Closing out Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with a Note of Hope
Here’s how one USAID Mission Director draws on his heritage and patriotism to lead during challenging times
I came to the United States when I was 3 years old. Without overly dating myself, it was during the height of the Vietnam War.
Our country was in turmoil, very much as it is now during the COVID-19 pandemic, but growing up I saw first-hand the resilience it took to go from the war to the resignation of President Richard Nixon to the oil crisis to the jubilation and celebration of our country’s bicentennial.
My father was an Indian diplomat and I had the incredible opportunity as a “dip kid” going to the White House and meeting Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Ford over Christmas and Easter celebrations. So all that was going on then was very real to me and has been ingrained in my upbringing.
When my father was posted back to India, I stayed there for a few years before succumbing to the pull of the place that had been my childhood home — these United States.
This country has an incredible pull on one’s soul — it’s so much more than being born here. Its history as a land of immigrants, its founding on ideals of freedom enshrined in our Constitution and the opportunities to thrive. These fundamentals go beyond a land but a space that attracts the best among us.
My gratitude to this land and its people and more importantly for what it stands for made me realize that I wanted to pay back. And the only way I knew how was to serve and promote our values and American leadership. Coming from three generations of military service on mine and my wife’s side of the family, I was steeped in the nobility of public service.
When I started at USAID nearly 17 years ago, I was excited to join a national security and foreign service agency that believed that our security and prosperity was tied to the success of other countries. Also, as an immigrant, I was proud to be a member of a Foreign Service that showcased the diversity of our country.
However, there were challenges. One specific example comes to mind. Eight years ago when I was the Senior Development Counselor in a partner country, I was having a working lunch with a senior foreign ministry official along with a U.S. State Department colleague of Korean descent (like me, she was not born in the United States). My foreign counterpart commented on both my colleague’s and my abilities to represent the United States.
His exact words were: “I don’t understand how you two, who are not native born, can represent the United State’s interests without any bias to your countries of origin.” Our first instinct was to wring his neck. But when I saw the sincerity tinged with chauvinism on his face, I decided to go on the offensive and explained the decisions we made and the ideals that our great country stood for.
I was so very proud to be an American — and it showed. When he realized the passion and conviction in my voice, he apologized for asking.
This was not an isolated incident. Many people have a vision of what Americans are that often does not take into account the great traditions of American immigration and how these immigrants have dramatically improved our national security and prosperity. As an Indian American, I can navigate very delicate deliberations. I have infused our American diplomacy with a heavy dose of cross-cultural empathy and understanding that is not easily learned in a classroom, but gained from my heritage. That is something I offer as part of my service to the United States while contributing to the success of American diplomacy.
I have so much to be thankful for as an American, but most of all I am so grateful for the strength of our country’s diversity and that I have the opportunity to serve.
I have now served in most hotspots that USAID has kindly offered to send me, including Afghanistan, South Sudan, Mali, Djibouti, and now Azerbaijan, where I am the Mission Director.
I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to be an American of Indian descent who has the continued opportunity to give back to this wonderful country despite the personal sacrifices I have had to make to serve the greater good. I could not have written a better life story for myself — an Indian that made it in the U.S. and added one more soul to the great diversity that is America.
About the Author
Jay Singh is USAID’s Mission Director in Azerbaijan.
