Bhubaneswar: The US Elections 2024 results popped up the oft-said maxim “British empire Sun never sets” with a twist. The rise of Usha Chilukuri Vance, after the defeat of US VP Kamala Harris, seems to have re-written the maxim as “Indian-American Sun never sets in USA”, as the White House is set to see another history-making vice presidential spouse.
Usha Vance, wife of Ohio Senator JD Vance, who will be the next vice president of USA, is daughter of Indian immigrants, and all set to be the first Indian American second lady in the White House. And above all, she will also be the first Hindu second lady in USA.
At 38, Usha Vance is set to be the youngest second lady after the year 1949, when then-38-year-old Jane Hadley Barkley, wife of former Vice President Alben Barkley, assumed the role.
Vice-President elect JD Vance thanked Usha with the post "Thank you to my beautiful wife for making it possible to do this" on social media on Wednesday.
Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu has also congratulated Usha Vance Wednesday night.
MEET BIBLIOPHILE USHA VANCE
The second youngest second lady of America, Usha C Vance, has been a bibliophile since his childhood days. Her friend circles in college days recall Usha a bookworm. It seems the voracious reader gene runs in her family.
This seems evident when one takes a glance at Usha Vance’s great-aunt, Professor Chilukuri Santhamma, currently inhabits in Visakhapatnam, and is considered world’s oldest active professor at age 96 as she teaches Physics at Centurion University.
Her great aunt is said to be the first woman in India to be awarded a Doctor of Science for Physics. She has authored the book “Bhagvad Gita – The Divine Directive. In 2019, Prof Santhamma co-authored an Article “Application of different methods of factorization envisaged by Jagadguru Sankaracharya Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha Maharaj of Puri Mutt.
During the hectic campaigning days, Usha was giving company to Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance campaigns across Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Colorado and California. And books keep giving company to Usha Vance. As reported in the American press, in the final weeks of the campaign, she was seen travelling with the book “The Iliad” authored by epical Greek blind poet Homer.
Speaking to NBC News over phone on the choice of book “The Iliad”, Usha said, “That's because our now 7-year-old son decided that he was obsessed with mythology, he picked up a child’s version of ‘The Odyssey’ and then ‘The Iliad’, and became completely obsessed. So to keep up with him, I decided it was time to pick ‘The Iliad’ up myself.”
American journalists call Ms Vance a voracious book reader, as they spotted Usha on Florida airport tarmac in late September reading the book “Cloud Cuckoo Land” authored by Anthony Doerr.
USHA C VANCE ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER
Usha studied history at Yale University, followed by a stint at the University of Cambridge for a master of philosophy degree in early-modern history. She had a degree from Yale Law School. She clerked to the Chief Justice of US Supreme Court. Later she joined a major corporate law firm, which she called it quit after JD Vance nominated for the VP by Donald Trump..
As per reports, she also taught English in China as part of a Yale fellowship program. As per the University programme communication, Vance “devoted much of her time” as an undergraduate “to public education,” editing an education policy journal and serving as a volunteer in nearby elementary schools.
USHA PROUD OF HER LINEAGE
In an interview earlier this year, sitting besides hubby JD Vance, Usha Vance said: "I did grow up in a religious household. My parents are Hindu and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that.”
Talking about her IIT-cian father personality and resolve, in the film based on novel by her senator husband JD Vance Hillbilly Elegy, Usha’s character played by actress Freida Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame was seen saying in the film, "He came here with nothing, he had to just find his way."
Usha was raised up in San Diego, where her parents worked as academics.
USHA – VANCE LOVE STORY
It all started when both Usha and James took up studies at Yale Law University. Vance's memoir details the love story. He wrote about how Chua, his professor, encouraged him to focus on his relationship with Chilukuri Vance as a Yale law student.
In the memoir, Vance recalled how when he asked Chua to recommend him for a federal clerkship, she warned him that it's "the type of thing that destroys relationships."
"Amy's advice stopped me from making a life-altering decision. It prevented me from moving a thousand miles away from the person I eventually married," Vance wrote.
"Most important, it allowed me to accept my place at this unfamiliar institution — it was okay to chart my own path and okay to put a girl above some shortsighted ambition," he continued. "My professor gave me permission to be me."
In an interview, Usha recalled that both were good friends at Yale Law University as both studied in the same class. They dated later.
When asked about their interfaith marriage in an interview with Fox News, Chilukuri Vance replied: "There are a lot of things that we just agree on, I think, especially when it comes to family life, how to raise our kids. So I think the answer really is that we just talk a lot."
In another interview, she said, "I mean, we're two different people. We have lots of different backgrounds and interests and things like that, so we come to different conclusions all the time," she said. "That's part of the fun of being married."
Here Usha has been reffering to her being Democrat supporter till 2014.
Usha Chilukuri had earlier hailed JD Vance for adopting vegetarianism. Both married in 2014 in both Christain and Hindu rituals.
CHILD LESS CAT LADIES
In a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, then-Senate-candidate Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
"It's just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance continued. “And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
The “cat lady” comment, intended target aside, many critics then took the 'cat lady' term an insult to growing number of women who don’t have kids – whether by choice or not.
The Fox news put this question to Usha Vance on Wednesday, when the interviewer asked Usha’s opinion on James 2021 remark.
Usha replied, “He made a quip (simple meaning is funny/witty observation on the spur of the moment) in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive,"
(The simple intent of Usha's statement here has been that James was raising the issue of rising childless couples in America. And how it is going effect the country later)
She then said, "And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase."
USHA VANCE BIOGRAPHY
Usha Chilukuri is a Telugu Brahmin. Her parents belong to Kamma community of the West Godavari and Krishna districts in Andhra Pradesh. In fact, as per her paternal ancestry, it is traced to Chilukuri Buchipapayya Sastri (c. 18th century), who lived in Saipuram in Vuyyuru mandal in Krishna district. However, later, a branch of the family migrated to Vadluru in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, but her mother Lakshmi hails from Pamarru in Krishna district.
Usha’s family migrated to Chennai as her paternal grandfather, Chilukuri Rama Sastri, eldest brother of husband of Chuilukuri Santhamma, Subramanya Sastri, moved to Chennai in 1959 after he joined the IIT Madras to teach physics. It is for his yeoman contribution to the institute that IIT Madras,now runs a student award in his memory.
As revealed by C Santhamma, Usha’s great uncle Subramany Sastri had been incarcerated in jails during the anti- Emergency movement in 1975. He was jailed for being a RSS member.
