NYC socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's mother articulated in a 2013 interview why he doesn't view himself as American. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
But Mehek Cooke, an attorney born in India who serves as a GOP consultant and commentator, told Fox News Digital that the word is not "some harmless cultural term," but rather a "slur."
"It’s the word used back in India to mock outsiders, to say you don’t belong," Cooke said. "Using it here about your own child raised in the United States carries the same tone as calling someone a derogatory word — or worse. It’s flippant, divisive, and dripping with contempt for the very country that gave your family a better life."
Cooke added, "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."
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and moved to the United States at age 7, holds dual citizenship with the U.S. and Uganda, and was naturalized as an American in 2018.
Nair went on to emphasize in the interview, "we only speak Hindustani at home" and described her son as a "very chaalu fellow," using a term that is often translated to mean savvy or street smart.
"He’s his own person," Mamdani’s Columbia University professor father, Mahmood, told the New York Times in an interview earlier this year headlined, "The Parents Who Helped Shape Zohran Mamdani’s Politics."
Mahmood Mamdani added, "Now, of course, what we do as his parents is part of the environment in which he grew up, and he couldn’t help but engage with it. That doesn’t mean anything is reflected back on us."
"I don’t agree!" Nair interjected in the interview. "Of course the world we live in, and what we write and film and think about, is the world that Zohran has very much absorbed."
Mira Nair, New York mayoral candidate, state Rep. Zohran Mamdani, Rama Duwaji and Mahmood Mamdani celebrate on stage during an election night gathering at The Greats of Craft LIC on June 24, 2025. (Getty)
Nair, a highly respected filmmaker in India, seemed to predict a life in politics was in store for her son during the Hindustan Times interview, saying she doesn’t want him to follow in her footsteps but instead pursue his interests.
"No, no, he should do whatever he wants to do," Nair said. "I don’t see it in him to make movies. He is very involved with current affairs, politics, and political issues. I think he can be engaged in the world in someway to make a difference. He is very, very interested in that."
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mamdanis-mother-in-unearthed-interview-he-is-not-an-american-at-all