Caste discrimination in the US, again…Brown University bans caste discrimination throughout campus in a first for the Ivy League.
These stories are strange and silly on some level. But they are serious on another level. Multiple young brown American men have told me that they have been asked about their caste by white colleagues, usually social justice-oriented women. More recently, I was having beers with a friend who works at Google, and he mentioned offhand “I heard caste discrimination is a big problem in American tech.” Context on him: he’s American-born, his father is from China, his mother is a white New Englander, and he’s not religious, but he’s center-right politically.
Very few people in America know anything about caste. So they rely on a small group of activists to inform them. Additionally, the American elite is very worried about structural oppression, and jati-varna certainly fits that bill. So they are attracted to regulating and eliminating it.
The problems:
– Most Indian Americans don’t care about caste, and 1.5 and 2nd generation are very fuzzy on it
– Most Indian Americans who are 1.5 and 2nd generation do marry other Indian Americans, but they seem to marry outside of their caste
– Very few Indian American Hindus, about 1%, are Dalit. About 20% would be “OBC” in India, and 80% are “upper caste.” So there aren’t many “low caste” people to discriminate against
– Very few Indian Americans exist in a predominantly Indian milieu, so caste as a discriminatory framework can never operationalize
The final issue is that of course, the ancestors of Indian Americans on the whole did benefit from literal structural privilege in a broad sense, even if they came from a poor or uneducated background. Usually, on a relative scale, the people who arrived in America had resources or skills compared to the average Indian. In agreement with Greg Clark, I think this human capital persists; Indian Americans are not regressing back to a very lower socioeconomic median. Instead, they are becoming part of the American overclass.
I believe that the new salience about caste in America has less to do with caste and more to do with grappling with a dark-skinned nonwhite population that clearly has high levels of persistent and structural human capital advantage. American elites, and especially white American elites, have a very difficult time intellectually conceiving of the idea that nonwhite people can overcome discrimination and succeed because of the privilege of high endogenous human capital.
Hmm as you may or may not already know, I am against caste or anything resembling that kind of structural discrmination, I think it is wrong on every level.
i) 20% of Indian-Americans is a large percentage. That’s nearly 1/5 that would be a part of the “lower-caste” segment you are referring to in your post.
ii) there are some pretty exclusively or majority Indian-American tech companies out there or companies where hiring decisions and whatnot are left to Indian-Americans. It must be impactful.
iii) I assume that Brahmins make up a large and rather extremely overrepresented segment of it based off of the overrepresentation of Brahmin samples be it South Indian Brahmins like TamilBrahmins, Telugu Brahmins, etc along with BengaliBrahmins GujaratiBrahmins and whanot in terms of their genetic data samples that we have. They are extremely overrepresented in that regard so I can only assume that its the same irl.
Also a theory of mine: I don’t think 80% are “upper caste”. I think some may have just lied on the surveys done to hide/avoid discrimination.
Just my two cents. The entire caste discrimination thing is absolutely abhorrent to me, and I do support any measures taken to fight against it, even though I’m not Indian as I am a Bengali Muslim from Bangladesh. Regards.
i) 20% of Indian-Americans is a large percentage. That’s nearly 1/5 that would be a part of the “lower-caste” segment you are referring to in your post.
no one gives a shit here. literally, no one. most of the 20% don’t even know they’re OBC or what it is.
ii) there are some pretty exclusively or majority Indian-American tech companies out there or companies where hiring decisions and whatnot are left to Indian-Americans. It must be impactful.
indian Americans born here wouldn’t know, they’re mostly coconuts. it is an issue with some indians, but it’s not caste. this is not India, and ppl aren’t regional diversified. the ‘telugu mafia’ is a thing in the valley, but regionality is probably the biggest thing.
iii) I assume that Brahmins make up a large and rather extremely overrepresented segment of it based off of the overrepresentation of Brahmin samples be it South Indian Brahmins like TamilBrahmins, Telugu Brahmins, etc along with BengaliBrahmins GujaratiBrahmins and whanot in terms of their genetic data samples that we have. They are extremely overrepresented in that regard so I can only assume that its the same girl.
they’re 25%
Also a theory of mine: I don’t think 80% are “upper caste”. I think some may have just lied on the surveys done to hide/avoid discrimination.
are you retarded? do you think anyone gives a shit in the US about caste? lol. i guess you’re young so totally clueless. (a lot of 2nd gen indian Americans are vague and have to ask their parents what their caste is when ppl ask them; i know this from real life examples)
80% is clearly general category. i know because i have genetic data from dtc companies and have mapped it onto the overall variation in india
‘the ‘telugu mafia’ is a thing in the valley’
There is no Telugu mafia in the tech industry.
Nah I’m not retarded. I’ve read about this happening here in Canada as well, actually.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indian-caste-system-in-canada-called-a-disease-worse-than-racism-1.3090441
In short, this vet still gets discriminated by YOUNGER and 2nd gen people for being lower caste because their parents still teach them that the lowers are “dirty and filthy”. So it’s not just the older generations holding on to antiquated ways of life but also their kids. So we’re talking guys and girls my age (I’m 20). The dude thought that moving to Canada would mean he would leave the caste system behind but he found out that 2nd gen folks are still taught about it and how they still discriminate based on caste.
Also, check out this article from Britain. Says that up to 200,000 of the 1.5mil British Indian diaspora are considered “dalits”.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/british-indians-seek-legal-protection-from-caste-system-1.2224275
It goes on to state that even the younger gen experiences it, saying that the kid was discriminated by his fellow British Indian peers after they found out about his caste.
Also, I doubt people don’t know lol. I mean, even as an outsider I’v eread about accounts from people stating how endogamous Tamil’ Brahmins and Patels are so surely they’re aware so I don’t buy it. I’ll accept some of what you say but even you acknowledge that 25% of Indian Americans are Brahmins. That is an extreme overrepresentation.
well, canada is retarded please don’t compare your backward ass indians to the US. seriously. there’s some fucked up primitives up there (here’s looking at you surrey)
Also, check out this article from Britain. Says that up to 200,000 of the 1.5mil British Indian diaspora are considered “dalits”.
there’s no citation of this. 98% sure that this is a bullshit statistic. use your thinking cap, the media just repeats shit by any activist who wants to say something. a vast number of the British indian diaspora is east african, and these are almost all guju patidar and or bania. that means that like 30% or more of the others are dalits. that’s retarded. (also, this would show up in the British biobank, to my knowledge, it hasn’t)
Leftist SWjs, often White females for whatever reason, have enough deracinated bhadralok types, radicalislamoapologist, Khalistani, and some extremist Indian Christians with deeply anti Hindu views, who will play this game to bring in oppression Olympics via caste, even if there is negligible saliance in the American context.
It helps further conversion/separatist agendas while eroding meritocracy to keep certain people in power only. It is a deeply unholy alliance of illiberal peoples masquerading as progressives.
ALL of it is a play to get and retain power, more often than not to get some ‘administrative’ talking point on CV as a professor. Many Indian professors use this to get to HoD/Dean/…
American system incentivizes making this a thing. They don’t understand the fire that they are playing with. Almost every single NSF final report I have seen has a couple paragraphs on how ‘diversity’ was promoted by the PI by hiring foreigners, PoC, woman, …
—
Mostly it is mediocre people who want to climb up who take this nautanki too far.
It is very dumb of me to think but a necessary but insufficient condition I employ to identify oppression-olympic grifters is their appearance. Most these fake oppression-olympics kinds in tech and academia obsess about how they appear (dress, shoes, other subtle signs, think of the afro cut Yegde guy from Harvard). The more intelligent check is if they have made actual contributions outside of oppression Olympics, for example, do they publish regularly in major publications, is their writing free of obvious factual mistakes. I know one who is katai-chutiya in his work but won McArthur and bunch of endowed fellowships/chairs with the right advertisement.
Muslim women from Arab/Persia/Pakistan are excellent at this game too. They play the oppressed-religion card.
American academia encourages it because they have endless FAFSA/taxpayer-money and no one is answerable to anyone.
Even 10+ years ago, my grad school had so many ‘administrative’ positions that did jack shit. A new ‘caste-equity officer’ is one more soldier in the army for the intra-university departments rivalry. Industry employs these oppression grifters as a face saver if things go wrong and pay them as ransom to avoid being cancelled.
Overall this is a American thing. Americans have too much ill-gotten/unearned wealth and don’t know what to do with it, so keep creating these new games. I know folks who go to great length outside of their core area to appear ‘marketable’. Some professors go teach at high schools to prove they love sharing/community, even though everyone knows they are lousy teachers and assholes in general. Some join random service related boards in companies. This BS is endless in the US.
Not everything is some sort of grand conspiracy against Hindu people lol you guys need to relax. Many people out there like myself just don’t have a positive view of your little caste system and we look down on it. People are literally born into your system and called “untouchable” even though they would have done NOTHING wrong and they’re answerable to the ones at the top of the chain, just because of this. We just sympathize with those that are discriminated by the caste system.
It’s not that people are conspiring against you, they just have basic human sympathy and compassion and don’t take too kindly to your caste system.
no american hindus give a shit about caste. a lot of them are escaping reservations. stop being a bullshitter
“no american hindus give a shit about caste. a lot of them are escaping reservations. stop being a bullshitter”
Not exactly sure what the connection is here between the first and second sentences. Opposing certain reservation policies in India because you feel they hurt your community members is a very different thing from more generally “not giving a shit about caste”.
. Opposing certain reservation policies in India because you feel they hurt your community members is a very different thing from more generally “not giving a shit about caste
let me make this clear for you dumbshit: there are apparently quotas for certain professions. so some people cannot get jobs easily in India. so they move to other countries, like the USA. this is not caring about your caste, this is your caste making it so you cannot make the most of your talents.
but it’s all good, America has lots of good indian doctors because of this.
don’t act like a dick or I’ll ban you.
Pencil man
It’s easier to undermine Hinduism because it’s unorganised, it has no founder nor a sky dictator with divine commands. Hinduism since it’s OG days have constantly evolved with different thinkers shaping and re shaping their arguments on their ideas on divinity. When you say Hinduism sanctions Casteism, could you name at-least one God amidst the multiplicity of GODS that preaches casteism. Manusmriti is one of the many text that is a part of an unorganised religion BUT IT IS NOT HOLY DIVINE COMMANDMENT that abrahamic faiths would like to see us from. Yes at some point, Indian society became regressive and caste became rigid. Just like even Sati came into existence when no GODS sanctions Sati but men would later claim it as an article of faith. A faith which doesn’t recognise one god, one book, one way of praying eventually became regressive and rigid because it gives “room for doubt” as a portal for wisdom which sadly was weaponised and led to it’s devolution instead of the other way round. But it also means other thinkers can reclaim the faith and shape it the way they deem fit because Hinduism gives plethora of options and personally I resonate with Tantric Hinduism and the erotic temple religion of India which captures all that exists in nature as a form of divinity. And anyway in hindsight however abhorrent caste became through the course of history, I believe it also led India to be the only pagan country in the whole world to survive from abrahamic onslaught. From Egypt to Mayan, all pagan faiths have disappeared except Hinduism where all ethnicity even from Sindhi Hindus to Pashtun Hindus to Kashmiri Hindus are alive and living in India despite deprived of their homeland which is amazing!
“Very few Indian Americans exist in a predominantly Indian milieu, so caste as a discriminatory framework can never operationalize”
While there is something to your other two points, the young adult Indian Americans who are generation 1.5 and 2 in Denver, Colorado which is not exactly the center of South Asian immigration that I have known well (both an employee and her friends, and some clients) are keenly aware of both their caste and of their ancestral South Asian language community (both of which figure in, linguistic difference even within the same varna are still triggering in examples that I have seen, as are caste differences among people from the same regional/linguistic origins, the differences are additive).
While the Americanized young adults aren’t themselves necessarily all that strongly discriminatory, their social lives have been very deeply immersed in a local network of people of the same language/caste combination – parental and community approval is vastly more important to them than for most of the peers of my children (who are in their young twenties) even, for example, compared to 1.5 gen Algerian Muslim immigrants, or 1.5 gen immigrants from Cambodia.
Venturing out of that caste/language niche in a significant other or best friend kind of relationships has in at least a couple of instances that I’ve seen given rise to strong parental disapproval/concern on both side of the relationship quite akin the classic American film “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” (1967) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who%27s_Coming_to_Dinner (about a black-white couple introduced to both side’s parents).
yeah i don’t care about this. the caste endogamy rate is probably 10-20% for 2nd gen, being generous. this isn’t an issue. period. no 2nd generation America is going to get a case because of their caste, period. there *might* be a racial thing where some indian immigrants may hire them partly cuz of their intermediary role (i’m pretty sure I’ve seen this). they know about indians and Americans.
it’s frankly stupid to point to the way parents react. who cares? my parents wanted their children to be Muslim, but none of us are, and none of us married Muslims (or people of the same race).
A lot of pretension and fake outrage without actual data is there precisely for a reason. Activism often has been the shoulder from which to run campaigns for a reason. Much like islamist fundamentalism is not a thing yet in usa inspite of some isis and few extremists. Otherwise, one would be ready with data. Not anectodes.
everyone with brains know this.And those who dont agree to this have out themselves. The thing that is surprising to me as always has been. That these smart people after immigrating to america really were dumb not to realize that politics/ humanities matters in how you are going to be represented and defended. It is what it is.And you have to solve the community problems . Be the group to go. They have to figure out. Good thing about this is that, a lot of them will now be radicalized against left/ democrats. Until people get slapped, they wont wake up. They lve in delusional lalaland. Or, they could try to settle in china or france. revolution there is already done. China or france might like some smart brains.
“When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”.
Very good quote.
A bit rich coming from a person with Bangladeshi heritage. Your community suffered at the hands of Punjabis but still reduced Hindu population percentage from ~20% to < 10%. And you are currently in a society which nearly wiped out native Americans plus slavery. So calm down.
The ashraf elite in IN and PK are more deserving of the quote.
Bhumpiutra,
That’s quite the deflection, lol. Classic Hindu nationalist tactic, when others discuss how barbaric your caste system is frantically try to change the topic to something else. Not an argument for a couple reasons because…
the mass killing in 1971 are not justified by Islamic scripture. In fact, those killings had no grounds in the Islamic religion which is why the Pakijeets, despite us being Muslims, tried to call us Hindus. The rigid caste system where people are called untouchables and told to be subservient to Brahmins on the other hand is the CORE BASIS of Hinduism so the caste system has a direct religious connotation. The mass killings in 1971 were ethnicity related and POLITICALly related (hence the targetted attacks on authors, professors etc).
The caste system is fundamentally a part of Hinduism and one of their books the Manusmriti lol, THAT is the difference. So it’s a false equivalence with no grounds haha there is no such caste system or anything similar within Islam
I wouldn’t get into a contest of quoting bronze age and earlier texts for reprehensible stuff. There’s plenty of shameful material in a lot of those books.
And we all see enough atrocities still carried out in the name of Islam today, with Muslims likely far more religious and knowledgeable than you.
But I predict you will engage in “not a true Scotsman” stuff.
And this is no false equivalence if you want to down that route. Granted, I won’t waste time positing direct quotes that people can google. And we are all intimately aware of radical Islamic terrorism.
There are good interpretations and bad interpretations of religion.
And caste is more Indian (Pak) included than it is Hindu. That is why Indian Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus all retained caste identity. And those social structures are still apparent.
Islam didn’t make it go away in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was just an edge case, where it wasn’t there to begin with.
And can be reformed. Look at Hindus in Guyana. No appreciable caste.
So yes, be against caste. But you implying that Hindusim is fundamentally irredeemable is BS. And this coming from someone raised as a Jain, a group whose temples are beneath many Hindu ones in the Gujarat-Rajasthan belt.
thewarlock,
I too can google cases of poor little Muslims and Dalits being lynched and killed by radical Hindus for the grand “crime” of consuming beef. We too are all aware of the terrible crimes that radical Hindus have committed.
Also, can you point me out to where I said that Hinduism was irredeemable because I never even implied that lol. I just pointed out that it was a deflection and false equivalence because the caste system does indeed have a basis in the very core of Hinduism, and doesn’t even exist within Islam. As Mohammad SAW once said, an Arab is equal to a non-Arab. Maybe some may have cultural beliefs that contradict this, but this is what it has to say unlike Hinduism where the rigid caste system is outlined and SANCTIONED.
Of course, if Hindus decide to collectively abandon their caste identities in the West/ diasporic communities like Guyana and Trinidad, it would be a good move. But they obviously won’t because there is caste discrimination done by 2nd gen folks in Hindu-American communities in Britain and the US and especially here in Canada.
Hindus in Guyana were mostly low-to-middle caste. In the modern Indian diaspora in the West, on the other hand, UCs are vastly overrepresented.
In theory and in practice, we “Shudras” and “Dalits “ don’t hold manusmriti as revealed word of god. ICYMI the tussle between “Brahmins” and others has been ongoing since Ashoka if not earlier.
In contrast, as per Sunni jurisprudence the Caliph must be a Quraysh, the Quran privileges men over women, Arabic over other languages. And the Quran is non negotiable unlike the manusmriti.
Coming to practice, while we can both google random atrocities, you can’t argue with cold hard facts about decreasing hindu population numbers in PK, BD and Kashmir.
Bhumiputra,
The Native Americans? Well, they still have positive discrimination to this very day and while there are some grumbles here and there, it isn’t as bad as being a low-caste Dalit in India. Sure discrimination exists towards them like in everyone but they are exponentially treated much better than a ‘dalit’.
Also, that’s propaganda. Most of the natives died due to diseases that they didn’t/couldn’t adapt to. Your historical illiteracy is showing as it was in the earlier 1971 example lol
India has constitutionally guaranteed affirmative action for Dalits and tribal populations since the constitution came into effect in 1950. Civil rights act in US was passed only in 60s. Even then explicit racial quotas are precluded by a SCOTUS decision.
In today’s era, natives are relegated to reservations/ghettos where they are afflicted by alcoholism and drugs. It does not cost much to appear nice and mouth platitudes about being in native land. In contrast, Dalits and tribals are one of the 4 demographic groups that can go with any party and act king maker. IN newly elected president is a tribal. India also has the equivalent of hate speech laws which are widely misused by Dalits. There is no hell of a chance that such laws will pass 1st amendment test in US.
The part of natives dying due to old world diseases is very convenient and open to argument. What is not under argument is that the federal government kept signing treaties with them followed by reneging on them and forced expulsions and death marches. Considering how PK and BD deal with their minorities, I am not surprised you come up with sophistry to excuse the treatment of natives. Sure I am the historical illiterate.
I am starting to think that subcontinental Muslims kvetch about Dalits and caste discrimination in Hindus as they feel they need to justify their conversion given that most people outside of subcontinent especially ME still treat you same as Hindus.
Bhumiputra,
LOL. Hindunationalists seriously can’t help themselves when it comes to deflection. First of all, Islam outright states that a non-Arab is equal to an Arab. If Middle Eastern people treat people outside of that badly, it would be due to cultural values of their while the caste system is religiously backed and supported by Hindu scripture. You can’t work your way out of that one lmao there is no such religious backing based off of caste lines considering all muslims arab or otherwise are considered equal within the Quran and hadeeth.
So mistreatment can occur sure but it’s not allowed in Islam. Hinduism ENCOURAGES the caste system. Don’t get it twisted. Islam is also fully complete so modern day Arabic stuff ain’t necessary either, it’s not for your validation.
Hindu nationalists also seem to have the weirdest revenge fantasies lmao. Here in Canada, there are quite a few Bengali Muslims in the Muslim Student Associations, as general members but many as the leaders, along with plenty of middle easterners and we literally get along fine, in fact one of my 1st friends at uni was a Arab ethnic Muslim guy. There’s even Sri Lankan muslims and some Indian muslims and some Pakis too. I could care less as to how labourers (of really any background, be it Indonesian, Pakistani, Indian, Bengali, Filipino, Yemeni, etc) are treated in the Middle East, that’s just because they look down on labourers. Cope harder with your pathetic deflections.
“the caste system is religiously backed and supported by Hindu scripture”
Muslims quibble about scripture. Scripture not important in Hindu epistemology.
Vedic scripture also includes animal sacrifice as a core practice for eg. This is not practiced by vedic hindus as it is considered barbaric. (often the animal is replaced by a coconut in rituals)
There are “hindu” animal sacrifice tradtions in Nepal for eg, but those are not vedic scripture driven. etc
Hindu scripture also doesn’t describe the current jati system, with 100s or 1000s of endogamous groups, it describes 4. But that exists regardless of scriptural backing.
Hello @PencilMan,
You will not get through here with these Manuvadi denialists but you sound like a very based man. I have tried many times with these folks as well, they are delusional.
I have my own issues with Islam as a secularist, but there is no doubt that mainstream Hinduism is totally Brahminical and caste-ridden, founded as it is on the bedrock of Manuvaad and jaativaad, no matter what these rayta charlatans may claim.
Do you have Discord? We can talk totally anonymously. Would love to have a chat with you, brother.
This quote accurately describes the real reasons for the serious Muslim resistance to universal suffrage in colonial India.
Note that the ‘casteist’ Hindu elites accepted one person, one vote much more readily than any Muslim elites (Pakistani, Bangladeshi or the wider Muslim world, really).
Their exagerrated on average claims of foreign ancestry are just a continuation of caste. They didn’t get rid of it. They further entrenched it with Islam. Caste is more Indo-Pak (indic part) than it is Hindu.
Also, the quote applies to Pakijeets quite well too, Bhumiputra.
They were privileged enough to have economic benefits from Bengal and when Bengal wanted equality in policy representation, finance, etc they thought it was the worst thing ever.
Still, really loved the frantic deflections lmao, you truly are an amusing group of people, you Hindutva folks.
Lol you do realize mainstream Hindutuva is anti caste. Trads are ostracized and have to semi privately seethe on twitter echo chambers and discord chats.
Most educated urban Indians are deeply anti caste. I think you just want to bash Hindusim and Indians more than anything else.
Atrocity is atrocity. And if anything, Pak Muslims have committed the most since independence. They committed acts on the order of magnitude of Rwanda and perhaps to the degree of the Holocaust, by some estimates.
thewarlock,
lol when did I downplay any atrocity? It absolutel was a tragic period of time. I was discussing the political narratives surrounding idealogy and ethnicity behind it and the kind of backdrop during that period of time.
The fact that you guys keep deflecting on to unrelated things that are not related to religiously-sanction caste systems shows that there is a lot of merit in what I write.
Quit repeating “Caste is religiously sanctioned” like a parrot.
Ppl have already pointed out that Jati isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Hindu scriptures and also that Hinduism doesn’t have a dogma in the same way as Islam or Christianity.
Hi @Razib,
I see this repeated elsewhere too.
I figure caste and reservations are not major factors that influence Indians’ decision to emigrate. Most Indians emigrate to the west not because of lack of job opportunities – it’s for a qualitatively better post-bachelors education, better career and higher quality of life. In fact it’s very common for Indian undergraduates to quit their amply-paying job in India and emigrate to the US for masters. Even highly-competent graduates of India’s best colleges, who can walk in to any job in their field in India, emigrate.
You mentioned doctors; It’s not like Indian medical graduates can’t get a job. They join a corporate hospital chain or start their private practice; these jobs pay pretty well. Doctors who get all those still emigrate because post-bachelors medical education in the US is incomparable, I’d say best in the world.
“Most Indians emigrate to the west not because of lack of job opportunities – it’s for a qualitatively better post-bachelors education, better career and higher quality of life.”
this is correct based on empirical evidence.
most high rankers from IITs can practically walk-in into a job in indian technology sector. however, most choose to get a schol from US universities and emigrate at the first given opportunity.
in fact, during the placement season, indian companies are wary of offering jobs to 9-pointers from IITs because they know that these guys are not serious about taking up a job in india. first hand experience.
“I believe that the new salience about caste in America has less to do with caste and more to do with grappling with a dark-skinned nonwhite population that clearly has high levels of persistent and structural human capital advantage.” Is it really just that – I mean I get that would explain why it’s uncritically accepted by white progressives. But it seems almost like a settling of scores by an alliance of left leaning South Asians, Muslim groups and Sikhs than anything else to paint the Hindu community in a negative light,. The repeated targeting of fairly innocuous things like celebrating Diwali and Holi by claiming they celebrate caste oppression is a case and point. In addition, the immense interest in Christian and Muslim groups in the Hinduism textbook debates when Hindus didn’t take issue with how those religions are portrayed indicate it’s more in common with Indias culture wars than whites grappling with our economic ascendance, though I agree that’s part of it.
I don’t know much about many things, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s the Hindu Diaspora, because I’ve spent my life in it.
In Portland the split was (roughly) Tamil, Telugu, and Everybody Else (mostly Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati). This didn’t mean I didn’t interact with Telugus, but language broadly defined our social spheres.
Occasionally we would intermingle with the Christian Indians. With the Muslims there was much more a firewall, but by the 2nd generation (my generation) you had some social intermixing.
Caste literally never came up. I actually didn’t know what my caste was till I was about 16.
The idea that caste is a major fixture among the Hindu Diaspora in the United States…I’m sorry, it’s just in “not even wrong” territory. It disconcerts me that this claim has become so popular.
It probably depends on the subgroup tbh.
Non-Brahmin South Indians seem pretty liberal though I have heard of some Reddy-Kamma tiffs in the Telugu organizations and occasionally in certain professional contexts too.
Telugu Brahmins are much more liberal than Tamil Brahmins. I don’t know much about Kannadiga Brahmins, I know Karnataka in general is more Sanskritized compared to the other South states. Patels and Jatts sometimes get a bad rep too, I think it is the sort of landed Shudra pretentiousness that gets them in trouble.
I find it amusing that everyone outside Dharmic Samapradaya wants to bash Brahmins for not marrying outside their Jaati.
I have quite a lot of non-Brahmin friends who had hard time convincing their parents to marry their Brahmin partners as they do not want to get their son/ daughter marry outside their Jaati regardless if the offer is from Brahmin family.
Those who do not understand Jaati structure think that all other Jaati want to marry Brahmins and it is the Brahmins who will not marry non-Brahmins.
Though on a positive note, I can definitely say things are changing.
One of my friend, Bihari Brahmin (groom) who got married to a Gujarati Baniya (Vaniya) 15 years ago had a hard time convincing.
Contentious issue for the Girls family being,
1. why marry outside well to do Gujarati Vaniya community
2. why marry in a non Gujarati family
3. why marry a Bihari
Brahmin Jaati was no where in the picture in the whole discussion.
Groom eventually managed to convince the Bride’s family and they are happily married.
When we catch up, we laugh about these things being so silly and unnecessary social hurdles.
Yeah I remember that matrimonial ad that went semi-viral on Twitter that demanded a “non-Manglik Aggarwal,” alongside at least 20 other criteria.
No one ever claimed that ONLY Brahmins are rigidly endogamous, that is a total strawman. However, for various cultural, social, and political reasons the anti-caste movement often finds it necessary to criticize the role of Brahmins (and other UCs) in Indian society.