Swati Dandekar

Swati Dandekar

State Senator-elect Swati Dandekar, who served in the Iowa House before winning a seat in the Senate, has been named Person of the Year by AsianWeek.

The publication, the nation’s oldest and largest English newspaper serving the Asian/Pacific Islander American community, cited Dandekar’s courage in not sitting back and relaxing in the Iowa House seat she’d held for three terms.

Dandekar’s successful run for the Iowa House in 2002 earned her the honor of being the first Indian-born American citizen in the nation to serve in a state legislature. That seat, like the State Senate seat she just won, had been held held by a Republican.

Swati Dandekar could have played it safe and stayed in her House seat because most incumbents are re-elected. Instead, she chose to reach for a higher office that required her to knock on doors in areas where she had not represented the people and where knowledge of Asian Indian Americans may not have been high. As a result of her successful gamble, however, she now has added clout as she battles for educational opportunity and other key concerns. And APAs now have a state Senate-level standard-bearer in a state not know for its high percentage of APAs.

Sen. Dandekar’s rise in politics has other lessons for APAs interested in community involvement, no matter where they live and no matter what their life circumstances, because she did not start life thinking that she would become a politician. She started with science-oriented undergraduate and masters degrees in India and came to Iowa to be with her husband in 1972. Like many stay-at-home mothers, she raised her two sons while doing volunteer work in the community.

As her kids got older, however, she got more involved in the community. She became president of the Parent Teachers Organization and did such a good job that, when a seat opened on the local school board, her friends convinced her to run. She learned how to ask for votes, raise money and speak out on the key issues facing her community. On Election Day, she won with 80 percent of the votes, and her political career was underway.

Not everyone can be as smart, organized and compassionate as Swati Dandekar. But all of us can learn to get involved in our local communities, speak out on issues of concern to us and get beyond our comfort zones so that we can have more impact on the world around us.

Dandekar has represented Iowa House District 36, which primarily encompasses Marion in northeastern Iowa, for the past three terms. In January she will be sworn in as an Iowa Senator representing District 18, a district that was previously represented by long-serving Iowa Republican Mary Lundby.