Zohran Mamdani’s mother said her son ‘is not an American at all’ in resurfaced interview

Mira Nair, Mamdani's mother and an award-winning filmmaker, made the comment while discussing her son’s upbringing between Uganda, India, and the United States. “He is a total desi. Completely. We are not firangs at all,” she said. The term desi is used in South Asia to describe people from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, while firang is a common disparaging term in India for foreigners, especially Westerners.

“He is very much us. He is not an American at all,” Nair continued. “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.”

The comments have drawn criticism as Mamdani campaigns for mayor. Attorney and GOP commentator Mehek Cooke called Nair’s use of firang “divisive,” telling Fox News that “it’s the word used back in India to mock outsiders, to say you don’t belong. Using it here about your own child raised in the United States carries the same tone as a slur.”

Cooke added, “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.”

The resurfaced remarks come as Mamdani faces scrutiny over inconsistencies in his own public statements. Earlier this week, he was pressed to clarify a claim about a Muslim “aunt” who allegedly stopped riding the subway after 9/11 due to fears of harassment.

In the 2013 interview, Nair also revealed that the family “speaks only Hindustani at home” and that Mamdani often traveled to India during his academic years. At the time, he was a 21-year-old student at Bowdoin College, studying Arabic and politics, and had co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Nair described her son as “very involved with current affairs, politics, and political issues,” adding, “I think he can be engaged in the world in some way to make a difference.”

Mamdani moved to the United States at age seven and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018.