The Beegining: 99th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee Begins With 70 Indian Americans Among 245 Competitors
- The field will slowly dwindle through the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, after which a new Bee champion will be crowned.
The 99th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee began this morning at National Harbor, near Washington, D.C., as 245 competitors take the stage during the preliminary round. From there, the field will slowly dwindle through the quarterfinals and semifinals to be held on Wednesday, May 29. The final round is scheduled for Thursday, May 30 during which a new Bee champion will be crowned. The spellers are coming in from all 50 states and from countries in places as far away as Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
The annual event has been synonymous with Indian Americans, and this year’s cohort includes over 70 of them. For over a decade, Indian American kids have been ruling the national spelling bee circuit and claiming the championship trophy.
Some of this year’s Indian American spellers just missed the top 10 slot by a few points, and are trying their chance for the top prize this year like Rohith Konduri, 14, of Norfolk, Virginia, and Avijeet Randhawa, 13, of Riverside, California, who were both tied for 12th place last year; and Oviya Amalraj, 13, of Ashburn, Virginia, who was tied for 23rd place.
Eight-year-old Sanil Thorat of Shreveport, Louisiana is the youngest Indian American to participate in this year’s Bee, along with Jay Nayak of New York, New York, and Jashit Verma of Memphis, Tennessee, both 9.
A report in the Associated Press notes that the arrival of nearly 70 percent of Indian-born U.S. residents after 2000, “dovetails with the surge in Indian American spelling bee champions.” There were two Indian American Scripps winners before 1999. Since then, 28 winners of the 34 have been Indian American, including three straight years of Indian American co-champions and and in 2019, when eight champions were declared, seven of Indian ancestry.
“The children participating in the spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting.”
Last year, 14-year-old Dev Shah of Florida was declared champion. He defeated 228 other competitors, including 10 other finalists, to win $50,000 prize money. “It’s surreal,” Dev Shah said after he was declared the winner. “My legs are still shaking,” he added. Continuing their near-total domination of the competition, apart from Shah, there were nine other Indian Americans who made it to the list of eleven finalists.
The previous year, Texas teen Harini Logan emerged winner after a grueling 18 rounds and a historic spell-off. She won by correctly spelling 21 words in the spell-off, besting the 15 by Vikram Raju of Denver, Colorado. Vihaan Sibal of McGregor, Texas, placed third in the competition.
In 2021, however, Indian American dominance at the Bee suffered a setback as Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana spelled her way to win the the competition, becoming the bee’s first African American champion.
In 2019, eight children — seven of them Indian Americans — were declared co-winners at the coveted bee. Rishik Gandhasri, 13, of California; Saketh Sundar, 13, of Maryland; Shruthika Padhy, 13, of New Jersey; Sohum Sukhatankar, 13, of Texas; Abhijay Kodali, 12, of Texas; Christopher Serrao, 13, of New Jersey, Rohan Raja, 13, of Texas; and Erin Howard, 14, of Alabama — closed the bee with 47 correct spellings in a row in a final that went into 20 rounds. That was the first time that more than two co-champions were named in the national bee.
According to the AP report, “the experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and cultural impact of the nation’s second-largest immigrant group.” Citing census data, the agency points out that “as of 2022, there were 3.1 million Indian-born people living in the U.S., and Indian American households had a median income of $147,000, more than twice the median income of all U.S. households.” That demographic was also “more than twice as likely to have college degrees<‘ the report added.
While Indian American spellers excel in the competition, the AP notes that youngsters with families from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are overrepresented. One of the reasons, the agency says could be because Telangana’s capital Hyderabad is India’s information-technology hub and the region supplies many H-1B visa recipients. Another reason could be access to “organizations like the North South Foundation, which offers academic competitions aimed at the Indian diaspora,” the AP report adds.
Devesh Kapur, a professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University told the AP that “it is important to note that the children participating in the spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting.”
As these youngsters face the spotlight over the next three days, and as the speller cohort gets narrower and narrower, it will be determined if the Indian American dominance on the coveted trophy continues.
(Top photo, courtesy of Scripps National Spelling Bee / Facebook).