Description of the caste system hierarchy, with priests being in the highest caste ("Brahmins") and disposal workers being in the lowest caste ("Dalits").

Caste discrimination in the United States is a form of discrimination based on the social hierarchy which is determined by a person's birth.[1] Though the use of the term caste is more prevalent in South Asia and Bali, in the United States, Indian Americans also use the term caste.[2][3]

Caste is not officially recognized by law in the United States, except in Seattle, Washington; on February 20, 2023, Seattle became the first U.S. jurisdiction to add caste to its list of categories protected against discrimination.[4] The existence of caste discrimination in the US tech sector was also acknowledged by a group of Dalit female engineers from Microsoft, Google, Apple and other tech companies. In 2021, the student body of California State University system passed a resolution against caste discrimination.

Overview

History of caste in the United States

In 1910, the Asiatic Exclusion League argued that Asian Indians should be denied citizenship through naturalization. The league described Hindu ancestry as "enslaved, effeminate, caste ridden, and degraded" and Hindus as the "slaves of Creation".[page needed] Such racist rhetoric formed the idea of the "Hindu invasion", an iteration of the "Yellow Peril."[page needed] In 1953, W. Norman Brown, founder of the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote that "a large number of Americans...have a picture of India ... where everyone is a beggar and caste is more important than life".

In recent times, caste discrimination has followed the immigrants to the US from India, Nepal and other south Asian countries. There are more than five million South Asians living in the US.[5] Despite being one of the fastest growing immigrant groups, it has been mostly underreported despite its influence on job opportunities and marriage prospects among south Asian immigrants. Indian migrants account for a large number of high-skilled workers in STEM fields, leading to an issue of caste discrimination in the workplace in areas such as Silicon Valley. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, says, “Caste has been here (in the US) for a long time. Wherever South Asians go, they bring caste."[6]

Race and caste

Several observers see parallels between the issues of race in the United States and the issues of caste. When Martin Luther King, Jr. visited India in 1959, he was introduced by the principal of a school with Dalit students (then called "untouchables") as a "fellow untouchable from the United States of America". Though taken aback with this description, King agreed with it after reflection, thinking, "Yes, I am an untouchable, and every negro in the United States of America is an untouchable."[7]

More recently, Isabel Wilkerson wrote Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which argues that racial stratification in the United States is best understood as a caste system, akin to those in India and in Nazi Germany.[8] The New York Times calling it "an instant American classic",[8] and Publishers Weekly calling it a “powerful and extraordinarily timely social history.”[9] The book reached the number one spot in The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.[10]

Lower caste activists in India have found common ground with the struggles of African Americans in the US.[11] The lower caste activist body Dalit Panthers was formed taking inspiration from Black Panther Party.[3][12]

Caste is not officially recognized by law as a category of discrimination in the United States.[13][14] The reason is that caste discrimination was not a well-known phenomenon when the laws were written.[2] It has come to light only in recent times due to recent reports of discrimination.[15][16] The California law bars discrimination on the basis on ancestry. Dalit lawyers believe that caste discrimination is covered under it.[17] Legal scholars have also argued that caste discrimination is cognizable as race discrimination, religious discrimination and national origin discrimination.[18]

In August 2002, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination approved a resolution condemning caste or descent-based discrimination.[19]

In February 2023, Seattle became the first city in the United States to explicitly ban discrimination based on caste.[20] In March 2023, the state of California began to consider a bill in the senate for a similar ban.[21] The bill was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023.[22]

SB403

In September 2023, the California state senate passed a bill banning discrimination based on caste. SB403, authored by Democratic Senator Aisha Wahab, is a legislative initiative in California that aims to make the state the first in the nation to include caste discrimination in the list of protected rights.[23] The bill defines caste as “an individual’s perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status”, which can be determined by several factors including the “inability or restricted ability to alter inherited status; socially enforced restrictions on marriage, private and public segregation, and discrimination; and social exclusion on the basis of perceived status.”[24] SB403 proposes amendments to California's housing, labor, and education codes to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on one's ancestry, which notably includes caste.

Nirmal Singh, a physician from Bakersfield, California, touches on the impact of SB403 for South Asians: "“It has become psychological trauma that carries over, one generation to the other generation. “This was a very important bill for us.”[25]

Studies on caste in the United States

The oppressed castes of South Asia, known as Dalits, form 1.5% of all Indian immigrants to the United States, according to a University of Pennsylvania study carried out in 2003.[26] The 'high' or 'dominant' castes make up more than 90% of Indian migrants as per a study in 2016.[27][lower-alpha 1]

A study done under Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported that 47% of Hindu respondents identified with a caste; the remaining 53% do not identify with any caste group. In the words of the researchers, the majority do not identify with caste, and this is much more so for American-born Hindu Americans. Of those that identified with a caste, roughly 1 percent each identified with scheduled caste (dalit) and scheduled tribe (adivasi) categories.[29]

A survey on caste discrimination conducted by Equality Labs[lower-alpha 2] found 67% of Indian Dalits living in the US reporting that they faced caste-based harassment at the workplace, and 27% reporting verbal or physical assault based on their caste.[32] The survey also documents personal anecdotes about discrimination and isolation at schools, workplaces, temples and within communities.[26] The Carnegie Endowment researchers pointed out that the study used a non-representative snowball sampling method to identify participants, which might have skewed the results in favour of those with strong views about caste.[29][30]

The Carnegie Endowment study, using a sample from YouGov, found 5% of the Indian Americans reporting they faced caste discrimination.[lower-alpha 3] A third of them said that they faced discrimination from other Indian Americans, another third said they faced it from non-Indian Americans, and a final third said that they faced it from both Indian and non-Indian Americans. The researchers found this response perplexing as non-Indians would not have had caste as a salient category.[29]

Homophily based on caste, i.e., tendency to associate with the people of the same caste, was reported by 21% of the respondents; 24% said that they did not know the caste of the people they associated with. The remainder said that they associate with some or most people of their caste (23% and 31% respectively).[29]

The Ambedkar King Study Circle collected testimonies of how caste consciousness and discrimination are practiced by the Indian Diaspora. The testimonies record various types of discriminatory practices in schools, workplaces, social gatherings and neighborhoods. Usually this discrimination borders on the sense of notional and real 'untouchability'.[33][34]

Psychosocial toll

An image of Dalit women.

Caste-based discrimination imposes psychological distress on its victims, especially from lower castes. Dalits suffer at the hand of discrimination, being referred to as "untouchable" and "dirty".[35] Dalits are often bullied by upper-caste classmates and treated differently by teachers, which is trauma that translates from one generation to the next.[25] South Asians report experiencing diminished self-esteem, feelings of isolation, and enduring anxiety and fear. The first extensive study of caste and its effects in the US found that those from lower castes "fear retaliation and worry about being "outed" and hence "hide their caste."[36] This fear of being outed can manifest in several ways; for example, some families opt to change their surnames to one considered more "caste neutral" (i.e. "Kumar", "Singh", "Khan") in order to avoid ridicule and isolation.[37] The long-term impact on mental health can be severe. However, psychological intervention from the lens of casteism has lagged behind. Research of the Dalit community in Nepal demonstrates that social inequality by way of economic, social, cultural, and psychological stress all contribute to their experience of diabetes; Dalits used diabetes to relay "psychosocial stress through somatic symptoms." Diabetes and other illnesses disproportionately affect those of lower castes, and the causes linked to intergenerational poverty, lack of access to healthcare and education, and other stressors which prolong diabetes impact the mental health of these individuals.[38]

Discrimination issues

Discrimination issues in the workplace

The existence of caste discrimination in the US tech sector was acknowledged by group of Dalit female engineers from Microsoft, Google, Apple and other tech companies.[39][40]

Ambedkar King Study Circle (AKSC), a US based activists group, along with 15 other organizations sent an appeal to top American companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft demanding that the CEOs intervene immediately to address the issue of caste discrimination. The AKSC wanted the companies to bring in caste sensitivity training similar to the gender, race, sexuality training practices. AKSC emphasized the fair and equal opportunity recruitment, retention and appraisal policies.[41][42][43]

In May 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Akshardham in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey to investigate forced labor of lower caste Indian workers.[44][45][16]The workers were brought on religious visa and the FBI removed about 90 workers from the site.[46]

In April 2022, Google cancelled a planned talk by Thenmozhi Soundararajan as part of its Diversity Equity and Inclusivity programme. It was allegedly done under pressure from employees who accused her of being "Hindu-phobic" and "anti-Hindu". Some felt their lives would be endangered if the talk went ahead. Rather than bringing their community together, it caused "division and rancor", according to the Google spokesperson. The senior Google manager who invited Soundararajan resigned over the incident.[47][48][49]

Cisco lawsuit

In 2020, caste-based discrimination issues in Silicon Valley came to the surface with a lawsuit by the State of California against Cisco Systems filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH, later named Civil Rights Department).[50] The Department sued Cisco and two of its senior engineers for discrimination against a Dalit engineer (identified as "John Doe"), who had alleged that he received lower wages and fewer opportunities because of his caste.[51][52] After an initial filing in a United States District Court, the department refiled it in Santa Clara County Superior Court in October 2021[53] Cisco filed a demurrer asking for dismissal on the grounds that caste and ethnicity were not protected categories under the Fair Employment and Housing Act of California. The Ambedkar International Center and other Dalit organizations filed an amicus curiae brief, arguing that the California law does in fact prohibit caste discrimination.[50] The Hindu advocacy group Hindu American Foundation (HAF) filed a claim in a United States District Court stating that the California department infringed on the civil rights of Hindus by asserting that Hinduism mandates caste discrimination.[54]

In April 2023, the California Civil Rights Department dismissed (withdrew) its case against the two engineers accused of discrimination, followng an order from the Santa Clara Superior County Court, though it continued with the case against the Cisco corporation.[55] According to court filings, the accused CEO of the division had actively recruited "John Doe", offering him a generous starting package and stock grants, knowing all along his caste background. He had also recruited other Dalits, including the one that was eventually chosen for the leadership role that John Doe was denied.[54][56] HAF reviewed the case files and alleged that the California department's narrative in the case was "full of lies".[57]

Discrimination issues in education

In 2015, California State Board of Education initiated a regular ten-year public review of the school curriculum framework.[58] The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and a coalition of other Hindu activists sought to literally erase the word "dalit" from the syllabus,[59][60] which was contested by a coalition of interfaith, multi-racial, inter-caste groups called "South Asian Histories for All".[58][61]

In 2021, the student body of California State University system, representing half a million students, passed a resolution seeking a ban on caste-based discrimination.[62] The campaign was spearheaded by Prem Pariyar, a Nepali origin Dalit student, who came to the US in 2015 escaping persecution in his home country, and claimed that he faced discrimination in the US as well.[62] For the affected students, casteism is manifested through slurs, microaggressions and social exclusion.[63] The resolution cited the survey by Equality Labs where 25 percent of Dalits reported having faced verbal or physical assaults.[62] Al Jazeera noted that the resolution was authored by a higher caste student and backed by other students from other racial and religious groups.[62]

In January 2022, the Board of Trustees of the California State University responded, announcing that they added "caste" as a protected category in the university's anti-discrimination policy.[64] The change was subtle, according to CNN. The word "caste" was added in parentheses after the term "race and ethnicity".[63] A group of faculty in the university had written to the Board of Trustees citing lack of "due diligence" in instituting the measure. They said that the existing policy of the university, which covers national origin, ethnicity and ancestry, already provided adequate protection, and claimed that the new measure would result in singling out and targeting the Hindu faculty.[65][66] But for the advocates and student leaders who campaigned for it for over two years, it was a civil rights victory.[63]

In December 2022, Brown University became the first Ivy League institution to add caste to its nondiscrimination policy. Brown's vice president for Institutional Equity and Diversity noted that caste was covered under existing nondiscrimination policies, "but we felt it was important to lift this up and explicitly express a position on caste equity.”[67]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In contrast, in India only 4% identify themselves as Brahmin, and 26% as General Category, which means that 70% of the population is from non-dominant castes.[28]
  2. ↑ Described as a "Dalit rights organisation"[30] and a "a nonprofit organization focused on ending what it calls caste apartheid".[31]
  3. ↑ This compares with 1–2% people identifying with scheduled castes/tribes.

References

  1. ↑ Chakravarty, Paula; Subramanian, Ajantha (May 25, 2021). "Why Is Caste Inequality Still Legal in America? (Guest essay)". The New York Times. ProQuest 2531700704. Archived from the original on May 25, 2021.
  2. 1 2 Cooper, Kenneth J. (March 27, 2018). "Indians have imported casteism to the US & a black journalist writes on the need to ban it". The Print.
  3. 1 2 Paul, Sonia (April 25, 2018). "When Caste Discrimination Comes To The United States". NPR News.
  4. ↑ Best, Paul (February 21, 2023). "Seattle becomes first US city to ban discrimination based on caste". Fox News.
  5. ↑ "Demographic Information". SAALT. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  6. ↑ Kaur, Harmeet (September 4, 2020). "Even in the US, South Asians say caste has proved hard to escape". CNN. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  7. ↑ "America's 'untouchables': the silent power of the caste system". The Guardian. July 28, 2020.
  8. 1 2 Garner, Dwight (July 31, 2020). "Isabel Wilkerson's 'Caste' Is an 'Instant American Classic' About Our Abiding Sin". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ "Nonfiction book review: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents". Publishers Weekly.
  10. ↑ "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction - Best Sellers". The New York Times. November 1, 2020. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  11. ↑ Slate, Nico (2012). "The Dalit Panthers: Race, Caste, and Black Power in India". In Nico Slate (ed.). Black Power beyond Borders: The Global Dimensions of the Black Power Movement. Contemporary Black History. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 127–143. doi:10.1057/9781137295064_7. ISBN 9781137295064 – via Springer Link.
  12. ↑ Michael, S. M.; Michael, Sebastian Maria (2007). Dalits in Modern India: Vision and Values. SAGE. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-7619-3571-1.
  13. ↑ Martin, Phillip (February 27, 2019). "Caste Bias Isn't Illegal In The United States. But This University Is Trying To Fight It". WGBH News.
  14. ↑ "Explained: Getting America to recognise caste: previous efforts, renewed push". The Indian Express. October 16, 2020.
  15. ↑ Harmeet Kaur (September 4, 2020). "Even in the US, South Asians say caste has proved hard to escape". CNN News.
  16. 1 2 Correal, Annie (May 11, 2021). "Hindu Sect Is Accused of Using Forced Labor to Build N.J. Temple". The New York Times.
  17. ↑ Mukherji, Anahita (March 10, 2021), "California's Legal Ground in Battling Caste Discrimination Takes Centre Stage in Historic Cisco Case", The Wire, "If you are born Dalit, your children will be Dalits and nothing can change that," [John Rushing] says, adding that the court has solid legal ground to say caste discrimination is illegal.
  18. ↑ Krishnamurthi & Krishnaswami 2021, p. 481.
  19. ↑ Mayell, Hillary (June 2, 2003). "India's "Untouchables" Face Violence, Discrimination". National Geographic. Archived from the original on February 20, 2021.
  20. ↑ Bharath, Deepa (February 21, 2023). "Seattle becomes first city in U.S. to ban caste discrimination". FOX13 News. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  21. ↑ Patel, Savita (March 23, 2023). "California considers ban on caste discrimination". BBC News.
  22. ↑ Hosseini, Raheem (October 7, 2023). "Newsom surprise veto deals crushing blow to caste-based civil rights movement". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  23. ↑ Osgood, Brian. "California passes bill banning caste-based discrimination". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Bill Text - SB-403 Discrimination on the basis of ancestry". leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  25. 1 2 Yang, Mary (September 27, 2023). "'Once we win California, the nation is next': what a caste discrimination ban means for Americans". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  26. 1 2 Tinku Ray (March 8, 2019). "The US isn't safe from the trauma of caste bias". WGBH News.
  27. ↑ French, Patrick (December 10, 2016). "All Come to Look for America (Review of The Other One Percent: Indians in America by Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh)". The Indian Express.
  28. ↑ "Attitudes about caste in India", Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation, Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, June 29, 2021
  29. 1 2 3 4 Badrinathan, Sumitra; Kapur, Devesh; Kay, Jonathan; Vaishnav, Milan (June 9, 2021), Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  30. 1 2 Sriram Lakshman, Group opposes protection from caste discrimination in California Varsity’s faculty union, The Hindu, 24 January 2022.
  31. ↑ Nani Sahra Walker, Even in the U.S. he couldn’t escape the label ‘untouchable’, Los Angeles Times, 4 July 2021.
  32. ↑ Equality Labs, 2018, pp. 20, 27.
  33. ↑ "After case against Cisco, US group gathers evidence against caste discrimination in Silicon Valley". The Economic Times. ProQuest 2427577235.
  34. ↑ "Testimonies of Practice of Caste in the USA". Ambedkar King Study Circle. October 9, 2021.
  35. ↑ Bajoria, Jayshree (April 22, 2014). ""They Say We're Dirty"". Human Rights Watch.
  36. ↑ "The divisive debate over California's anti-caste bill". BBC News. June 9, 2023. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  37. ↑ "Using surnames to conceal identity". The Times of India. February 21, 2009. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  38. ↑ Thapa, Tirtha (July 24, 2014). "Living with Diabetes: Lay Narratives as Idioms of Distress among the Low-Caste Dalit of Nepal". Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness. 33 (5): 428–440. doi:10.1080/01459740.2012.699985 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  39. ↑ Tiku, Nitasha (October 27, 2020). "India's engineers have thrived in Silicon Valley. So has its caste system". The Washington Post. ProQuest 2454517954.
  40. ↑ "A statement on caste bias in Silicon Valley from 30 Dalit women engineers", The Washington Post, October 27, 2020
  41. ↑ "Solidarity Statement to End Caste Practices in Silicon Valley and the USA". India Civil Watch International (ICWI). Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  42. ↑ "Press Release IAAAC_Aug12_2020". Ambedkar King Study Circle. August 12, 2020. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  43. ↑ "When fight against casteism moves to the US". TOI+, The Times of India. August 27, 2020.
  44. ↑ Misra, Shubhangi (May 12, 2021). "Swaminarayan temple in US raided, workers taken from India treated as forced labour: Report". The Print.
  45. ↑ Silva, Daniella (May 12, 2021). "Hindu temple in New Jersey accused of 'shocking violations' in forced-labor lawsuit". NBC News.
  46. ↑ Simko-Bednarski, Evan (May 12, 2021). "Lawsuit claims New Jersey Hindu temple was built on forced labor". CNN.
  47. ↑ Nitasha Tiku, Google's plan to talk about caste bias led to ‘division and rancor’, The Washington Post, 2 June 2022.
  48. ↑ Google cancelled Dalit activist’s talk on caste after pressure from employees, The News Minute, 3 June 2022.
  49. ↑ O’Leary, Lizzie (July 18, 2022). "Silicon Valley Has a Caste Problem". Slate Magazine.
  50. ↑ "California sues Cisco over discrimination against dalit employee". The Week. July 1, 2020.
  51. ↑ Rishi Iyengar (July 1, 2020). "California sues Cisco for alleged discrimination against employee because of caste". CNN.
  52. ↑ Sunita Sohrabji (May 21, 2021), "Caste Discrimination in Silicon Valley? Indian Americans Divided Over Issue at Hearing", India West, vol. XLVI, no. 28
  53. 1 2 Lalit K. Jha (April 11, 2023), "Caste discrimination case against 2 Indian-origin engineers dismissed in US", The Print, PTI
  54. ↑ Deepa Bharath (April 10, 2023), "Cisco still faces caste bias suit; engineers' case dismissed", The Washington Post, AP
  55. ↑ Mark Chandler, Protecting Our People, Cisco Blogs, 3 November 2020.
  56. ↑ Suhag A. Shukla, Dismissal of Cisco case proves engineers were targetted because they were Indian, The Print, 21 April 2023.
  57. 1 2 "Cisco Case Shows Indians Still Take Caste Where they Go". NewsClick. July 15, 2020.
  58. ↑ Mridula Chari (May 19, 2016). "Last hearing today: Should the word 'Dalit' be used in California textbooks?". Scroll.in.
  59. ↑ Soundararajan, Thenmozhi; Momin, Abdullah; Kaur, Harjit; Sengupta, Anasuya (July 1, 2020). "Erasing tolerance? HAF's changes can only be described as ahistorical edits to history books (blog)". The Indian Express.
  60. ↑ Harrington, Theresa (2017). "Hindus urge California state board to reject textbooks due to negative images". EdSource.
  61. 1 2 3 4 Naik, Raqib Hameed. "US students pass resolution to end discrimination against Dalits". Al Jazeera.
  62. 1 2 3 Harmeet Kaur, Colleges and universities across the US are moving to ban caste discrimination, CNN News, 30 January 2022.
  63. ↑ Walker, Nani Sahra (January 20, 2022), "Cal State system adds caste to anti-discrimination policy in groundbreaking decision", Los Angeles Times
  64. ↑ Singh, Namita (January 24, 2022), "Faculty members of California State University protest inclusion of caste in non-discriminatory policy", Independent
  65. ↑ Lakshman, Sriram (January 24, 2022), "Group opposes protection from caste discrimination in California Varsity's faculty union", The Hindu
  66. ↑ "Brown University adds caste to nondiscrimination policy". Brown University.
Sources

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