Indians have never been viewed highly in America. Most American's interactions with Indians were exclusively through telemarketers, scammers, and then eventually tech support employees, and almost always over the phone, rarely in person. My dad had an extra phone line in our house for dial up internet, and it was always the number he'd give out to businesses, knowing they'd sell the number to advertisers, so literally anytime that phone rang it would always be an Indian on the other end. It was like that my entire childhood up until we got DSL.