Caste discrimination in the United States is a form of discrimination based on the social hierarchy which is determined by a person's birth. 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.
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. 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
Caste is a birth-based social stratification system.
Historically, the dominant caste Hindus and Sikhs have been the ones to acquire citizenship in America. In 1923, A.K. Mozumdar and Bhagat Singh Thind argued that they passed the whiteness test because they were caste Hindus and had pure "Aryan" blood.[page needed]
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 "Hindoo 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. 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."
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."
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. The New York Times calling it "an instant American classic", and Publishers Weekly calling it a “powerful and extraordinarily timely social history.” The book reached the number one spot in The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
Lower caste activists in India have found common ground with the struggles of African Americans in the US. The lower caste activist body Dalit Panthers was formed taking inspiration from Black Panther Party.
Legal position
Caste is not officially recognized by law as a category of discrimination in the United States. The reason is that caste discrimination was not a known phenomenon when the laws were written. It has come to light only in recent times due to recent reports of discrimination.
The California law bars discrimination on the basis on ancestry. Dalit lawyers believe that caste discrimination is covered under it. Legal scholars have also argued that caste discrimination is cognizable as race discrimination, religious discrimination and national origin discrimination.
In August 2002, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination approved a resolution condemning caste or descent-based discrimination.