Dubai: Dubai-born first Indian-American New York Senator Kevin Thomas will lead a New York delegation trip to the UAE this week, his office said in a statement to Gulf News.
The delegation will attend the global cultural exchange at Expo 2020 Dubai.
The delegation, which includes Senators James Skoufis (D-Hudson Valley), John Liu (D-Queens), and Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), will meet with government officials to identify opportunities to strengthen the existing partnership between New York State and the UAE.
Senator Kevin Thomas represents New York’s 6th Senate District. He was born in Dubai and immigrated to New York state at the age of ten.
It was in an exclusive Gulf News interview in March 2019 that the first and only Indian-American as well as the first South Asian lawmaker in the Empire State’s history revealed that he was born in Dubai’s Iranian Hospital in 1984.
“We lived somewhere in Satwa,” Thomas said in the interview. “I studied in St Mary’s Catholic High School up to fifth grade.”
In 1995, his elder sister completed grade 12 from the same school. His parents, Thomas Kanamoottil and Rachel Thomas, who hail from Ranni in the south Indian state of Kerala, then decided to move to the US for their children’s higher education.
“I had just turned 10 at the time,” Thomas had recollected.
On November 6, 2018, the former Dubai student got elected as the Democratic member representing sixth district, Nassau County, in one of the victories that New York had never seen before.
Thomas, who assumed office in early 2019, has been advocating tolerance and pushing for diversity which he had experienced in the UAE.
In June 2021, Thomas introduced a resolution to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Union of the UAE by declaring December 2, 2021, as Emirati Day in New York state.
He said it was his desire to give back to the country he was born on the occasion of its Gold Jubilee.
