Kamala Harris energizes South Asian voters, a growing force in key swing states

A drive out to Atlanta's sprawling suburbs passes the cultural centers, schools and houses of worship that opened as this became the nation's sixth-largest metropolitan area.

Displaying the diversity within the growth, shops and brightly lit billboards advertise in Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Hindi. The changes have been stark even for residents who experienced them.

“There were a handful of Indians around when I was growing up,” said Hemant Ramachandran, an Atlanta attorney who grew up in Gwinnett County, a short drive from Atlanta and the heart of Georgia's fast-growing Asian American community.

Some Atlanta suburbs turn Asian American

In some parts of Gwinnett, as well as neighboring Forsyth and Fulton counties, most of the census tracts and schools are now majority Asian American, according to county and Census Bureau data.

“It's grown a lot since I was a kid. It definitely wasn't like there where I grew up or anywhere else in metro Atlanta," Ramachandran added.

Vice President Kamala Harris comes to Georgia Tuesday for what aides bill as the biggest campaign rally since she became the probable Democratic nominee. The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants will aim to court the votes of a region where Asian American voters — often Indian American communities in particular — stand to play a pivotal role in the election.

Harris' identity as a woman of Indian descent has sparked kitchen-table conversations in many Asian American and immigrant households in metropolitan Atlanta and energized local advocates. For many in Atlanta's Indian American community, Harris' story strikes a unique chord.

“The South Asian community here is fairly excited because this is really unprecedented,” said Ashwin Ramaswami, a