Excited about my new role at White House: Neera Tanden

Washington: Indian-American Neera Tanden, who will soon succeed Susan Rice as White House domestic policy advisor, on Wednesday said that she is "excited" about her new role in the US administration. Tanden is the first Asian-American to hold this powerful position in the White House. She is currently the senior advisor and staff secretary to President Joe Biden.

"I am so excited for my new role at the White House, and I am thrilled to be part of an administration that has so many AANHPI (Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders) leaders, so many AANHPI women leaders, so many leaders who represent the great diversity of our community,” Tanden, 52, said in her address to the AANHPI Women's Celebration organized by the AAPI Victory Fund.

Addressing a packed Kennedy Center auditorium, composed of eminent AANHPI leaders including Indian Americans, Tanden said when she worked at the White House during the Clinton administration there were only a handful of AANHPI people. Twenty-five years later under the Biden administration there is hardly any branch of the government wherein there are no AANHPI at eminent positions, she said.

“We have leaders in every agency. And I am incredibly proud that we have three AANHPI leaders leading policy councils in the White House. And that is a historic accomplishment for our community,” Tanden said. “But it is also a bit of a paradox because at this moment when our voices are heard at every table in Washington, it is also the case that our politics have grown uglier. And that in many ways our country is debating issues that we haven't really debated. We weren't debating this 25 years ago,’ she said.

“Right now, we are having ugly conversations about who our country is really for; whether it is for all of us or just a few of us? What does it really means to be an American? Who is American. I see this as a paradox because I see, as we have grown stronger in our representation, there is also a real backlash against a vision of the country that is for all of us,” Tanden said. 

“That is really why I am so incredibly proud to be part of an administration where our voices are everywhere. I was at a meeting two weeks ago with the president and, in the room just for a briefing on an issue, half the people in the room were Asian Americans. The president turned to us and said, you know, this is what America is,” she said. At the same time, Tanden told the audience that they should be really aware that their representation and voices is not uncontested.

“There is a debate in this country, a real debate as to whether our politics should really include all of us. And what I'm so proud of is to be part of an administration and to serve a president and vice president who recognize that this is a fight for the soul of the country. At the heart of that fight is a fight about ensuring America represents all of us; that we have the right to be leaders in every field, and that our politics and our policies have to address all of our needs,” she said. Tanden said she is proud to champion that every day in this White House. (PTI)