Biases we brought with us

Here in Seattle where I live, the City Council passed a law to amend anti-discrimination protections in employment, public places, housing, and contracting to include caste as a protected class earlier this year.

There’s limited awareness and a significant portion of the South Asian population lives and works outside the Seattle city limits. Still, it’s monumental.

Now, California is set to pass a bill banning discrimination on the basis of caste - after a slew of lawsuits against tech companies in their treatment of Dalit (low caste) workers.

This legislation comes at a time when there are two American Indians running for President in the Republican Party (stateside) and a rise in Hindu nationalism in India.

If you’re not part of the desi* diaspora, it’s easy to miss the subtle behaviors of exclusion and marginalization that happen in everyday interactions.

*The word Desi comes from the word Desh, which means country or origin, or where the country originated from. ? For example, India used to be a big state which after partition was divided into 5 individual states: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. People who are from those countries are known as Desis.

23 years after arriving in the US and being the only South Asian kid in my high school whose parents were not doctors, I can still feel the sting of being treated as less than by adults who knew nothing about me.

Not being allowed to join the Indian Students Association in college because somehow I wasn’t Indian enough or pursuing a relevant major to belong. Studying to become a k-12 educator and anthropologist wasn't hype in 2002.

Culturally, everything in the first interactions between desis is meant to gauge where you fall on the class and caste hierarchy.

What is your last name?

What do your parents do?

Where do you come from?

What’s your job? Who’s your employer?

Less than subtle questions, all meant to gauge whether you’re worthy.

Not only are Hindu nationalists loath to part with the privileges afforded to them by the casteist system—wealth, societal status, and political advantages—but they genuinely view many Dalits and lower-caste individuals as an “unclean” people unworthy of basic human rights. In India, the most bigoted Brahmins will fence themselves off from Dalits in any way possible, forcing them into poverty-wage jobs with horrific conditions, and not even allow them the basic dignity of sharing common spaces or utensils with higher-caste Indians. Slate

It might seem dramatic, and yet, the caste and class play is alive - not just in South Asia, but in the diaspora stateside.

If you watch shows like Indian Matchmaking on Netflix, you might even remember Nadia’s challenges with finding a match because of her Caribbean roots. Why? The desi diaspora in much of the Caribbean was brought by the British as field labor. Three generations later, this somehow made her less worthy.

These [bad] cultural habits are ones we’ve brought with us and continue to practice.

The most/least surprising coverage on the California bill has been pushback by South Asians working in tech, law, and medicine. Upwardly mobile, often from higher socio-economic class and caste.

Just as most white folks want to avoid accountability for their racism, so do those with wealth and privilege in the South Asian diaspora.

And they want to maintain these beliefs in the US by denying promotions, housing, and medical treatment to others on the basis of caste.

This is what I've been swirling on for the past week.

This facet of my culture crushes me at my very core.

I've hated seeing people have a separate set of dishes to eat from, for their house help.

I actively change topics when I can sense questions about my class and caste coming - from someone I'm meeting for the first time at a networking event.

And...

I feel a magnetic pull towards South Asian women who are bucking the norms. I want to be bffs with all of them.

I remind myself that the work and contributions of our diaspora are diverse.

I'm desi enough and worthy enough of being in relationships that center my dignity, regardless of my bank balance.

What cultural habits or norms have you grown up with within your family, or faith community that are discriminatory?

What are the assumptions about certain groups of people that you've taken at face value your whole life?

In what ways does it shape your interactions with new people?

How do you engage others from your community in having these conversations?