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ZOHRANMANDANI’S MOTHER SAYS HER SON LIED. HE IS NOT A U.S. BORN AMERICAN. WHAT ELSE HAS HE LIED ABOUT? This is a direct quote from Mira Nair (Zohran Mamdani’s mother) in a May 17, 2013, interview with the Hindustan Times. She was discussing her family’s emphasis on maintaining desi (South Asian) cultural roots despite their time in the U.S., contrasting it with “firang” (Western/foreign) identity. The full context includes: “He is a total desi. Completely. We are not firangs at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan (American) at all. He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian.” Zohran, born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991 to Indian-Ugandan parents, immigrated to the U.S. as a child and later became a naturalized citizen, but Nair highlighted his multicultural self-perception rooted in Ugandan-Indian heritage over an exclusively American one.