The Other One Percent: Indians in America

Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series
Sanjoy Chakravorty & Devesh Kapur
Kirkland & Ellis, LLP
51st Floor Conference Center
601 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Co-Authors:
Sanjoy Chakravorty, Professor of Geography & Urban Studies, Temple University
Devesh Kapur, Director, Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI)

Moderator:
Nikhil Deogun, Editor-in-Chief & SVP, CNBC Business News

The Other One Percent: Indians in America
Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, Nirvikar Singh
Oxford University Press, New York (2016)
People of Indian origin—whether they are Indian-born or American-born—make up about 1% of the U.S. population. While there are several anecdotal and journalistic accounts of Indians in America as well as scholarly studies on specific sub-groups of the population, The Other One Percent is the first data-driven comprehensive account of the community. The book focuses on three major issues: Selection—the processes by which people from a poor, developing nation have become the highest-income and most-educated group in the most advanced nation; Assimilation—the multiple pathways and challenges of becoming American while maintaining some aspects of their distinctive identities while shedding others, for both the first and the second generation; and Entrepreneurship—the narratives and niches of archetypal American success, from motels to medicine and finance to technology. Analytical yet with a keen eye for the telling anecdote, critical yet empathetic, and enriched by insights from different academic disciplines, the study looks at the entire community, ranging from its successful and very visible to its marginal and almost invisible members.

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.