The world seemed to shatter when I heard about Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old Indian graduate student killed in January 2023 by a speeding Seattle police officer who was driving 74 mph in a residential area.
After the crash, another officer who responded to the scene was caught laughing. His body-worn camera also captured him saying, “Yeah, just write a check. Just, yeah (laughter). $11,000. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”
For many, if they noticed the story at all, it was just another fleeting headline, quickly buried in the endless scroll of social media’s trending topics. For many Indian Americans like me, however, even two years later, it remains yet another reminder of how our stories — our lives — often fail to receive the attention and respect they deserve. These stories fade from the public consciousness, and mistreatment of marginalized groups isn’t adequately addressed.
Indian Americans are one of the fastest-growing U.S. immigrant groups, contributing significantly to the economy and culture, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Yet, our narratives are often reduced to stereotypes that imply we’re “unhygienic,” “job stealers” or “housing market disruptors.”
I take immense pride in my Indian heritage and vibrant, beautiful culture. I’m also deeply American. My family pursued the American dream, and I’ve worked to contribute meaningfully to the communities I’m a part of, and I truly love this country for the life and opportunities it has given me.
Yet no matter how integrated we are or how much we achieve, the broader narrative often ignores us unless we fit into preexisting tropes.
The media, despite its power to humanize, often treats our stories with indifference, resorting to tokenism or sensationalism: Indian weddings become spectacles, but deaths like Kandula’s are relegated to footnotes. This neglect isn’t accidental; it reflects systemic racism and a lack of understanding about the Indian American experience and our value.
This erasure is compounded by social media: Platforms like Instagram and Twitter allow stories like Kandula’s to reach millions and demand justice. But this activism often reduces complex issues to microtrends — fleeting bursts of attention that prioritize virality over sustained action.
In an era of endless content, an Indian woman’s death might briefly trend under hashtags like #JusticeForJaahnavi, only to be replaced hours later by another tragedy.
Social media creates an illusion of progress, with gestures that feel meaningful but rarely lead to structural change. Rather, this performative allyship underscores the conditional nature of our visibility; our stories matter only when they’re convenient or trending.
I challenge the widespread belief that this is enough. As an aspiring journalist, I know that challenging this status quo is difficult, but we must demand more from both the media and ourselves.
Journalists are responsible for covering marginalized communities with depth and empathy, treating our lives — and, when it comes to it, our deaths — with the gravity they deserve. This means moving beyond tokenism to addressing the systemic issues behind tragedies like Kandula’s. For minorities, it means amplifying our voices and advocating for ourselves in spaces that have long excluded us.
All of us deserve sustained attention, action and a commitment to dismantling the systems allowing such tragedies. For this, we must critically examine social media’s role in shaping our perceptions of justice and progress. While social media can raise awareness, it cannot replace activism — organizing, educating and demanding accountability, all of which we need to continue doing.
We must resist the urge to reduce our stories to hashtags and instead demand meaningful change that honors our lived stories and lost lives moving forward.
Until then, we can keep expecting to have our lives reduced to pixels on a screen and the average netizen’s pat on the back to reassure themselves that they are, in fact, a good person who cares about current events.
We must break this cycle. Otherwise, the American dream will remain unattainable for too many of us in the future.
