Faith, Family, and Freedom: Lessons from JD Vance and Usha’s Interfaith Marriage
JD Vance, a Roman Catholic, and Usha Chilukuri, a practicing Hindu, unite in marriage to respect each other’s faith and culture. Usha has been guiding JD through significant personal and professional milestones, including the strengthening of his Catholic faith. This union is a great example of religious equality and pluralism in intermarriage.
Donald Trump announced JD Vance as his Vice Presidential candidate in the 2024 US elections. Usha met JD at Yale Law School while they were both students. In 2017, Usha clerked for Chief Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court.
Faith of Mr. Vance
JD, the Republican Senator from Ohio, was raised as a Protestant but began seriously considering converting to Catholicism by 2016. In an interview, Vance said, “I was never baptized. I was raised Christian but never baptized. I was first baptized in 2018. Usha was raised non-Christian. She is actually not Christian. But I remember when I started to re-engage with my faith, Usha was very supportive.”
Wedding
They got married in Kentucky in 2014, with wooden benches for guests set outside in the grass. Their judicial bosses officiated their wedding. They also had a separate Hindu Vivaha ceremony, an important Hindu samskara, to align with Usha’s faith.
Children
The Vance children are Ewan Blaine, born in June 2017, Vivek born in February 2020, and Mirabel Rose, who was born in December 2021. Vivek means judicious, wise, and prudent in Sanskrit. This proud title is related to the word viveka, an important attribute of Hinduism. Mirabel is a Christian name, but the parents may have chosen this name to be inclusive based on Saint Mira(bai), a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna.
Usha’s Hindu Parents
Usha was raised in Rancho Peñasquitos, an upwardly mobile suburb of San Diego. Her mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a biologist and currently a provost of Sixth College, UC San Diego. Her father, Dr. Krish Chilukuri, is a mechanical engineer and lecturer at San Diego State University. When asked why Usha is so supportive of her husband, she explained, “I did grow up in a religious household. My parents are Hindu. That is one of the reasons why they made such good parents. That made them very good people. And I think I have seen the power of that in my own life. And I knew that JD was searching for something. This just felt right for him.”
The Book Hillbilly Elegy
JD Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, released in 2016, has received both praise and criticism. In 2020, Hillbilly Elegy was made into a film directed by Ron Howard. The book details his family’s struggles with poverty, addiction, and instability, and, ultimately, his journey out. As per the book, Usha has great influence on shaping JD and ‘Usha’ is mentioned 36 times in the book. JD loved Usha’s family and culture and called her parents and uncle fantastic people. However, Usha’s last name ‘Chilukuri’ or the word ‘Hindu’ is not mentioned even once in this significant work. Usha reviewed every draft version of this book, and thus, the couple may have made a decision to focus on JD’s life and not distract from the core message.
JD and Usha exemplify the beauty and potential of interfaith marriages.