First Lady Jill Biden to attend spelling bee finals that Indian-Americans will dominate, again

WASHINGTON: The US Spelling Bee contest is getting a White House...Imprimatur -- a word that means an official license or recognition that something is of good/high standard.
First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Orlando, Florida on Thursday to witness the finals of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the White House announced Wednesday.
Nine of the 11 finalists this year are kids of Indian origin, extending a domination by the Indian-American community that began at the turn of the century. Biden, an educator, will meet with the competitors and their families before the finals begin at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney Resort, her office said.
Reams, even tomes, have been written about why kids of Indian-origin have taken to spelling contests and dominated the Spelling Bee over the past two decades. Explanations range from the rigor, discipline, and work ethic they imbibe from immigrant parents (one of whom is usually a stay-at-home parent) to the emphasis on rote learning and ability to get their heads around complex words, ideas, and themes because of their plural, syncretic upbringing.
There have also been movies and documentaries, notably Spellbound, and parodies, satires, and jokes, to both celebrate and diminish with word fever associated with Indian-American kids. America one joke goes, should rename Merriam-Webster to Shivashankar-Venkatachalam English Dictionary.
Millions of school kids across the country participate in the spell-fest that gets progressively tougher through the year as they home in towards the finals, which is typically held in Washington DC but has been moved to to Florida this year after it was scuppered by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The contest has gotten so manic that kids are now mastering whole dictionaries and forcing organizers to adopt novel methods to determine winners after the 2019 finals resulted in eight co-champions, seven of whom were Indian-Americans. The event has also become a television hit/spectacle, with a live telecast of the finals on ESPN.
The eleven 2021 finalists are Roy Seligman, 12, from Nassau, The Bahamas; Bhavana Madini, 13, from New York; Sreethan Gajula, 14, from Charlotte, North Carolina; Ashrita Gandhari, 14, from Leesburg, Virginia; Avani Joshi, 13, from Illinois; Zaila Avant-garde, 14, from New Orleans; Vivinsha Veduru, 10, from Texas; Dhroov Bharatia, 12, from Dallas; Vihaan Sibal, 12, from Texas; Akshainie Kamma, 13, from Texas and Chaitra Thummala, 12, from San Francisco.