When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, an Associated Press headline read, “Son of immigrant wins National Spelling Bee,” and the first paragraph noted that the champion “speaks his parents’ native Indian language at home.”
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Those details would hardly be news today, after a quarter-century of Indian American spelling champions, most of them children of parents who came to the United States on student or work visas.
This year’s contest will begin Tuesday at a convention center outside Washington, and, as usual, many of the contenders are of Indian origin, such as Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan Khedkar, Bruhat Soma, and Ishika Varipilli.
According to census data, nearly 70% of U.S.-born Indians arrived in the country after 2000, coinciding with the increase in Indian-origin spelling champions. Before 1999, there were two Indian American winners of the Scripps contest. Of the 34 since then, 28 have been Indian Americans.
The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their spelling champion children illustrate the economic success and cultural impact of the nation’s second-largest immigrant group.
In 2022, there were 3.1 million people born in India living in the U.S., and Indian American households had an average income of $147,000, more than double the average income of all U.S. households, according to census data.
Indians received 74% of approved H-1B visas for specialized occupations in fiscal year 2021, and a record total of nearly 269,000 Indian students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in 2022-23, according to the Institute of International Education.
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