By Kenneth Tiven
A countless number of Indians have flourished in California and now a multi-ethnic, multi-talented Californian is headed to India when the US Senate confirms his appointment as American Ambassador.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is President Joe Biden’s choice, reflecting in a number of ways the importance of the India-USA relationship. The 50-year old Garcetti, a Rhodes scholar with multiple talents became mayor in 2013 and has focused on improving transportation and sustainability. The problems of air pollution, homelessness, and Covid-19 in Indian cities will be utterly familiar to Garcetti as these are big issues in Los Angeles.
Indians with a memory of Daniel Moynihan’s ambassadorial tenure in 1972-74 will again encounter a complicated intellectual instead of a political appointee rewarded for a campaign contribution. Previous occupants of Roosevelt House, as the official
residence in New Delhi is named, include the celebrated economist John Kenneth Galbraith during the Presidency of John Kennedy in the early 1960s.
Garcetti once described himself as” just your average Mexican-American-Jewish-Italian.” Hardly average: he plays jazz piano, speaks multiple languages, and has multiethnic roots that reach into Europe and Mexico. He grew up in Encino in the San Fernando Valley. His dad, Gil Garcetti, was a successful Los Angles lawyer and also a former district attorney of Los Angeles County. After attending elite private schools, Eric went to Columbia University in New York City as an undergraduate and also obtained a master’s degree in international affairs. After his Rhodes scholarship, he spent a dozen years in the Naval Reserve as an intelligence analyst.
Before teaching, he spent time in Ethiopia doing humanitarian work and helping to organize dissidents in Burma. In the late 1990s, he taught diplomacy and public policy at Occidental College and at the University of Southern California. Then was elected to the City Council in 2001. While California is a state and not a nation, Los Angeles is a bigger city than most US cities and very much involved with international tourism and trade.
In a 2018 speech, Garcetti accused former president Donald Trump’s administration of being too unpredictable and unreliable to allies and warned of new authoritarianism where “One day we’re fascinated and friendly with you, the next day we’re not. We seem obsessed with strongmen more than our long-time allies.”
President Biden has emphasized the partnership of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia as four democracies facing China’s rising military and economic might in Asia and around the world.
It will be interesting to see how Garcetti, the first Jewish mayor of Los Angeles, represents the growing concern in the Democratic Party regarding the treatment of minorities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. This was not an issue that apparently concerned former US President Trump in his good buddies approach to Modi.
In Los Angeles, reaction was not muted. His supporters said nice things, while those unhappy with his two terms in office were quick to criticize him for leaving unfinished business to go to India. Miguel Santana, who served as the city’s top budget analyst for much of Garcetti’s tenure, said the mayor served the city during “the best of times and
the worst of times.”
Santana noted the massive economic growth in Southern California but said, “At the same time, the city experienced an unprecedented disparity between the haves and have-nots and a tremendous growth in inequality,” noting the rise in homelessness and the challenges faced by the working poor during the pandemic. “The mayor doesn’t own
100% of that, obviously, but this is the Los Angeles that exists today,” he added.
Criticism from some political pundits who laughed at the press for saying Biden was rewarding a crony because in their opinion going from mayor of America’s second-largest city to any ambassadorship, even a big one, is obviously a step downward. A right-wing website suggested Biden was sidelining a troublemaking rival by offering him a “plum.” On the other hand, Garcetti backed Biden as the nominee immediately after Biden’s strong win in the South Carolina primary in 2016.
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Garcetti comes across as youthful and energetic in a style not normally associated with diplomats. As mayor, he maintained a personal Instagram account with thousands of photographs, many of his own work. As an avid photographer, he is merely following his dad, whose camera work has been in exhibits and in books.
He replaces Kenneth Juster, a Trump appointee with extensive diplomatic experience, who had played a key role in developing the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the US and India when he was in the US Commerce Department.