Bay Area Foundation Icons

Telugus started coming to the USA, particularly the Bay Area — also called Silicon Valley — in the 80s and a little more in the 90s. There were very few of them and they really used to struggle to find Indian groceries and Indian food. But they worked hard developing the communities and eventually made the Bay Area one of the Indian’s (more so Telugu’s) hubs.

The persons like Sri Kasi Sastry, Sri Durvasula Sastry, Sri Rattayya, Sri Bhaskar Rao, Sri Lakireddy Balreddy and Sri Vrudula Rayudu came in the 70s and put in great efforts to commute to places and to unite Telugus coming from India with their services. We understand that Sri Durvasula Sastry spent his personal money and put in efforts to screen a Telugu film in the Stanford University area.

People like Sri Anjaneyulu Kothapalli, Sri Venkateswara Rao Vellanki and Sri Satyanarayana Bodapati put in great efforts to start a Telugu Association, which later got formed as the Bay Area Telugu Association (BATA).

Telugu Times, which started in 2003 in the Bay Area, practically saw the growth of the Telugu community here — so is their activity from 2004 onwards. Hence Telugu Times proposes to identify and place Telugus who reached the Bay Area in the 80s and 90s and recognise them as Bay Area Foundation Icons. We keep adding them as we reach them or they reach us.