Pakistani-American comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani, who is best known for his performances in Silicon Valley, The Big Sick, Marvel’s Eternals and most recently Fallout Season 2, recently sat down for an ‘India-Pakistan Summit’ with Indian-origin star Hasan Minhaj. The podcast interview brought both the South Asian-origin celebrities together hot on the heels of Nanjiani’s his brand new stand-up special Night Thoughts.
Minhaj’s one-hour-long podcast episode titled “A Deeply Unserious India-Pakistan Summit with Kumail Nanjiani” released on Christmas eve. Despite both their home countries’ decades-long clash, the two stars bonded over their conflicting feelings tied to their identity as US citizens. Bonding over Shah Rukh Khan and cricket debates, Hasan and Kumail couldn’t help but bring up what being an American citizen felt like, especially at a time when immigrants don’t necessarily feel welcome in the country.
Pakistani-origin Kumail Nanjiani and Indian-origin Hasan Minhaj don’t feel ‘American’
With the podcast runtime nearing the 30-minute mark, Minhaj popped the big question of the hour: “Now that you’re a citizen, do you feel like an American?” Nanjiani solemnly replied, “I don’t feel like anything.”
Hearing this, Minhaj shared a confession of his own, prompting Nanjiani to open up about his experience on the same page. Unlike the Eternals actor, Hasan, though of Indian descent, was born in the United States. But even then, Minhaj weighed in on never feeling like a citizen in the country.
“I’m a citizen. I’m not American,” he shared with Nanjiani. “I have library card. I have a driver’s license. I have a blue passport,” he said of his dissociation with the American identity despite possessing all kinds of documentation supporting his legal status.
This ultimately prompted Nanjiani to comment that one’s “membership in a group” is more reliant on “other members seeing you as a member” more than anything else. Adding his two cents on the issue of sense of belongingness in the US, the Hollywood actor said that a significant share of “members of America” just don’t see “us” as Americans regardless of anything and everything.
Kumail Nanjiani then confirmed that he, too, had never felt American even though he was happy to be in the country, considering it made all his dreams come true, in addition to having met the “love of his life,” aka his wife Emily V Gordon, in the US. He also confessed to how this wasn’t a shocking revelation for him either, as he’d always been aware of his feelings on these lines, noting that even many others never view him as an American.
Pak-born actor Kumail Nanjiani’s road to US citizenship
Moving on to how he became a US citizenship, he described the whole transition as “very emotional.” Nanjiani then turned back to the memories of his citizenship oath ceremony day, which is basically the final official step in a person’s journey to pledging allegiance to the US.
Vividly describing the old scene, he said that the oath-taking ceremony venue was “huge room” with about thousands of people in the same place. “There’s a line in the middle of the room, and people in front of the line are going to take the oath and become American, and people behind the line, it doesn’t count,” the Silicon Valley star told Minhaj.
He further detailed that because of the whole construct, his wife, who was born in America, couldn’t be there with him at the time, and had to stay at the back. Nanjiani drew the memory out, recounting how many people, ranging from little kids to old individuals, were there with him to become Americans.
“People are crying, and some people are like on their phones,” he said of the variety of experiences transpiring in the same room. As for Nanjiani’s take on it, he said he “was very moved” by the whole process. But then commenting on whether he ever looked at the US with “rose-coloured” glasses, Kumail admitted that having grown up in Pakistan and watching Hollywood movies beforehand had shaped a “certain vision of America” in his mind.
He acknowledged that there was a time when he saw the USA as a “land of opportunity, land of dreams,” and its streets being “lined with gold.” However, that image eventually switched to something else, especially now that he’s been in the country for about 25-30 years.
The Pakistani-origin star noted that there always existed this ideal that America was meant to be a land of immigrants, which accepts “all kinds of people” and “everyone.” Even if it wasn’t always true, Nanjiani claimed that the “lip service” still upheld that image of the country. But now, even that doesn’t stand anymore. He further noted that the most stark picture of difference in what the US was and now is comes from the way his mother sees the country.
He confessed that his mother, Shabana, was first struck by “the freedom” and how there was “support for everything.” Contrarily, now she thinks along the lines, “Oh, they don’t want us here,” prompting fears and anxieties of all kinds. And yet, Kumail still believes that only a “minority” of Americans are “xenophobic.”
“It just feels like everyone because they are the one who are the loudest and in power,” he added. And to this, Minhaj chimed in, saying that being born in a “desi or Arab household” was already kick-starter for one’s identity becoming “political.”
How difficult it is to get US citizenship: Kumail Nanjiani
Back in 2018, Pakistan-born actor took to his X profile to bust people’s misconception about how “super easy” immigrating to the US is. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said at the time, adding that it took him 15 years to get his Green Card. “Getting any kind of visa difficult. Becoming a citizens is extremely difficult and rare.”
Mind you, he said this over seven years ago at a time when the Trump was serving his first term in the presidential office. The present-day scenario doesn’t just mirror the seven-year-old circumstances, but are way worse than anticipated in light of the rising anti-South Asian hate on social media, further fuelled by the 2.0 Trump administration’s enhanced immigration and visa crackdown.
Watch the Kumail Nanjiani-Hasan Minhaj ‘India-Pakistan summit’ episode: