asian ethnicity, growing 50% to nearly 4.4 million in the decade to 2020. This demographic shift parallels increasing political representation.
JD Vance’s political evolution warrants examination. The 40-year-old Ohio senator, who will become the third-youngest vice president, transformed from Trump critic to supporter. As Joel Goldstein, emeritus professor at St. Louis University School of Law notes, Vance’s position represents “one of the most indebted vice presidents to a sitting president in recent memory.”
The contrasting celebrations in two Indian villages exemplify the complex Indo-US political dynamic. While Vadluru celebrated the Republican victory, Tamil Nadu’s Thulasendrapuram, ancestral home of Kamala Harris’s grandfather, maintained its Democratic allegiance.
Usha Vance, a practicing Hindu who studied at Yale and Cambridge Universities, married JD Vance in Kentucky in 2014. They have three children. Her father, Chilukuri Radhakrishnan, a PhD holder from Chennai, exemplifies the first-generation immigrant journey that many Indians undertook.
The political implications extend beyond symbolism. The increasing Telugu presence in US politics reflects broader changes in Indian-American political participation. As Venkata Ramanayy, 70, observed, “Every Indian — not just myself, every Indian — we feel proud of Usha, because she is of Indian origin.”
