Usha Vance hails JD’s rise and their love as a true American dream story

Acknowledges her Indian roots and showcases the human side of the VP nominee; Usha said that they first met at Yale Law school as friends

Milwaukee: Usha Vance, the wife of the Republican nominee for vice-president of America, JD Vance, charmed the Republican Party on Wednesday as she defined her husband’s rise and their marriage as a story that could only take place in America and laid out why she thought he would be a great elected official.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sen JD Vance, R-Ohio, hugs his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance after speaking on third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, in Milwaukee, on Wednesday. (AP)

Introducing her husband at the party’s convention in Milwaukee for his maiden speech, Usha acknowledged the stark differences in their backgrounds — defining herself as having grown up in a middle class neighbourhood in San Diego to Indian immigrant parents — and credited Vance for being open and curious — including adapting to her vegetarian diet and learning how to cook Indian food for her mother.

Given that he had already written “eloquently” about his life in his book, Hillbilly Elegy, that was also adapted into a movie, and during his Senate campaign, Usha said that she did not know what else she could tell the audience about her husband. “It occurred to me that there was only one thing to do — to explain from the heart why I love and admire JD and why he will make a great Vice-President of the United States”.

Usha said that they first met at Yale Law school as friends. “After all, who won’t want to be friends with JD. He was then, as now, the most interesting person I knew — a working class guy who had overcome childhood traumas that I could barely fathom to end up at Yale Law School; a tough Marine who had served in Iraq but whose idea of a good time was playing with puppies and watching the movie Babe,” she said, as the delegates broke into smiles and laughter.

She said that JD was the “most determined” person she knew with one overriding ambition, to be a husband and a father and “build a tight-knit family” he had longed for. “My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in San Diego in a middle-class community with two loving parents, both immigrants from India, and a wonderful sister. That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” she said, as the audience once again broke into applause.

But, she added, it was also a testament to JD and who he was. “When JD met me, he approached our differences with curiosity and enthusiasm. He wanted to know everything about me, where I came from, what my life had been like. Although he is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, he adapted to my vegetarian diet and learnt to cook food for my mother, Indian food.” Usha said that Vance became an integral part of her family before she knew it, and someone she couldn’t live without — and that he was the same person today he was then, “except for that beard”.

Usha said that Vance’s goals in this new role were the same he had pursued for their family — “to keep people safe, to create opportunities, to build a better life, and to solve problems with an open mind”. She said that neither of them had expected to find themselves in this position but that it was hard to find a more powerful example of the American dream. “A boy from middle town Ohio..” — the Ohio delegates clapped, the entire hall began chanting JD, JD, as Usha paused, smiled and then resumed — “raised by his grandmother through tough times, chosen to help lead our country through some of its greatest challenges”.

As she introduced and welcomed to the stage, JD walked to the stage and the couple shared a kiss and hug, before Usha Vance walked back into the hall. She sat next to the Presidential nominee of the party and her husband’s boss, Donald J Trump, to listen to her husband introduce himself to America. It was not a moment that the young couple, just over a decade ago in their law school days, or Usha’s parents, immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, could indeed have ever imagined.