Indian-Americans again owned the Scripps National Spelling Bee, as Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were declared co-champions Thursday. That makes it eight years in a row that Indian-Americans have won the spelling championship. With co-champions in the past two years, it means that the last 10 champions have all been born to parents of Indian descent.
Make no mistake: Though their names may seem uncommon, and their ancestors didn’t come to the United States on the Mayflower, Shivashankar and Venkatachalam are Americans through and through. They hail from the Great Plains states of Kansas and Missouri. They attend public schools.
Venkatachalam is even a big fan of Cleveland Cavaliers star Lebron James and wore his basketball jersey beneath a dress shirt for the final. Shivashankar’s parents are both software engineers for Booz Allen Hamilton. Her father’s client is Walt Disney Co., while her mother’s client is the Department of Agriculture, according to the Kansas City Star.
If it weren’t for their uncommon names, you’d have little reasons to think the Spelling Bee champions are of Indian descent.
Indian-American dominance of the Spelling Bee affirms the value of highly-skilled immigration to our economy. The world’s best and brightest, regardless of where they were born, should be welcomed into our workplaces.
The Spelling Bee’s media guide doesn’t state whether Shivashankar and Venkatachalam, or their parents, are foreign-born. Even if they’re not, there are many like them who are.
Only the most extreme immigration restrictionists would argue that immigrants with the technical skills of software engineers should be barred from working in the U.S. These workers go on to raise some of the smartest students in the country. They also pay taxes, and their highly-productive work creates jobs for others, including native-born Americans.
“Scherenschnitte” and “nunatak” are the words Shivashankar and Venkatachalam spelled to secure their co-championship, respectively. Having the ability to spell these words, and others like them, might seem useless to the average English-speaker. Still, their success in the Spelling Bee shows a solid understanding of the English language, fantastic memory skills and unbelievable work ethic. Venkatachalam’s Lebron James fandom even shows how well-assimilated he is into American culture.
One-fifth of the spellers at the final event were of Indian descent. It’s likely that every single one will get into a great college and contribute to the economy. Rather than lament how long it’s been since a white student won the Spelling Bee, we should applaud the winners’ success and be thankful that their immigrant ascendants brought their talents and work ethic to the U.S. economy.
