Indian-American Brown Girl Anamika Veeramani
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Can you spell? I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it, but I'm not sure I could win a national spelling bee. Not with words like consuetude (an established custom), phillumenist (a matchbook collector) and juvia (a brazil nut). But a few days ago on June 4, 2010, 14 year old Indian-American Brown Girl Anamika Veeramani of Cleveland, Ohio spelled those words (and more) and ultimately won Scripps 2010 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., the third Indian-American in a row to take the title. In fact, Anamika is the eighth Indian-American winner in the last 12 years, a winning streak that began when Nupur Lala won in 1999 and was featured in the Academy Award nominee Spellbound (see documentary trailer below).
Curious about the word Anamika spelled to take home the trophy and $40,000 in cash and prizes? Well, it was stromuhr - a rheometer (laboratory device) designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery. Yep. I had to look it up.
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