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Bobby Jindal, a 36-year old Republican Congressman (First District) takes helm as the new Governor of Lousiana, winning the election with 53% of the vote. Highlighting his roots as the son of Indian immigrants on the campaign trail, Jindal's story seemed to resonate with Louisiana voters. His parents migrated to Baton Rouge after his mother took a post-graduate degree in nuclear physics almost forty years ago. His father was an engineer from Punjab. "Bobby Jindal made history not only as the nation's youngest governor, but as the nation's first ever Indian American Governor and Louisiana's first non-white Governor since Reconstruction," stated Vida Benavides, Chair of APIAVote.
Christine Chen, Executive Director of APIAVote states, "Jindal's win demonstrates the positive electoral engagement of the community including the growing political clout of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and especially the Indian-American community who have been proactive in promoting activism in political campaigns at all levels." Jindal was born in Baton Rouge to Indian immigrants, Amar and Raj Jindal, who were attending graduate school. Jindal was a Hindu but converted to Catholicism as a teenager. He attended high school at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. In 1991, he graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with honors in biology and public policy. Afterwards, he received a master's degree in political science from New College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the only Indian-American currently serving in Congress, and the second in congressional history after Dalip Singh Saund, a Democrat who represented California's 29th District from 1957 to 1963..
The Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) is a national non-partisan, nonprofit organization that encourages and promotes civic participation of Asian Pacific Islander Americans in the electoral and public policy processes at the national, state and local levels.
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