The United States has not had an ambassador in New Delhi for a little over two years now, from the time Kenneth Juster packed up from Roosevelt House on January 20, 2021, when there was a change of guard at the White House. It is the longest stretch New Delhi has been without a US ambassador.

One hundred years ago, in 1923, the Supreme Court took away American citizenship from an extraordinary man named Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind. A Sikh American, UC Berkeley graduate, Indian independence activist, and American war veteran, Dr. Thind would have his citizenship revoked for the second time by the country he called home. This was all because American naturalization law only allowed “free white persons” and those of African ancestry to become citizens. Indians—and Asians, in general—occupied a gray area. Were they white, Black, or neither?

There are many ways to measure the success of an ethnic group or racial group in immigrant America, and by several metrics, Indian-Americans top the list. From being the best educated cohort (82% of Indian-American adults ages 25-55 are college educated, compared to just 42% of whites), to the wealthiest (median family income $133,130, well above the white median income of $86,400), they are considered a worthy fit for the American Dream.