From Fox News: The mother of New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave an interview when he was a 21-year-old American college student discussing how her son is “not an American at all” while using terminology that some view as derogatory toward the United States.
“He is a total desi,” filmmaker Mira Nair told the Hindustan Times in a 2013 interview, when her son Zohran was 21 years old. At the time, Mamdani was attending Bowdoin College, where he co-founded the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and was pushing for academic sanctions against Israel.
“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.”
In Hindi and Urdu, “firang” is an informal term historically used to describe foreigners or Westerners.
The report quotes Mehek Cooke, an attorney born in India who serves as a GOP consultant and commentator, as explaining that the word “firang” is actually a slur and a “word used back in India to mock outsiders, to say you don’t belong.”
“When Mamdani’s mother says her son was ‘never a firang and only desi,’ it’s a rejection of America. It’s ungrateful, disrespectful, and frankly repulsive to live in this country since age seven, receive every freedom, education, and opportunity America offers, and still deny being American,” Cook said.
Voicing concern over Mamdani’s upbringing, Cook warned, “And if you raise your child to believe he was ‘never a firang,’ never an American, what message are you sending? That he owes nothing to this nation? That he can take the benefits without any sense of belonging or loyalty? That mindset breeds resentment. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing play out in politics today.”
Born in Uganda, Africa, Zohran Mamdani moved to the United States with his family when he was 7 years old, and only became a U.S. citizen in 2018. His mother said in the 2013 interview, “we only speak Hindustani at home.”
Mira Nair, 68, Zohran Mamdani’s mother, is a well-known filmmaker who was born in India. She has pushed boycotting Israel and declared she stands with Palestine.
Mamdani’s mother in unearthed 2013 interview: ‘He is not an American at all’ https://t.co/uYbot083AW
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) October 29, 2025
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