Indian-American kids win 8th straight Spelling Bee in a row despite racist slurs
We, the Indian-Americans, are just 1% of the whole US population. Yet officially, we own nearly 50% of all motels in the US (could be more!). We are the most educated in the country out of all the ethnicities – 71% have Bachelors or higher as per 2010 census. As per the latest figures from the 2013 census which came out recently, the median household income for Indian-Americans is now $100,547! Compare that to the median for Asian Americans as a whole which is $72,472 and the National median – $51,000!
But nothing compares to how the Indian-Americans have dominated the National Spelling Bee contest! Indian kids have won – with the latest 2015 contest – Eight Straight years and 12 out of the last 16 contests! Now, that is called complete dominance. Yes, Vanya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, and Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, of Chesterfield, Missouri have been declared joint champions this year – 2015. Vanya’s word was scherenschnitte while Gokul’s word was nunatak.
Vanya’s elder sister Kavya, won in 2009! And, so Vanya and Kavya’s Dad is now calling himself the “Beefather”.
Mirle Shivashankar, first father whose daughters both won the Spelling Bee, breaks out AMAZING SHIRT pic.twitter.com/9aozlWnYkx
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 29, 2015
And with that, like in any other area, the American racism kicks in. Last year, many came out with racist rants on twitter against Indians and the kids who won the Spelling bee. (Source)
Here is the whole story from 2014 – curated on Storify by the journalist Jeff Chu. And, this year, Jeff comes out with another curated version of the racist slurs on twitter via Storify.
A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N, 2015 edition. The sadly annual @Storify collection of noxious #spellingbee tweets. God help America http://t.co/WXZlWnGakB
— Jeff Chu 朱天慧 (@jeffchu) May 29, 2015
Apparently, the US born American kids of Indian parentage aren’t American enough!
Meanwhile here is the list of the Spelling Bee winners and the Indian-Americans who have won almost every-year.
