Before the WW2, hindus in US had been fighting a gigantic battle to be considered as 'white' and failed.

Subsequently, they were taken as 'blacks'

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Diaspora/roots.html

"...The political aspirations of Asian Indians were to receive further setbacks with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1917, which virtually barred all Asians from entering the United States. At this time naturalized citizenship was reserved for "whites" only. The Supreme Court’s 1922 decision in the "Ozawa" case, where it was ruled that "white" ought to be interpreted to mean "Caucasian", provided only a short-lived reprieve to jubilant Indians, for in the following year the Supreme Court declared that in the "understanding of the common man", "white" clearly denoted a person of European origins. Thus Bhagat Singh Thind, though a Caucasian of "high-caste Hindu stock," was not entitled to naturalization. Over the next few years, some 45 naturalized Indians were stripped of their American citizenship.."

"..Indians attempted to demonstrate that they were "of pure Aryan blood."

"being lumped together with Africans and Caribbean people as "black"

"The aversion of Indians to being viewed as part of a "black" community no doubt owes something also to their own racism, and as one black man wrote of Indian college students in the 1920s, "the Indian wore turbans so as not to be identified with negroes; they kept their distance, wanted nothing to do with negroes."

"..Indians were zealous in pressing forth the claim that they ought to be considered "white"..

HIndis could use this shooting tragedy to ask for an apology and be considered as sun-tanned 'white'