Dhruv Pathak
By Dhruv Pathak
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team USA, which fielded 600 athletes, had one, and only one, athlete of South Asian descent–Sri Lankan Tiana Sumanasekera. She won a gold medal, but as an alternate, non-traveling competitor on the historic Women’s Gymnastics team led by Simone Biles.
The following year, she won gold at the 2025 Pan American Championships, and in 2026 she decided to switch federations to compete for Sri Lanka. She stated that “gymnastics is so underrepresented in Sri Lanka and South Asia as a whole,” and that she felt honored to help bring representation to this region.
Before sitting down to write this essay, I didn’t expect to see many South Asian professional athletes in the US, but the number is even lower than I imagined. According to recent studies conducted by AP, the overwhelming conclusion is that wealth and education levels are the principal determinants behind who compete in organized youth sports.
What surprised me then was that, based on the estimates I could find, around 60% of our South Asian youth have participated in some form of organized sport. The real gap appears the higher you go up the ladder. We, as the South Asian community, are among the wealthiest, most educated subgroups in the US, yet South Asians are almost invisible as professional athletes; our participation in organized youth sports is comparable to our peers, but professional success is rare, with a quick search yielding only two pro South Asians, both in the PGA.
The messy part about this research was that it’s clear that we’re either missing from data sets or lumped in with the broader Asian category, matching how we are usually seen by mainstream society, and that is our labor, academic, and business success is legible; our people as a whole not so much.
So the question is: what’s at the root of why South Asians, who are fanatical about sports and also make up the fastest growing, remain the wealthiest and most educated immigrant group in the US, have so few athletic accomplishments outside of cricket? There isn’t one clear answer. From my research, I’ve learned that it’s not a massive problem but rather a unique reality shaped by how our community invests in raising our children and how we choose to define success.
Our community here is a product of the 1965 Immigration Act. Previous articles in Saathee explain this history in greater detail. The key detail to remember is that if you are in your 30s or younger, most of our parents came to the US as highly skilled workers to fill labor gaps, and that the 1965 Act opened the door for family reunification as an incentive to attract more of our labor. For example, my aunt sponsored my dad to come to the US in 94, after my uncle brought her over following the completion of his university degree and becoming an engineer.
This was, and is, our formula for success, and it brings a replicable legibility. Meaning we emulate what we can see and feel from people who look like us, so we trace their beaten path since it is easier to follow a well-traveled path than blaze a new trail; we refer to this as being mimetic. As immigrants, everything in this country is new: new lifestyles, new culture, new expectations, and the fact that just because we were allowed in doesn’t mean we were immediately welcomed with open arms. So naturally, our parents steered their kids toward activities where the outcome felt legible.
These included dominating the Scripps National Spelling Bee, taking over the family business, or becoming a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer. Sports became a résumé line for college admission, with the payoff being repayment of the family’s sacrifice rather than our expected life outcome.
This isn’t meant as a criticism of our parents. In fact, they’ve been right to focus on studies and helpful extracurriculars like chess, extra tutoring, or playing instruments. When we did play sports, it was often tennis, golf, swimming, or badminton, usually chosen because there were noticeably more South Asians in these communities, along with the fact that we could avoid tricky team dynamics and focus on our individual work ethic to succeed, rather than be subject to biased coaching and having to deal with racist stereotypes.
Our community tends to overemphasize legible outcomes our parents can see because they provide hard data proving that the incredible time and cost investment could be worthwhile. One thing about my people is that we do not invest lightly. Try getting your uncle to invest in your startup without a business plan and exact numbers, and you’ll probably leave with your tail tucked between your legs. But the stakes of this tunnel-vision focus on extracurriculars that don’t create résumé results are that kids may miss chances to build resilience, independence, and comfort with uncertainty. Those gaps can make later-life choices feel heavier when a marriage, a mortgage, or money is at stake.
Spelling bees, winning a chess tournament, and studying extra hard for the SAT are easily measured: you either did well because you studied or practiced hard enough, or you didn’t, but that is just not real life.
Organized sports require teamwork, require you to be bad, get incrementally better, build lasting connections with friends, and learn to regulate your emotions after a tough loss; in essence, they are the perfect place for children to practice being a person without real consequences.
A spelling bee can teach discipline. It can’t teach you what to do when you lose in front of your friends and have to show up again next week anyway.
When you are 25, you don’t have an SAT to ace; you have to subjectively decide where you want to live, who you want to date, what job is the right fit for you, and plenty of South Asian kids have figured this out well without ever playing an organized sport. But many of us struggle with the soft skills sports teach, making real-life situations like working on a team at work or dating more challenging than they ought to be.
The stakes are that these early gaps can make adult choices feel heavier. It’s not black or white; it’s just one side of the coin worth holding together.
Now there is also the pernicious discussion around representation. Going back to viable pathways into organized sports, our parents avoid putting us in situations they might be unfamiliar with, which means we don’t have other athletes who look like us.
Would it have made a huge difference if I had had a South Asian in the US who grew up like me and played baseball to serve as a role model? Maybe, but kids need to see what is possible. Without that possibility, many of us may never step into the game at all, creating an endless loop of underrepresentation.
I played baseball, but I know my parents were nervous when I approached them about playing in middle school. My dad is a cricket fanatic; he played all his life and loves the game to this day, but he knows nothing about “boring” baseball.
I wanted to play because my best friend pressured me. Once again, kids, especially, and humans overall are mimetic. I didn’t want to be left out or seen as a loser, so I asked my dad for $200 for the registration fee, which only covered the 12 games and the uniform.
My dad also had to buy practice pants, cleats, and baseball bats, which at the Little League level come in different weights. So, there was an upsell built in. Until I got strong enough to use the real bat at that level, I had to use a lighter one, which wouldn’t hit the ball as far as a heavier one. A baseball mitt, a cup, and all this came before even setting foot on the field.
It goes without saying I was, of course, the only Indian kid there. I was the only one who had just started playing, and all the coaches were seemingly nice enough, but my parents were not in their social circle. I am certain that, outside of my best friend’s dad, who assisted and lived in our neighborhood, the others didn’t even know my parents’ names.
In contrast, my sister studied Kathak, graduating with an arangetram that was cathartic and awe-inspiring, a tangible investment that compounded into a result predicted by following the legible pathway that was familiar to us, and, like I said, it worked, so who are we to say one way is right or wrong? The point is choice and intention.
On the opposite end, I ended up cut from the team by my sophomore year of high school, two years after I started playing baseball. I never told my parents, not because they would be embarrassed or feel like it was a waste of money, but because I knew I was at a disadvantage in a sport not suited to me and my environment; it just didn’t fit.
Finally, we do have to discuss the genetic argument that we’re too short or too slow to compete, which doesn’t hold up. If South Asian kids want to be professional athletes, our genetics don’t stop us; it all comes back to what we, as a community, are willing to invest time, money, and energy into–practice is the distinguishing factor, not genetics. Yes, while most pro athletes are in the 1% of the genetic lottery, it’s just a lottery; we can’t control that at all, so why even factor it in.
That is equal among us – white and black kids alike – the vast majority of us are never going to be monsters on the court like Julius Peppers or LeBron James, so it’s a moot point better left for eugenicists to debate.
So where do we land? I argue that the lack of South Asian athletes stems from our community’s focus on providing our children with the opportunities that are inherently tied to the successes we have seen from others and felt ourselves. We are not opposed to trying our hands at professional athletics; it is just not worth it for what matters to us as community and culture. Sure, that choice has consequences but also significant upside: it shapes which paths feel possible, and, more often than not, our parents prove themselves correct.
As someone with no kids, the only recommendation I have is that we don’t need to be so rigid about what we allow our youth to do; not everything needs to have a result ready-made for a résumé.
The stakes are bigger than a line on paper: let kids explore before we decide for them what counts, because that is where agency starts.
Kids need to play; they need to be bad at a skill; they need to be in environments where adults aren’t the only ones making the rules.
It should be unique based on what matters for each individual because it is just amazing if we raise the next generation of Tiana Sumanasekera, Mindy Kalings, or just Maya, who ends up a product manager, or Yash, who ends up running a gas station; really, it’s about teaching kids from a young age that their agency matters, whether or not it lives up to some predestined outcome.
Dhruv Pathak is a salesman and writer based in St. Louis, originally from Charlotte, NC. He writes to better understand people and contribute to our shared humanity. Contact: pathak.d@icloud.com.
