Indian-American Kids Grab A Huge Share Of Spelling Bee Pie

In the history of the most reputed spelling bee competition -- the Scripps Spelling Bee -- two Indian-American teenagers held up the trophy together. When Ansun Sujoe of Fortworth and Sriram Hathwar of Painted Post (New York) stood smiling amid the cheers in that record-breaking moment, some social networking sites were flooded with jeers, too. Why? It was a historic moment, as the organisers had put it, stating it had been more than 50 years since Spelling Bee ended in a tie.

But the posts on social sites were laced with anger and disappointment. ABCDs, as they are jocularly referred to within the community of less than 1% of Indians living in the US, are America-Born Confused Desis (ABCD) who do exceptionally well in anything relating to academics.

Debates have been raging for years on the ‘domination’ of Indian-American kids in the Spelling Bee circuit. And why not? When you have a majority of the winners of a competition which requires children to dole out correct spellings of the most difficult words (with their meanings, too!), from Indian origin, you would want to understand the genesis of this winning streak.

Indian-American kids and teenagers have been in the forefront when it comes to both education and conceptualisation of new ideas. A majority of Silicon Valley start-ups are attributed to Indian-Americans or first generation Indians living in the US.

This apart, education assumes a different level of importance for Indians, irrespective of where they live. No matter how much you criticise the Indian education system, the system works at some level.

For the winning streak, it is important to note that as much Indian-American community does well in intelligence-based competitions, including innovations and path-breaking research. This is something that’s genetically, physically and environmentally encouraged, validated and nourished as against, say, sports or something else.

Spelling Bee, just a small off-shoot of this phenomenon, being innovative with a scientific bent of mind or doing well in school grades is something that’s seen as the ‘last resort’ of the second or third generation of the educated Indian community. The great Indian middle class carries with it the value of education and passes it on to their children.

It is as natural as watching the African-American kids do well in sports and physical activities.
Since most of the children are born to academician parents, the point of cutting-above-the-rest is clearly defined. Single-minded focus is something children imbibe from their parents in the American education system and family set-up. In fact, that way, they get the best of both the worlds. The focused education in America, without the stress of grades, and the emphasis on learning from their parents through their experience from the education system back in India – both yield excellent results.

Another important aspect is the multilingual atmosphere at home. Indian-American children learn the nuances of languages early in their lives. They have a minimum of two languages of communication and are proficient in both. This helps them master more languages or the semantic aspects of languages they are exposed to. As a result of this, their capacity to learn additional languages and nuances, without much stress on their minds, is higher than the children from other cultures, who probably have a monolingual culture.

In most cases, highly educated Indian parents often show extra zeal and lead their children. At times, they even go to the extent of drawing up their training time table and ensuring that they follow it. Either way, it has worked to the advantage of the Indian-origin kids so far.