Meet the Hindus for Donald Trump
At a convention organized by Indian Americans supporting Trump, movies, politics and Modi are part of the conversation
Of the 13 “Little Indias” in New Jersey, the one that offends Gloria Nisbet most is a 15-minute drive away, on Oak Tree Road in Iselin.
Nisbet is mixed race and reluctantly admits she has a bit of Indian ancestry. She lives in Woodbridge, New Jersey, and visits this particular Little India often. “I have to tell people, ‘Please clean up the place! This is not India!’ They litter, they are pigs!”
Just before this exchange, Nisbet had handed me her card, which featured an American Eagle overlooking her title: Conservative Tea Party Republican. I met Nibset last Saturday, at the “Hindus United Against Terror Charity Concert”. I found her sitting by herself, as if she was sulking, closest to the exit at the large New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center.
“I am here for (Donald) Trump, but I am not excited about all the things that’s going on here, because I am not Hindu,” she said.
Around us, a transient Little India had begun to take shape among the foldable chairs, possibly explaining Nisbet’s mood. “When the British were there (in India), everything was good,” she said. “Why did they grant independence? If India was so good, why are they (Indians) not there? Why are they here?”
The lanky pair of legs attached to 43-year-old South Indian choreographer and actor Prabhu Deva, hired by Hindu nationalists in America as a prop to woo Indians to that convention centre in Edison, New Jersey, had just taken the stage.
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