Sasha's Story for AAJA 2003

HOST INTRO

INTRO: Dalip Singh Saund (Duh-LEEP Sing Sawnd) came to America to learn how to can mangos. But he ended up as the first Asian American in the U.S. Congress.

TAPE: This is your Congressman, D.S. Saund, reporting from Washington D.C. Recently, the house of Representatives passed the highly controversial minimum wage.. .(fade)

Saund championed civil rights and stronger U.S. ties to Asia. He paved the way for other Asian Americans in Congress – and is inspiring a new generation of South Asian leaders. Sasha Khokha has this profile.

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Dalip Singh Saund’s voice wasn’t a voice most Americans were used to hearing in the 1950s. It was a crisp Indian accent, a name that was easily mispronounced.

TAPE: You’re looking at Dalip Singh Saund, one of America’s truly remarkable citizens. He is the first native to India to sit in the Congress, the first democrat to be elected from his Congressional District. (music up - cross fade under track)

In 1959, Saund was interviewed on television by Senator Harry P. Cain.

TAPE: Host: Can you tell us something of the events about what led up to your truly amazing decision to campaign for Congress?

Saund: I had settled in Imperial County since 1926 as a farmer. I was a PhD in mathematics, but because I could not become a citizen of the United States, I could not find a teaching job. . . (fade)

Saund and other Asians were barred by law from becoming citizens. He had to travel to another county to marry his wife, who was white. Then he had to put the land in her name so he could farm it.

Saund was one of the early Indian pioneers who settled in the Imperial Valley, about two hours east of San Diego.

AMBI – CRICKETS

It’s desert country, flat and hot. It hasn’t changed much in the nearly fifty years since Saund was elected. One side of the road is scrub and gravel, and the other is lush with melons. The Colorado River feeds these fields. Stretches of alfalfa look like Astroturf among the tumbleweeds.

AMBI –TRACTORS

In the height of summer, farmers cut dry alfalfa so it’s ready to bale. Saund grew alfalfa and lettuce on fields like this. It’s tough work, especially when temperatures reach into the hundred and twenties.

But the heat was nothing new to Indian farmers like Saund. They came from the Punjab, a hot and arid part of Northern India.

FADE OUT AMBI HALFWAY UNDER NEXT TRACK

Saund spent long days in the fields. But at night he liked to make speeches. He joined the toastmasters club and gave fiery talks about Gandhi and independence for India. He joined the local Democratic Committee and talked about the need for change in a largely Republican county. Then he started talking about voting rights for Indians. At the time, the small community of South Asians in the U.S. – most of whom were Sikhs - were all called “Hindoos.”

TAPE: One time a man told me, he said, Doc, you’re crazy. How can you expect a bill like that to be passed for the benefit of 2000 poor Hindus? I said I have faith in the American sense of Justice and fair play, and it paid off.

Saund and other Indians convinced Congress to pass a bill granting them the right to vote. Saund was among the very first to register, and to run for public office. His son in law Fred Fisher remembers when voters elected Saund as a county judge in 1952.

FRED: He once told a story on the campaign. When people were making fun of him, Judge are you going to make everybody wear a turban? He said, I don’t care what’s on top of a person’s head, I care what is in inside.

Saund didn’t wear a turban by the time he ran for Congress. But he still faced discrimination. And his opponents capitalized on it.

(FRED: Carl Kegley, in the primary, pronounced his name as Judge Sa-ooond. Trying to make him sound as Alien as possible.)

ELLIE: If you opened up the newspaper, they’d have these big headlines, do you want Hindu Communism or Old Fashioned Americanism?

Ellie Ford is Saund’s daughter. She says her father was up against some tough obstacles in his first election. His opponent was a famous woman pilot, the wife of a multimillionaire. While she flew around the county on campaign stops, Saund dispatched his family door to door. They covered a vast district – 100 miles wide and 200 miles long.

ELLIE: We did a lot of knocking on every door, from morning till night.

SASHA: Do you remember how you felt when you were a college student and he got elected?

ELLIE: I was tired (laughter.)

But worn shoe leather is what put him in Congress. Saund was a farmer and a fertilizer salesman. He knew what was important to his constituents. Farm subsidies. Small business loans. And water.

NORMA: It just was an amazing feat.

Norma Saikhon is the former mayor of El Centro, the Imperial County seat. She still marvels at Saund’s election.

NORMA: This particular county was a very racist county. Even in church we were segregated. In theaters we were segregated.

AMBI – Ellie talking

Ellie Ford has boxes of photographs of her father’s three terms in Congress.

ELLIE: And this is one that was taken with Kennedy and Johnson. They really admired my father, I know that.

And there are more pictures. His prestigious assignment to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Traveling to Asia, where he was greeted as a hero. Saund thought of himself as proof positive that the U.S. was moving away from a deep rooted legacy of discrimination.

A debilitating stroke paralyzed Saund as he began to campaign for a fourth term. He died in 1973.

But to a new generation of South Asian candidates, Saund is an inspiration.

Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria is running for Senate from Illinois. He says that state is ready for someone with turban and a beard – on a Republican ticket.

KATHURIA: What better way to tell America that the Republican party wants to broaden their base than by electing someone who looks like me?

In the fifty years since Saund was elected, there has never been another South Asian in Congress. But over the past year, South Asian leaders have organized events to remember him – and inspire others to run. Candidates say their challenge is to translate the Indian community’s economic success into political power. And to ensure that Saund’s legacy isn’t lost to history.

For The Beat, I’m Sasha Khokha, in Imperial Valley, California.