Wait - these staffers are working in government but know so little about world history and culture that they’re clueless about caste? Maybe that’s part of the problem of getting progressive consensus on this bill.
To be fair, caste has no direct analog in U.S. or European culture. It isn't shocking that a staffer in the California state government would need to be educated about an issue, the first time it's become a political issue in the U.S.
It’s really basic social studies in the “world history and cultures” category, I would expect them to learn it in high school.
The US had a literal race based “caste-like” system for much of its history. In the South this didn’t end until the 60s, and many people alive today were alive when it was still strictly enforced.
> caste has no direct analog in U.S. or European culture
Wait, what? Systemic racism in what's now the U.S. was literally codified as a caste system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta And we're still dealing with the legacy of that, many centuries since.
Interesting, thanks for the link! I had a vague sense that Central / South America had a more complicated understanding of race than the white/black dichotomy, and this is helpful.
I think that Americans are very familiar with systematic discrimination based on race or skin color. The distinction that I think confuses people not from SE Asia is that caste discrimination is between different classes of people who appear to be the same race and ethnicity from the outside.
Perhaps discrimination against Irish and Italian immigrants would be analogous, though that faded so long ago that even my Irish NY grandparents knew that it happened but just kinda thought it was funny.
We are? The US is still dealing with the legacy of the Spanish formalized caste system, because of territory it took over from Spain and/or Mexico a century and half ago? I call baloney.
The US is still dealing with the consequences of its own sins. I don't think it inherited Spain's sins when it took the land.
From my (USA American) viewpoint, caste discrimination seems very close to discrimination based on national (or group, e.g., Roma) origin. I would not be surprised (but do not know) were some instances of caste separation historically based on national origin.
How does caste discrimination differ from discrimination due to national origin (other than the fact that it obviously does not go away after multiple generations b/c inter-caste marriage is taboo)?
"Boston Brahmin" doesn't capture any of the subtleties of caste, nor is it long lasting. The salience of that group lasted at most two centuties, and most Americans wouldn't immediately place someone named Ted Brinley in that group on hearing the name. Exogamy was rampant. The same things are not at all true of a Brahmin.
That's not a direct analogue to the Hindu caste system because at most generation or two were perfectly sufficient to transition to a higher level 'caste'.
It's not a caste in the direct sense. I mean rich people who adopted their cultural practices or married into (which would be hardly even possible in a 'true' caste system) were generally socially accepted.
Of course being Irish/Catholic/Black etc. would've disqualified you but it's not quite the same thing.
There's a preponderance of Indian and other South Asian immigrants in California, so much so it can be considered part of the culture. It is shocking that such ignorance exists in California specifically, though not as surprising necessarily that such awareness is missing in other parts of the US.
As an anecdote, I am a white person who went to a high school in the US that was 33% Indian and had/continue to have absolutely no idea what caste the parents of my friends were.
Maybe it was common knowledge for them, I don’t know, but it was a truly invisible distinction for me.
Even when we learned about the caste system in AP World History in the context of Hinduism and classical/post-classical India, I just figured it wasn’t a thing anymore. No one ever brought it up as still being a thing.
I'd say there's a difference between being clueless and having a clear definition everyone agrees on. I have an idea of what the caste system is, but if I tried to explain it exhaustively I'm sure I'd get a lot of details wrong.
It also seems prudent when creating a law that mentions caste that someone who, after reading the bill, still doesn't know what caste is, has a legitimate criticism.
We define the word "motor vehicle" in most Codes of Law as well. The existence of the precise definition isn't for people totally ignorant to the existence of the automobile.
I am guessing those staffers have at least a vague notion of what caste is, yet would have to either learn more or verify the accuracy of what they know in order to get their job done. If anything, their willingness to learn rather than to act upon limited and potentially prejudiced knowledge is a good thing.
Wait - these staffers are working in government but know so little about world history and culture that they’re clueless about caste? Maybe that’s part of the problem of getting progressive consensus on this bill.