“I was speechless,” he was quoted saying about his coworkers’ actions, which left him depressed, traumatized and living in a van for a month in 2015 until he quit the restaurant. “Why did these people practice these kinds of things here in the US?” Periyar continues to ask
Prem Pariyar searched for work and a home within communities of fellow immigrants, reported timesofsandiego.com. When coworkers at a South Asian restaurant in Davis refused to room with him in an apartment his employer provided, he was shocked by their reason: his caste. Not his race, religion or nationality, but the centuries-old social hierarchies still prevalent in some South Asian societies.
Pariyar is a Dalit. In Nepal, he said, his family faced violence and harassment. He thought he had escaped that when he came to the USA.
“I was speechless,” he was quoted saying about his coworkers’ actions, which left him depressed, traumatized and living in a van for a month in 2015 until he quit the restaurant. “Why did these people practice these kinds of things here in the US?” he continues to ask.
Today, Pariyar, who won asylum and became a US citizen, is one of California’s most vocal activists for a ban on caste discrimination. After successfully pushing for California State University to adopt a ban in 2022, Pariyar, a social worker in the East Bay, is focused on getting protections for so-called lower-caste people into the state’s fair housing and employment laws.
Legislation to do that is contentious. In April, it drew one of the largest public hearing turnouts for any bill before California’s Legislature this session. It would be the first statewide measure of its kind in the nation, although Seattle passed a similar ordinance in February.
While many Californians may never know anyone who experiences caste discrimination, or even what it is, for some, it’s both hidden and inescapable.
timesofsandiego.com pointed out that for many worshipers at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple on the outskirts of Sacramento, the issue is about their families’ futures: Will the discrimination they experienced as Dalits in India follow them to California? Will it stop their children from achieving the American Dream? On a recent Sunday, between services and a meal, members swapped anecdotes about discrimination they encountered, including in the US.
In social settings among other South Asians, they said, they’ve heard derogatory comments about Dalits. One man, a hospital janitor, believes he got tougher assignments because his supervisors and colleagues from upper castes played favourites. Some said bosses, coworkers and classmates asked probing questions — about their last names, the temple they attended, their relatives’ jobs back home — that to an outsider may seem innocuous, but are common ways to discern someone’s caste background in India.
“Some politicians don’t want to be seen as targeting any community — including the Indian community, which has political clout. That gives the opposition a window of opportunity, particularly those in the ‘Hindu right’…Whatever organizations are sort of spearheading this … they keep appropriating this right to speak for all Hindus and all Indians.”
— Rohit Chopra, Professor of Global Media and Cultural Identity at Santa Clara University
Several who spoke to timesofsandiego.com work as truck drivers. In many ways, they said, the legacy of the caste system had already shaped the trajectory of their lives, because it limits the jobs and education available to them both in India and now the US. “It was really hard for our people to get up, to get a high-paying job and higher education,” said Raj Rohl, 40. “We struggled a lot. We don’t want that to happen here, so our kids struggle again here to get the education they want, to get the jobs they want.”
“Honestly, we don’t really deal with that many Brahmins here,” said Raj Vadhan, 50, referring to the highest caste classification. The bill, he said, would help more with “discrimination going on at the upper-level jobs, the higher-paying jobs.”
“To tackle discrimination, we have very strong existing laws and existing protections under categories of ancestry and national origin. They can, and should, be used to deal with any issues of caste-based discrimination as they arise — and they have actually already been used,” said Samir Kalra, Managing Director of the Hindu American Foundation, an advocacy group opposing the bill. “Creating an entire separate category and law that only applies to minority communities is inconsistent with our constitutional norms.”
Caste issues have surfaced prominently in Silicon Valley, where Indian workers with bachelor’s degrees made up 27 % of tech workers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in 2021. In April 2021, the Santa Clara County Human Rights Commission held informational hearings about caste discrimination.
In 2020, what is now the state Civil Rights Department sued Cisco, the San Jose-based networking and cloud management company, and two engineers after an employee filed a complaint alleging he received less pay and fewer opportunities because he was Dalit. He also said the defendants retaliated against him when he spoke out. The two engineers denied the allegations, saying in court filings they reject caste hierarchies and recruited the employee to Cisco with competitive pay and stock options. The state dropped its case against the engineers, but continues the suit against the company. The state and Cisco are in mediation talks. Attorneys for the company and the two engineers did not respond to requests for comment.
While caste discrimination is difficult for corporations to navigate, it’s also a thorny issue for politicians. Rohit Chopra, a professor of global media and cultural identity at Santa Clara University, said some politicians don’t want to be seen as targeting any community — including the Indian community, which has political clout. That gives the opposition a window of opportunity, particularly those in the “Hindu right,” he said. “Whatever organizations are sort of spearheading this … they keep appropriating this right to speak for all Hindus and all Indians,” he said.
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