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Usha Vance

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Usha Vance
Second Lady of the United States
Designate
Assuming office
January 20, 2025
Vice PresidentJD Vance
SucceedingDoug Emhoff (as Second Gentleman)
Personal details
Born
Usha Bala Chilukuri

(1986-01-06) January 6, 1986 (age 38)[1]
San Diego County, California, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic (as late as 2014)
Republican (as early as 2022)
Spouse
​
(m. 2014)​
Children3
EducationYale University (BA, JD)
Clare College, Cambridge (MPhil)

Usha Chilukuri Vance (born Usha Bala Chilukuri; January 6, 1986[1]) is an American lawyer. She is the wife of JD Vance, who is the vice president-elect of the United States and Ohio's junior United States senator. Usha Vance will assume the role of Second Lady of the United States on January 20, 2025, becoming the first Indian American, Telugu American, Asian American, and Hindu to hold the title.[2]

Vance was born in San Diego to Indian immigrant parents and raised in an upper-middle-class suburb. She graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in history and from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor degree. After law school, she served as a law clerk for multiple federal judges, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Judge Amul Thapar.

Vance was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 2019, and subsequently worked for a leading law firm handling civil litigation and appeals in cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology. She resigned from her law firm job in July 2024.

At the 2024 Republican National Convention, Vance delivered the introductory address for her husband, JD Vance. She often traveled with him to his vice-presidential campaign events, occasionally appearing onstage. The couple has three children.

Early life and education

Usha Bala Chilukuri[3][a] was born in 1986 in a suburb of San Diego, California,[6] to Telugu-speaking Indian immigrants.[7][8] Her father is a mechanical engineer from IIT Madras and a lecturer at San Diego State University,[9][10] and her mother is a molecular biologist and provost at the University of California, San Diego.[11]

Usha Chilukuri's parents are from the Telugu Brahmin community of the West Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh, India.[12][13][14] Their family migrated from Andhra Pradesh, India, in the 1980s.[12] She was raised in San Diego's upper-middle-class Rancho Peñasquitos suburb.[15][16]

Her paternal ancestry can be traced to Chilukuri Buchipapayya Sastri (c. 18th century), who lived in Saipuram in Vuyyuru Mandal of Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh.[17][13][12] Later, one branch of the family migrated to Vadluru near Tanuku in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.[18] Usha's mother, Lakshmi (née Yechuri), is from Pamarru in Krishna district.[13][17][1]

Her great-aunt, Chilukuri Santhamma, living in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, is considered India's oldest active professor at age 96 as of 2024, and has authored a book based on the ancient Hindu sacred text Bhagavad Gita.[19][7] Usha's paternal grandfather, Chilukuri Rama Sastri, taught physics at IIT Madras, and the institute now runs a student award in his memory.[7] Her paternal aunt lives in Chennai.[17]

In 2003, she graduated from Mt. Carmel High School, where she performed in the marching band.[6][20][10] She has one sister, Shreya.[16] Childhood friends described her as a "leader" and a "bookworm".[21] She attended Yale University, graduating summa cum laude in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in history, with membership in Phi Beta Kappa.[3][22] During her time at Yale, Vance volunteered in local elementary schools, served as a Girl Scouts troop leader, and became the editor-in-chief of Our Education, an education policy publication.[22] After graduating, she taught English and American history as a Yale–China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.[22][23] Vance then attended Clare College, Cambridge, in England, as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, receiving a Master of Philosophy in early modern history in 2010.[24]

In 2013, Vance obtained her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where she was the executive development editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.[25][23][26] During her time at Yale Law, she participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, and the Pro Bono Network.[27][28]

Career

Vance served as a law clerk for Judge Amul Thapar of the District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2013 to 2014, Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2014 to 2015, and Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts from 2017 to 2018.[29][30][31] During her clerkship at the Supreme Court, she was assigned to work on Azar v. Garza, a case regarding a juvenile undocumented immigrant in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who sought to have an abortion.[32]

Vance worked for the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson for its San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices as an associate for almost six years, handling civil litigation and appeals in cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment and technology, until July 2024, when she resigned "to focus on caring for our family".[33][34][35] Among her clients were the Paramount Pictures, Regents of the University of California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and a division of The Walt Disney Company.[36][37][38] Vance previously worked as a summer associate at Williams & Connolly, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, and Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz.[39] She was admitted to the District of Columbia, California and Ohio bar.[40][34]

Vance has served on the board of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association and as secretary of the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.[41]

2024 election campaign and Second Lady of the United States

JD Vance's vice-presidential campaign

At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Usha Vance delivered the introductory address for her husband, JD Vance.[42][43] Since then, she has been an advisor to her husband, and often travels with him to campaign events, occasionally appearing onstage with him.[44]

According to some sources, she helped her husband prepare for the 2024 vice-presidential debate.[44] JD Vance was declared the winner of the debate by several columnists, including some from The New York Times,[45] The Wall Street Journal,[46] and Los Angeles Times.[47] Usha Vance also received some credit for her husband's debate performance.[48]

Second Lady of the United States

Since Trump won the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Vance will assume the role of Second Lady of the United States in January 2025.[49] She will be the first Indian American, the first Telugu, and the first Hindu Second Lady in the White House.[50][51][52][53]

Personal life

While at Yale Law School, Chilukuri met her future husband, JD Vance, a relationship encouraged by their professor Amy Chua.[54] Chua has called their relationship "extremely unlikely, almost opposites of personality".[55] In 2013, Chilukuri and Vance collaborated to organize a discussion group at Yale focused on "social decline in white America".[56] Vance often called Chilukuri his "Yale spirit guide".[55][56]

Chilukuri and Vance married in 2014 in Kentucky, in an interfaith marriage ceremony,[57][21] her husband's friend Jamil Jivani read from the Bible[58] and a Hindu pandit blessed the couple.[56] They have three children and reside in Cincinnati.[59][60] She is a practicing Hindu, and her husband a Christian[57][61] who was raised Evangelical but converted to Catholicism in 2019.[62]

According to public records, in 2014 Chilukuri voted in Democratic primaries, but in 2022, she voted in the Republican primary in which her husband was a candidate.[21][55] She clerked for conservative judges, such as Roberts and Kavanaugh, but has also practiced at a California law firm with a progressive work culture.[63] According to The New York Times, her political views seem to have changed over the years, as in 2021, she made a political contribution to the U.S. Senate campaign of a national conservative, Blake Masters.[56]

Chilukuri has been an avid reader since her early years. In her childhood, she often visited India and was introduced to Indian literature by reading books by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and novelist R. K. Narayan's Malgudi Days, among others.[12] The "read" books on her Goodreads account include novels by Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Vladimir Nabokov, as well as nonfiction by Nina Burleigh and Nicholas Kristof.[56] In 2016, she read her husband's book, Hillbilly Elegy, and gave it a five-star rating.[56]

Portrayal in media

In Hillbilly Elegy (2020), a film about the life of her husband, she was portrayed by actress Freida Pinto.[64]

Notes

  1. ^ Usha Vance's family originates from Telugu speaking areas of India; in Telugu names the family name is usually put before the given name.[4] Her name in Telugu order would be "Chilukuri Usha", and several relatives of hers have their names customarily in Telugu order.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c "The birth of Usha Bala Chilukuri". California Birth Index. Archived from the original on November 17, 2024. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
  2. ^ "Who is Usha Vance, the next second lady of the United States?".
  3. ^ a b "Yale Phi Beta Kappa". Yale College. Archived from the original on September 8, 2024. Retrieved September 5, 2024. Class of 2007 – Second Election of the Class of 2007: Usha Bala Chilukuri
  4. ^ Telugu Personal Names. Central Intelligence Agency. 1964. p. 5.
  5. ^ "Usha Chilukuri, Potential Second Lady of U.S., has a close Vizag connection". The Hindu. Chennai. July 18, 2024. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved September 3, 2024.
  6. ^ a b Sheerin, Jude (July 17, 2024). "Who is Usha Vance, lawyer and wife of Trump's VP pick?". BBC. Archived from the original on July 16, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024. Mrs Vance, 38,... née Chilukuri, the child of Indian immigrants - was born and raised in the suburbs of San Diego, California.
  7. ^ a b c Rishika Sadam; Krishna N. Das (July 18, 2024). "Indian family of Usha Vance, wife of Trump's VP pick, known for academic prowess". Reuters. Retrieved July 19, 2024. Most of our family is academically strong and education has been a top priority
  8. ^ "Who is Usha Vance, JD Vance's wife who influenced who he is today?". CBS. July 16, 2024. Archived from the original on July 16, 2024. Retrieved July 16, 2024. The daughter of Indian immigrants to the U.S. who were also professors, she was born in San Diego
  9. ^ Gopal, B. Madhu (July 18, 2024). "Usha Chilukuri, Potential Second Lady of U.S., has a close Vizag connection". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  10. ^ a b "Usha Vance, wife of vice presidential nominee JD Vance, has roots in San Diego". San Diego Union Tribune. July 21, 2024. Archived from the original on August 3, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024. Usha Chilukuri Vance graduated Mt. Carmel High School in 2004. Her parents hold prominent positions in San Diego's academic world.
  11. ^ "Lakshmi Chilukuri". Society for College and University Planning. Archived from the original on August 3, 2024. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
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  13. ^ a b c అమెరికా ఉపాధ్యక్ష అభ్యర్థి వాన్స్‌ సతీమణి ఉష చిలుకూరి - ఈమె ఫ్యామిలీ గురించి తెలుసా?. ETV Bharat (in Telugu). July 18, 2024. Archived from the original on July 20, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  14. ^ "ట్రంప్ గెలిస్తే తెలుగమ్మాయే మిసెస్ వైస్ ప్రెసిడెంట్". Eenadu (in Telugu). July 17, 2024. Archived from the original on July 17, 2024.
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  18. ^ Usha Chilukuri పూర్వీకుల గ్రామం వడ్లూరు ఎక్కడుంది. 'బీబీసీ తెలుగు' పర్యటనలో ఏం తెలిసింది? (in Telugu). BBC News. July 20, 2024. Archived from the original on July 20, 2024. Retrieved July 20, 2024 – via YouTube.
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  32. ^ Carmon, Irin (October 24, 2024). "What Is Usha Vance Thinking? The veep candidate's wife is the child of immigrants, a former Democrat, a highly skilled lawyer — and a total mystery". The Cut. Archived from the original on November 13, 2024. Retrieved November 13, 2024. One of the cases she was assigned to involved whether the Trump administration could force a minor in immigration detention to stay pregnant against her will, a case Kavanaugh had ruled on in the lower court, when it was truly consequential. He'd sought to prevent her abortion by running out the clock. By the time the case got to the Supreme Court, the minor had managed to get an abortion, and the justices put forth an unsigned opinion with no dissents, declining to sanction the minor's attorney.
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  44. ^ a b "Vance and Walz lean on their wives in different ways on the trail — and ahead of the VP debate". NBC. September 30, 2024. Retrieved October 12, 2024. Usha Vance has acted more as a behind-the-scenes adviser
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  57. ^ a b Bhatia, Shireen (July 16, 2024). "Ohio Senator JD Vance reveals Hindu wife's support for his Christian faith". Christian Today. Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
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