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Soundar rararajan fico5/26/2023 It’s not unlike the people who throw temper tantrums when we’re teaching the history of slavery. But there is nothing inherently threatening about asking for our equal rights towards the law. When you talk to you can see they’re not even operating from a place of fact, their nervous systems are so triggered to view equity as a survival-level threat. And that can range from outright usage of caste slurs, to gaslighting whether or not caste exists. We’re in a moment right now where many dominant-caste people are in networks of bigotry - filtered bubbles - that allow them to justify more and more extreme behavior. have become bolder in some expressions of bigotry over the past year or so. It feels like right-wing Hindu nationalists in the U.S. If we Dalits stay in the closet, dominant caste-people can pretend that they’ve created a caste-less environment - which they haven’t. And I know that they had sacrificed a lot for me to be here and I wanted to live my life in a way that was authentic in a way that they couldn’t live theirs. I speak out because I saw how much hiding who they were diminished my parents. And that’s a very profound edge to discrimination because it’s not just that you’re excluded from institutions and that you face violence, but your very divinity is questioned. There’s so much shame, because you’re told that you are spiritually defiling before God. How did you experience caste oppression growing up as Dalit? Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. And she seeks to chart a path forward, particularly for diasporic South Asians in the U.S.īefore we dive in, I want to ask that if you or someone you know has experienced caste discrimination in California - big or small - please don’t hesitate to write to me at Even if you’re not sure you want to air your experience publicly, I want to hear from you. In “The Trauma of Caste,” Soundararajan explains the continuing violence of the caste system and her own experience of it growing up in California. In November, a truck with a digital billboard showing anti-Muslim messaging targeted four New Jersey mosques. South Asian community, and affects the lives of over a quarter of a billion people worldwide.Īttendees of an Indian Independence Day celebration in Anaheim in August charged at a small group of protesters carrying signs that read “Abolish caste” and “Protect India’s Muslim lives.” A similar celebration in New Jersey featured a bulldozer - a strong symbol, given that Indian officials have used bulldozers to demolish the homes of Muslim and Dalit activists - in its parade. The bigotry can replicate itself in the U.S. Her book comes as violence toward Muslims and low-caste people in India is on the rise, emboldened by the leadership of Narendra Modi, who became prime minister of India in 2014, and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. Soundararajan has spent years fighting caste-based discrimination. I wanted to explore this issue more, so I spoke with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit rights activists and the executive director of Equality Labs, a South Asian civil rights organization, about her book, published in November. A Seattle city councilmember announced a proposal last month to add caste to the city’s anti-discrimination policy. A major 2020 lawsuit against Cisco Systems, for example, alleged caste-based discrimination against a Dalit engineer by two dominant-caste managers. The scheme was revealed only after a young Indian woman died, and local student journalists began to ask questions. case involved a now-notorious Berkeley landlord who was the organizer and leader of an illegal sex, labor and human trafficking ring. They can be uniquely fraught, damaging for those targeted and difficult to expose.Ī prominent U.S. In the course of my reporting, I’ve been thinking about workplace discrimination and labor trafficking schemes in the U.S.
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