‘Caste is anti-Asian hate’: the activists fighting ‘less visible’ discrimination in the US

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CALIFORNIA

An effort to ban caste discrimination in California has touched a nerve​

California would be the first state to explicitly ban the practice, but the process has been divisive.
Aisha Wahab, center, with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, right, stand next to each other after a news conference in Sacramento, Calif.


California state Sen. Aisha Wahab (center) gathers with supporters after a press conference introducing a bill that would outlaw caste discrimination in the state. | José Luis Villegas/AP Photo

By ERIC HE

09/04/2023 07:00 AM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Caste discrimination wasn’t on the radar of many lawmakers in California. Then it showed up on their doorstep.

Hundreds of people mobilized outside the state Capitol in recent months, protesting a bill from first-term state Sen. Aisha Wahab to add caste to the list of protected groups in California — a proposal that many felt was unnecessary and unfairly tarnished the image of the South Asian community. Hearings on the bill got heated.
“Clearly we hit a nerve,” Wahab, who got death threats and is being targeted with a recall for her efforts, said at one hearing.

If the bill passes as expected and Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it into law, California would become the first state to explicitly outlaw caste-based discrimination, though Seattle has done so and other cities are considering it. Caste, a social hierarchy in which one’s group is inherited, is historically associated with South Asia and Hindus, and opponents argue such a ban stigmatizes the religious group.

The affair has had repercussions for Wahab in her heavily South Asian district. It’s become a bitter lesson in the pitfalls of wading into nuanced cultural issues in an ever-more diverse nation.

Wahab, a progressive tapped by Newsom to highlight his signature gun control effort, appeared to be caught off guard by the vitriolic response to what she views as a straightforward issue.
“This is a civil rights bill,” she said in an interview. “It’s very simple. We’re trying to protect people.”

For her, it began as she campaigned in her San Francisco Bay Area district, hearing about an issue that has emerged in some employment discrimination cases in Silicon Valley as well as a divisive measure in Seattle and elsewhere. But a bill to explicitly ban caste discrimination hadn’t been introduced in the California Legislature, even from the two members of South Asian descent.

The fact that this subject came up in the first place perhaps isn’t surprising. Indians represent the second-largest U.S. immigrant group after Mexicans, and Wahab’s district has one of the largest populations of Indian Americans. More broadly, South Asians have become more visible in American politics, with Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy running in the Republican presidential primary.

Wahab’s legislation, Senate Bill 403, is a floor vote away from reaching the governor’s desk, but not before a fractious legislative process in which she received pushback even from fellow progressive Democrats. Newsom’s office would not say whether he supports the bill.

Committee hearings were packed, with lines for public comment stretching out the door. Social media has been ablaze from both sides, and lawmakers have received tens of thousands of calls and emails. When the city council in Cupertino passed a resolution opposing the bill, city officials said it was the most-attended public meeting they’ve ever seen in the majority-Asian suburb.

A progressive split​

Backlash from constituents and local officials prompted two Democratic state lawmakers whose districts overlap with Wahab’s, Assemblymembers Evan Low (D-Campbell) and Alex Lee (D-San Jose), to take the unusual step of openly disagreeing with their progressive colleague, suggesting amendments that ultimately watered down the legislation. All three are also in the Legislature’s Asian American and Pacific Islander caucus.
“It’s not politically expedient, but it’s the right thing to do,” Low said in an interview. “It’s my genuine interest, because it breaks my heart to see members of our AAPI community being split.”

Lee’s office, which typically logs about 10 constituents providing a stance on a bill, received over 600 messages on SB 403. Just 26 were in support, according to a spokesperson. Low said that the ratio of opposition to support was “99 to 1.”

The pair met with Wahab to share their concerns. Eventually, Wahab agreed to place caste under “ancestry” rather than list it as a standalone category such as race, gender identity and age, ensuring that the word remained in the bill, but less prominently.

Low did not take a vote on the proposal. But the amendments won over Lee, who gave a floor speech explaining why he was supporting the bill — and noting that he tried to ensure the ban “doesn’t unfairly single out anyone.”

Low and another Bay Area legislator, state Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), said caste hadn’t come up as an issue in decades of being around Silicon Valley tech circles, where there have been accusations of caste discrimination. Activists on both sides of the debate have focused on educating lawmakers about caste.
“A lot of staff asked, ‘What is caste?’” Wahab said of the reaction when she first considered introducing the bill. “They had to Google it.”
Activists on opposing sides crowd around the backdrop of a television segment outside the California State Capitol on a bill that would ban caste-based discrimination in California.

Activists on opposing sides of a California bill to ban discrimination by caste demonstrate in July outside the state Capitol. | Eric He/POLITICO

Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation — one of the groups opposing the bill — said that the term “caste” is unlike the state’s other protected categories.

“Everyone has a race. Everyone has an ancestry. Everyone has a gender. Everyone has an age,” Shukla said. “Not everyone has a caste.

Shukla believes the bill has sailed through the Legislature because nobody wants to be seen as being against an anti-discrimination bill.

The issue hits home for Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose), the first Indian American elected to the state Legislature and one of two South Asian lawmakers serving in either house. Kalra voted for the proposal but said it was an emotional issue for him. He lamented during a committee hearing about seeing his community “tear each other apart on social media,” and hoped that both sides would make a “commitment to healing.”

Heart of the movement​

Silicon Valley, home to a large South Asian population and some of the world’s largest tech companies, has been at the heart of a movement to combat caste-based discrimination.

A 2020 lawsuit by the California Civil Rights Department — believed to be the first in the state to be filed on the grounds of caste-based discrimination — accused two Cisco supervisors of discriminating against and harassing an employee who identified as Dalit, the lowest class in the caste hierarchy. The case against Cisco is ongoing, though complaints against the two supervisors were dropped earlier this year.

The bill’s supporters see the lawsuit as a milestone that has enabled more caste-oppressed people to come forward.
“Right now, it’s such a gray area,” said Tanuja Gupta, who in 2021 quit her job as a senior manager at Google News in a highly publicized exit after an event she had organized about caste issues was postponed.

Gupta is now in law school in New York. She said that one of the most frustrating parts of advocating for SB 403 has been the argument that caste discrimination isn’t occurring because there have been so few documented cases, calling it a “chicken and egg argument.”

Using a different surname to protect against discrimination is not uncommon, said Prem Pariyar, a delegate for the National Association of Social Workers and Cal State East Bay alum who helped lead a successful push last year for the CSU school system to include caste in its anti-discrimination policy.

Pariyar was born into a Dalit family in Nepal and came to California in 2015 to escape caste discrimination. Friends told him that the state was progressive, friendly to immigrants and accepting of different cultures. Instead, he recalled being alienated by his Nepalese coworkers, who refused to room in shared housing with him because of his caste. Pariyar said he was forced to live out of a van for a month, an experience he called depressing and scary.
“I thought they would not repeat those kinds of practices here,” Pariyar said.

Talking points​

In mid-July, about 250 people gathered at an events center in Fremont, an East Bay suburb in Wahab’s district, for “Caste Con,” a full day of programming against the bill. Several Fremont city officials attended, as well as Palo Alto Mayor Lydia Kou. Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, who lost to Wahab in last year’s race for the local state Senate seat, was given a standing ovation when she was introduced.

The event was moderated by Satish Sharma, chair of the Global Hindu Federation based in the United Kingdom. Copies of Sharma’s book “Caste, Conversion: A Colonial Conspiracy” were available for free in the lobby.

At one point, Sharma asked ChatGPT to define “caste,” and then pointed out the number of times that the word “Hindu” appeared in the computer’s response. “That’s not an accident,” Sharma later said in an interview. “It’s been seeded for such a long time. The word is a hate brand.”

Later, attendees heard talking points on how to defend their stance in the state Capitol. Salvatore Babones, a sociologist and associate professor at the University of Sydney, said people have to “accept the debate” over caste, noting that simple arguments such as “I’m not a Nazi” and “I’m not a white supremacist” do not work in the United States.
“You have to fight it on American terms,” Babones said. “If you don’t fight it on American terms, you’re going to lose.”
Sejal Govindarao contributed to this report.


 
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Professor Emeritus

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If you don't want to be stigmatized over caste, then don't discriminate by caste. Come on now, this is pathetic.



POLITICO

Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation — one of the groups opposing the bill — said that the term “caste” is unlike the state’s other protected categories.
"Everyone has a race. Everyone has an ancestry. Everyone has a gender. Everyone has an age,” Shukla said. “Not everyone has a caste.


Funny how she left out "religion", "disability", "medical condition", and "military and veteran status", which are also protected classes in California. Disingenuous as hell.

Imagine seriously trying to claim "We can't pass anti-discrimination laws because they make Hindus look bad." No, discriminating makes Hindus look bad. Work harder to stop that and you won't have anything to worry about with the other shyt.



Edit: Did some background research and Shukla looks like a terrible person. She comes from a Hindutva background, is funded by Hindutva sources, and constantly defends Modi and Hindutva, while also pretending not to be associated with it. She tries to claim that any attack on Hindutva is an attack on India, and had launched numerous lawsuits and campaigns against people who attack it. She frequently uses "Christian" and "Muslim" as if they are slurs.

Her organization also claims that caste isn't part of Hinduism, and tries to make the bullshyt argument that caste is just worker's guilds, but then turns around and claims it's wrong to compare caste discrimination to racism and fights every attempt to ban caste discrimination.
 

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Humans are very tribal. It's was only a matter of time before they imported their racist caste system here once they got their numbers up.
 
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Sikhs in Fresno and across California have joined residents of Oaxacan descent in working to outlaw caste-based discrimination, which both have been subject to. ((Gary Kazanjian / Associated Press))

Sikhs in Fresno and across California have joined residents of Oaxacan descent in working to outlaw caste-based discrimination, which both have been subject to. ((Gary Kazanjian / Associated Press))© Provided by LA Times
As a teenager picking apples in the Central Valley town of Mendota, Miguel Arias was puzzled when Mexican farmers yelled the insult “Oaxaquita" at Oaxacans working in the fields.

His parents explained that in Mexico, the system of casta persisted, with some people looking down on those with darker skin or Indigenous heritage.

“As a Mexican immigrant, I just thought we were all Mexicans, and we were all immigrants,” said Arias, a Fresno City Council member who immigrated from Michoacán when he was 2 years old. “Discrimination that Indigenous people in Mexico got … for lack of a better description, it was the dirty secret among our Mexican immigrant community.”

On Thursday, Arias and his council colleagues voted to make Fresno the first city in California to ban discrimination based on caste or Indigenous heritage, while a similar bill sits on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

The state bill, which passed the Legislature in early September, was intended to protect supposedly lower-caste people of South Asian descent as well as Indigenous people like Oaxacans. It has sparked intense support, as well as opposition from those who say it singles out Hindu Americans as potential perpetrators of discrimination.

In Fresno, the push for the ban was led at first by Sikh residents, whose religion rejects the idea of castes. People of Oaxacan descent soon joined them, as discrimination against those with ties to the southern Mexican state gained widespread attention with the leak of a recording that captured three Los Angeles City Council members and a labor leader in a racist conversation.

“These proposals in Fresno are trying to say we have an opportunity to address ... this historical legacy of discrimination against untouchables and against Indigenous people,” said Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, a Oaxacan American who is director of the Center for Mexican Studies at UCLA, as well as a board member at the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities, which was among the groups advocating for the Fresno ordinance.

When Spain colonized Mexico, it established the Sistema de Castas, according to Rivera-Salgado. Those born in Spain as “pure Spaniards” were at the top, followed by Spaniards born in Mexico. Indigenous groups were near the bottom, along with Black people.

“During the colonial period, the Spaniards implemented this system that resembled very much the system of India,” where Brahmins are at the top and Dalits, or untouchables, are at the bottom, Rivera-Salgado said.

In the leaked recording, then-L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez described Oaxacans as “little short dark people” and “tan feos" — so ugly. Then-L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera referred to them as “Indios,” or “Indians.”

“They were speaking disparagingly about Oaxacans. Why?" State Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), author of the state caste discrimination bill, said of Martinez and Herrera. "Because caste systems exist all over the world, and they may have a different look or a vibe to it, but the discrimination happens, and I think Oaxacans can appreciate that this bill would also protect them in some regard as well."

Luis López Resendiz, program director for the Indigenous interpreter program at the L.A. Indigenous organization CIELO, said his dad insisted that he “dominate” Spanish as a way to hide his Indigenous identity. His father had often been called Indio or Oaxaquita.


“People hated me when I was speaking my own language in the streets,” López Resendiz recalled his dad telling him. “People tried to shame me because of who I am. I don’t want that for you.”

But schoolmates still made fun of López Resendiz, guessing that he was Oaxacan from the design of his huaraches, he said. Only in college did he begin to speak openly about his background.

Advocates for the Oaxacan community have long pushed back against the discrimination. In 2012, the Oxnard school district prohibited the words “Oaxaquita” and “Indito,” or little Indian, from being used on school property.

Arcenio López, executive director of Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project, which pushed for the resolution in Oxnard, recalled hearing the epithet Oaxaquita when he came to California from Oaxaca in 2003 and worked in the strawberry fields.

“Many of those youths were facing similar experiences I faced as a farmworker, but in the classroom,” he said. “They felt they didn’t belong to the school system, because other classmates were making fun of them.”

Tens of thousands of Sikhs and Oaxacans, many of them farmers or farmworkers, live in Fresno County and the Central Valley. The two communities have worked together for years.

The racist audio leak in L.A. and the passage of a caste discrimination ban in Seattle inspired the two groups to push for the Fresno ordinance.

“When groups have shared a common experience of inequity and being treated as less than, right away they can understand each other’s pain," said Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement.

But the state caste discrimination bill, SB 403, has provoked outrage from some Hindu residents.

Satish Vale, a national convenor with Americans4Hindus and an IT consultant in Santa Clara, said existing laws already protect against discrimination based on caste. The bill imposes the idea of caste, when Indian Americans are trying to move away from it, he said.

"When we came from India, we don’t have the caste anywhere represented in our identity cards or in our passports or in our degrees,” Vale said. "Caste is like an N-word for us."

In Fresno, there was little opposition to the city caste discrimination measure, which passed 6 to 0.

At a news conference Thursday after the City Council vote, leaders of the Jakara Movement and the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities called for Newsom to sign SB 403.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan who has been on a hunger strike for nearly a month as she awaits Newsom's decision, was among the advocates for the bill who joined the news conference.

"When we think about things like the casta system, things that led to genocide, things that led to the othering of Indigenous people, we see ourselves in their struggle as caste-oppressed people," Soundararajan said, "because we, too, have been oppressed for centuries."

Times staff writer Suhauna Hussain contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
 
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