Usha Vance thinks ‘normalizing Indian hate’ is terrible

Indian American second lady says her highest priority right now is to be actually a normal person

Usha Vance believes that a majority of attacks she and her husband Vice President JD Vance receive stem from her Indian roots and views the talk about ‘normalizing Indian hate’ as “terrible.”

“Do I think it’s great when people talk about ‘normalizing Indian hate’ or something like that? Absolutely not. I think it’s terrible,” the Indian American second lady told The Free Press in a profile published Monday.

But Usha Vance said these racist attacks are nothing new. “I think it’s our relationship to this information”—the technology, the screens, the social media—“that is potentially new.”

READ: 61% Asian Americans feel increased hate toward them: Report (May 8, 2024)

She was asked about recent exchanges between her husband and Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna over Vance favoring rehiring of DOGE staffer Marko Elez who was forced to quit over racist posts like, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and “Normalize Indian hate.”

Usha said she hadn’t seen the back-and-forth between Vance and Khanna in its entirety. “There is nothing that he cares more about than how his children grow up and how he relates to them and how we live together as a family,” she said. “And he is very, very, very concerned, as we both are and I think maybe anyone in our position would be, about how this life impacts them.”

READ: Half of AAPIs experienced race-based hate in 2023: Survey (May 1, 2024)

In her first wide-ranging interview since becoming second lady, Usha Vance said she’s striving for normalcy in her new role. “To me, the highest priority right now is to be actually a normal person,” she said. “Obviously, our lives are not normal, and it feels almost absurd to say that they are.”

“It’s a very strange life that we lead, where there are lots of people who have just imagined all sorts of narratives about us and what we think and what we do and why we do it and how much planning goes into it and all these sorts of things,” she told the publication, when asked what the media “does not understand” about her husband.

The mother of three described the political realm as an isolated place, saying, it “can be a very lonely, lonely world not to share with someone.”

Vance also reflected on her ethnicity compared to some of President Donald Trump’s “blonde” and “nine-inch heels”-sporting supporters.

“I’m laughing,” Vance said, “because it would be really hard for me to be blonde.”

“That color would look totally absurd,” she said. “For what it’s worth, my reception into this world — and I’m not from a particularly wealthy background, not from a very fashion-oriented background personally or professionally — has been really positive,” Vance said.

“People don’t seem to care all that much what I look like.”