“Very normal” is how Rupal Vaishnav describes his experience as an entrenched resident of Atlanta. He moved to the city at the age of nine, after immigrating to the US from India in the late 1970s. When his parents settled in Clayton county – a suburb south of downtown that’s now home to the world’s busiest airport – it was still largely populated by white families living in 60s-era bungalows; before that, it was the fictional setting for Gone With the Wind.
Vaishnav was one of two Indian kids in school – the other was his brother – and a strict vegetarian who spoke Gujarati at home. But he joined the school’s air force junior reserves, studied mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech and earned his law degree from Georgia State. For the past five years, he’s worked in the local district attorney’s office and this year he ran to be a state judge in Forsyth county, once infamous for its lynchings. “The biggest thing I struggled with growing up and that I still see in my son are the identity conflicts,” Vaishnav says, now 50. “Are you American? Are you Indian? You have to get comfortable knowing the two cultures. It’s a balancing act that you get better at over time.”
