US Vice President JD Vance recently appeared on British entrepreneur and podcaster Steven Bartlett’s podcast Diary of a CEO. While talking about his family, the VP touched upon an anecdote from his personal life, revealing his mother’s reaction upon knowing about Usha. Talking to Bartlett, Vance said that his greatest regret is that his grandmother, whom he called Mamaw, never had the chance to meet his wife, Usha. “My biggest regret with Mamaw is just that she never met Usha,” Vance said. “There’s something so similar about them, but so different.”He revealed he thought of both women as intelligent, outspoken and strong-willed despite coming from vastly different backgrounds. He added that his Mamaw and Usha had a striking similarity, their bluntness. “Usha just doesn’t have a filter,” Vance said. “It’s one of the things I was immediately attracted to about her, that even if she was going to offend you, she was going to say exactly what was on her mind.”Vance said his mother, grandmother and wife came from very different worlds, yet he believes they shared many similar qualities and would have formed a close bond. “They came from very different worlds, both mom and Usha, but also Mamaw and Usha,” he said. “I really wish those two people could have met because they’re amazing people.”He also recalled a question his mother once asked about Usha. “She said, ‘What is she like ethnically?’ And I said, ‘Mom, she’s Indian.’ And my mom says, ‘Which tribe?’” Vance laughed as he went on to say how unfamiliar his family was with cultures outside their own.
A deeper context
In his 2016 book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, Vance revealed that he was brought up in rural Appalachia. Whereas Usha was born in California to Indian immigrant parents who had relocated to the country from Andhra Pradesh around four decades ago.While one would believe the question of a tribe to be insulting, it is vital to know that the word “Indian” carries different meanings. It is used to refer to both people from India and native Indians of America, many of whom belong to different tribes. In fact, Native Americans are historically, and sometimes colloquially, referred to as ‘Red Indians’. Vance’s mother may have assumed that he was talking about native Americans.While Vance admitted that his family initially knew very little about different cultures, it did not stop his mother and relatives from embracing Usha wholeheartedly eventually. Currently, the second couple of the states is all set to welcome their fourth child after 12 years of marriage.
