Indian-Americans in the Media

Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling (newnownext.com).

When I was growing up in the 90’s, I can remember seeing only two people who looked like me on TV or in movies: Apu from The Simpsons and Princess Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin. The only non-cartoon South Asian actor I vaguely remember is Babu from Seinfeld (“You are a very bad man, Jerry Seinfeld!”). But Babu and Apu were caricatures of Indian and other South Asian immigrants living in the US. Although there’s still more work to be done in representing diversity in media in the US, some progress has been made in depictions of Indian immigrants and Indian-Americans living in the US in TV and film.