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The Indian-American duo of Usha Vance and Kamala Harris will challenge stereotypes. Welcome to the new, improved 2024 presidential campaign.

No matter how this plays out, a woman of Indian-American descent will be moving her influence into the White House.

She’ll either be the President of the United States Kamala Harris, or the wife of the next vice president, Usha Chilukuri Vance.

Who prevails depends on how things go in November for Democrats and Republicans.

But this inevitable outcome developed while some of the most conservative politicians in the GOP were grousing about “diversity,” “identity politics” and “DEI hires.”

It’s what happened as their political opposites, self-defined lifelong liberals, continued to see the nation’s racial dynamics primarily in terms of Black people and white people, with others who don't neatly fit into those categories as an afterthought, if they were thought of at all.

Meanwhile, the nation’s storied history as a “land of immigrants” continued to evolve.

It’s shifted, deepening with rich and complex tones, with immigrants from around the globe — Latinos from a wide range of South American countries, as well as Black people from Nigeria, Liberia and Tanzania.

And South Asians like the immigrant parents from India who gave birth to Vice President Kamala Harris and Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

We rarely acknowledge that Asian-Americans are the fastest-growing among all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., rising by 81 percent between 2000 and 2019.

Usha Vance’s parents are part of that diaspora. They, like her, are Hindu.

Vice President Harris’s late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was from India. Her father, Donald Harris, was born in Jamaica. The couple met as graduate students.

The nation will be better off with some forced introspection due to the presence of these second-generation daughters in the national spotlight.

The reactions that each draw — positive and negative — will challenge and hopefully do away with some of the most backward-facing views currently undermining the nation’s future.

The myth of the model minority is one. It’s the belief that some immigrants are more worthy than others, that some are hard-wired (or even genetically superior) and therefore more valuable as workers and producers for the economy.

The contention is as absurd as it is widespread.

But it’s often applied to Asian Americans, along with the assertion that they are smarter from birth, harder working, driven by a fierce “tiger mom” and above all, adept at math and science.

Such views infect public policy — like congressional decisions that slash the numbers of refugees allowed per country annually, or other limits that are placed on green cards, an attempt by policy and law to keep some people out, while allowing others in.

Trump’s vow for mass deportations if he’s elected is part of this nonsense.

His comments generally conjure images of the unwanted immigrants as Latino — Mexicans, Hondurans, Salvadorans.

Trump would be shocked to learn that some of the people he wants to cast out look a lot like — and indeed are as educated as — the wife of his vice presidential choice.

Just because someone arrived legally in the nation, say as a college student, doesn’t mean they always retain that status.

Legality is a document, a rubber stamp so to speak. And it can lapse, especially under the massive backlogs of our immigration courts.

Indian Americans do have some of the highest income levels among American ethnic groups. It’s a direct correlation with the fact that many arrive to attend some of our finest universities. That’s a leg up to success that doesn’t play out for all Asian groups.

Others — Hmong, Vietnamese, Koreans — had different starts in life, with the first generation migrating often without English language skills and with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. It doesn’t mean one group is inherently more intelligent or entrepreneurial.

Online haters attacked Usha Vance before she could step off the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. They criticized her faith and her suitability as a wife to a white senator.

Meanwhile, elected members of the GOP immediately began deriding the intelligence and career accomplishments of Harris, labeling her a “DEI hire.”

As their arguments go, the line of thought is particularly weak.

President Joe Biden announced his intention to appoint a woman and a woman of color for his running mate. Critics pounced, equating his biracial choice of Harris with the idea that she must be unqualified.

As if Black-Indian-woman can never align with “qualified.”

“So does that make Usha Vance a DEI bride?” quipped an Indian-American friend, an outstanding attorney herself.

The question gathered the slurs toward one Indian American woman and funneled them toward another, even though neither woman remotely deserves them.

Usha Vance and Kamala Harris have each achieved, personally and professionally.

They also just happen to have a shared heritage.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

©2024 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

(c) 2024 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.