In a resurfaced interview, filmmaker Mira Nair described her son, Zohran Mamdani, as “not an American at all” and “a total desi,” referring to his Indian and Ugandan roots — remarks critics say reveal how the self-proclaimed progressive champion has long identified more as a global citizen than a New Yorker.

The comments were made in 2013, when Nair sat down with the Hindustan Times to discuss her then 21-year-old son, who was studying at Bowdoin College in Maine.

“He is a total desi,” Nair said, using a Hindi and Urdu term for someone of South Asian heritage. “Completely. We are not firangs [foreigners] at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan at all.”

She added, “He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian.”

At the time, Mamdani had not yet become a U.S. citizen. Born in Kampala, Uganda, to Nair and anti-Israel Columbia University scholar Mahmood Mamdani, the future politician moved to New York City at age seven and was naturalized in 2018 — less than a decade before his current mayoral run.

The newly surfaced remarks are likely to deepen questions about Mamdani’s worldview and political roots as he campaigns to become the city’s first openly socialist mayor in nearly a century.

His mother’s comments — delivered with pride — appear to underscore his upbringing in an elite, multicultural household steeped in global politics and anti-imperialist thought. Mahmood Mamdani, his father, has drawn controversy for serving on panels alongside figures tied to Hamas-linked organizations, including a “Gaza Tribunal” that sought to charge the U.S. and Israel with war crimes.

In the 2013 interview, Nair noted that the family “spoke Hindustani at home” and called her son a “chaalu fellow,” or “street-smart guy,” who was “very involved with current affairs, politics, and political issues.”

“I think he can be engaged in the world in some way to make a difference,” she said. “He is very, very interested in that.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)