Two weeks ago, as New York City was hit with freezing rain, many New Yorkers and those from the neighbouring states of New Jersey and Connecticut brought their kids to view the annual Christmas event — the lighting up of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. But the holiday-goers were not expecting to encounter thousands of protesters angry at the decision by the grand jury in Staten Island not to indict a police officer who had caused the chokehold death of Eric Garner, an African-American man stopped for selling single cigarettes.

The protests, also fuelled by a similar unjustifiable act by a grand jury in Ferguson, have now become a daily occurrence and have spread across the country with signs reading ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘I Can’t Breathe’ (a reference to Garner’s last words).

A local Indian newspaper, India in New York, showed images of some Indian-Americans joining the protests in Manhattan and Brooklyn. But the reporter asked a Sikh protestor, who seems to be a regular at such activists’ gatherings, a relevant question. Why do so few Indian-Americans join such protests? And the young Sikh gentleman said, “This racism, of course, affects us South Asians as well, but in different ways… I am not by and large a target of police harassment… Maybe, this is why some desis may not be out on the frontlines — because they don’t see this as ‘our’ issue.”

According to the latest census, held five years ago, there are over three million Indian-Americans in the US, with large concentrations in the greater New York area, around major cities in California, in and around Texas, in pockets of Florida and in many other states. We are educated and wealthy. We host lavish weddings and contribute huge sums to Hindu temples, with the intent of building the biggest, most opulent structures.

We seem to care a lot about India — whether it is Bollywood films, cricket or politics. Nearly 20,000 of us filled up Madison Square Garden on September 28 to hear the Indian Prime Minister speak as he promised to create a vibrant new India. And many of us paid prime dollars to get reserved seating in the space close to where he was speaking.

We even contribute to election campaigns in the US, and the wealthy amongst us pay a lot more to get pictures taken with presidents, elected officials and other potential candidates. It makes us feel that we are a part of the American system.

But the truth is that when it comes to the death of a poor, overweight, unemployed African-American man who did not live on the right side of the tracks, and whose only crime was that he was selling loose cigarettes, then we Indian-Americans really do not care. We do not care when there is a video that shows several police officers pouncing on this man, one holding his neck in a chokehold, as he screams “I can’t breathe” before his body goes limp.

Sure there are college students and other Indian-American activists who have joined the ongoing protests in different parts of the country. Some also protested outside Madison Square Garden in September, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to a packed house inside. But those numbers are small.

In reality, you see Americans of all races — and granted there are more African Americans in the mix — in the current protests against the grand juries’ decisions and police brutalities. But you see far fewer Indian-Americans among the protesters. It is not in their nature to join street protests but, more importantly, this cause — although it seems essential to many in restoring fairness in America — does not appeal to Indian-Americans.

I hate to say it, but most successful, educated Indian-Americans today care far too little about the poor, the disenfranchised Americans. There is a strong race issue at play here that is hard to overlook.

And while many Indian-Americans tend to be Democrats and would have voted for its candidate Barack Obama — especially for his first term, they are not always moved by his social agenda, whether it is the healthcare issue or providing equal rights to same-sex partners or with regard to a woman’s right to choose.

As immigrants, it is for us to choose how we engage with the country that gives us all the opportunities. But again and again I feel that most Indian-Americans are concerned with only what matters to them. They do not opt for making America’s larger agenda their own. And so, unfortunately, they never become complete Americans.

( Aseem Chhabra is a writer and has been a resident of New York City for over three decades).