South Asian socialist identitarian mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani identified as “Black or African American” as well as “Asian” on his college applications, The New York Times has learned via a hack of Columbia University’s application data. Millions of records were leaked.
Mamdani, who was born to parents of Indian descent in Uganda, said he checked the box because the identity boxes on the application weren’t enough to show the breadth and scope of his ethnic and racial composition.
He admitted to the Times that as a high school senior in 2009, he filled out all his forms the same way, including on his application to Columbia University, where his father taught then and is still on the faculty. The data hack was an effort to discover if Columbia still uses a race-based admissions program as they did at the time Mamdani was considering the school.
His Hollywood film director mother Mira Nair has said her son is “a total desi,” a term for South Asians. “He is a total desi,” she said in 2013, “We are not firangs at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan (American) at all. He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian.”
Hellbound and Down 