Harvinder Anand, the new mayor of this Long Island village of multimillion-dollar homes, private beaches and yachtsmen, is, like many other residents, a successful business executive, a boater and a connoisseur of world travel. His Sikh turban and beard drew double takes when he moved to the community about 10 years ago, but it does not get many anymore. At least not among the locals.

Nonetheless, Mr. Anand’s way of standing out in the crowd of Bermuda-shorts-and-loafer-wearing people who elected him in June — he ran unopposed — attracted television crews from American and Indian networks to his inauguration on July 2. The newscasters described the election of Mr. Anand, 47, a New Delhi native who is the first member of any minority group to be mayor of this 95-percent-white community of 2,000 fronting on Cold Spring Harbor, in eastern Nassau County, as an unparalleled event.

In fact, he is part of what political analysts see as a new pattern: While minority candidates are usually propelled into office from densely populated enclaves of their own ethnic groups, a small but recently growing number of Indian-American officeholders has been getting elected in communities across the nation where they are the tiniest of minorities. [Link]