Salon: “‘This is our fight for dignity’: The struggle to confront caste privilege in America”

Thenmozhi Soundararajan (D Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Caste-based discrimination happens in the U.S. too. A new Seattle ordinance galvanizes the South Asian community

After Seattle officially became the first U.S. city to ban discrimination based on caste last week, the city council received praise — and also threats — from South Asians both in the United States and elsewhere.

Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who wrote the legislation and has served on the Seattle city council since 2014, worked alongside progressive groups like API Chaya, Equality Labs, Ambedkar Association of North America and several other grassroots organizations to bring about the historic win.

While many non-Hindu and non-Asian Americans have heard of the caste system, it's likely very few understand it. Caste is one of the oldest most insidious forms of social discrimination in South Asia. It dates back more than 3,000 years, and by longstanding tradition divides Hindu society into strict hierarchies from birth. While the system originated in ancient India and has roots in Hinduism, the modern form developed under Muslim and British rule and its effects can be seen in almost every South Asian country and religious community. After India gained independence in 1947, its new constitution formally banned caste discrimination, but prejudice in South Asian diaspora communities is far from gone.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit rights activist and the executive director of Equality Labs, helped create the ordinance and says that caste negatively affects more than 1.9 billion people worldwide and at least 5.7 million Americans of South Asian descent. 

Dalits — a group previously derogatorily referred to as "untouchables" or "outcasts" — have endured caste discrimination across the subcontinent for centuries. Hours before the vote, several South Asian Dalits stood in line to share their stories with council members.

"This win is very historical and personal to me," Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit activist who worked with the groups involved, told Salon. "Our ancestors have been struggling. We have been suffering from caste trauma. So this is very, very personal to me. I'm very emotional."

"In Nepal, my family was brutally attacked by dominant-caste people. I have been experiencing caste discrimination since my childhood," Pariyar reflected. He came to the United States in 2015 seeking a better life, but was surprised when he saw just how ingrained casteism was in South Asian-American communities as well.

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