Oppressed-caste immigrants face discrimination in the workplace: Kshama Sawant

On February 21, Seattle became the first city in the US to outlaw caste discrimination. The decision was made after the local city council voted to add caste to the anti-discriminatory laws.

The issue also saw some discontent in the Indian American community, with some even saying that caste discrimination is now non-existent. However, activists working on the cause argue that it should be addressed just as other forms of racism.

The Seattle City Council, with a 6-1 vote, agreed that caste discrimination crosses national and religious boundaries.

RELATED: Seattle becomes first US city to ban caste discrimination (February 22, 2023)

Kshama Sawant, lone Indian American socialist Seattle City Council member, who proposed the ordinance, spoke to the American Bazaar on why addressing and acknowledging caste discrimination remains important.

The American Bazaar: Let us talk about the ordinance. Would you say that an overwhelming number of Indians in the US supported it? But there have also been some tensions where some groups feel this would unfairly target certain communities. What would you say?

Kshama Sawant: Seattle has become the first city outside South Asia to have won this historic victory, and it was only won because we built a fighting movement and have a socialist elected representative on the City Council.

But the data show that such a ban on caste discrimination needs to be fought for in other cities also where there are significant concentrations of South Asian immigrant community workers.

This ordinance had overwhelming support from the South Asian American community. Many oppressed-caste-led organizations were part of the movement we built here – like the Ambedkar International Center, Ambedkar King Study Circle, Ambedkar Association of North America, and Equality Labs.

READ: India’s engineers and its caste system thrive in Silicon Valley: Report (October 28, 2020)

One reason this movement was strong was because we had tremendous unity across caste, religion, and nationality among working people.

Some of the organizations who played a leading role are the Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans, the Indian American Muslim Council, Sikh organizations, and my own political organization, Socialist Alternative.

We had oppressed-caste working people and activists join us from around the United States. We were even joined by Sikh Ravidassia oppressed-caste community activists from British Columbia in Canada.

One of the activists who joined us was Prem Pariyar. He was among those who fought to win a ban a year ago on caste discrimination on the all 23 campuses of the California State University, which is the largest public four-year university system in the United States.

Prem moved to the US in 2015 from Nepal, after his family was brutally attacked for being oppressed-caste and after he bravely spoke up against the attacks.

He thought he was leaving the caste system behind when he came to the US, but he, like many oppressed-castes, realized that unfortunately, the caste system was alive and well.

READ: Kshama Sawant introduces first law to ban caste discrimination (January 26, 2023)

Our ordinance was also supported by Hindus for Human rights, and unions like the Alphabet Workers Union, the union that represents Google workers.

We also had the support of Amnesty International, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. We were also supported by Arundhati Roy, Cornel West, and Noam Chomsky.

The idea that this law would unfairly target certain communities is totally false. Discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin is already protected by Seattle’s anti-discrimination law.

To say that protecting people against discrimination would target other people unfairly is like saying addressing racism against Black and Brown people would negatively affect white people.

It is a version of “White Lives Matter,” which was a right-wing attempt to deny the existence of racism, with the claim that saying “Black Lives Matter” would mean discrimination against white people.

The Black Lives Matter movement—and enormous amounts of statistical evidence—have exposed that racism is unfortunately alive and well in society under capitalism. The same is true of caste discrimination.

AB: There also seems to be a lack of understanding about caste discrimination in the US, among Indians too. And perhaps a limited awareness of why this ordinance is essential. Could you break it down on why an ordinance such as this was important here in the US?

KS: Yes, caste discrimination is a very serious issue in the United States. oppressed-caste community members from South Asia and other oppressed-caste immigrant community members often face discrimination, especially in the workplace, including in the tech sector.

Data from Equality Labs show that one in four caste-oppressed people faced physical and verbal assault, one in three faced education discrimination, and two in three (67%) faced workplace discrimination.

Another study, conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also found significant evidence of caste-based discrimination in the United States.

READ: Kshama Sawant to launch ‘Workers Strike Back’ movement (January 23, 2023)

In a public letter published anonymously, 30 oppressed-caste women software engineers documented the systematic caste bias they had experienced in hiring, referrals, and peer review, and the insults and demeaning comments they had endured. The workers described the caste discrimination and sexism they faced as “dominant caste locker room culture at its worst.”

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing won an appeals court ruling in August 2022, to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that an oppressed-caste engineer at Cisco Systems—a multibillion-dollar tech conglomerate—was actively targeted by his dominant-caste managers, and denied professional opportunities, such as a raise and promotions, because of his caste background.

As a columnist in The New York Times wrote, the “technology giant got away with ignoring the persistent caste discrimination because American laws don’t yet recognize caste discrimination as a valid form of exclusion,” allowing companies to operate “in willful ignorance of the terrifying realities of caste.”

After that lawsuit was initially announced, nearly 260 tech workers talked about the caste discrimination they had faced in the workplace, including in the Pacific Northwest, in companies like Facebook, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon.

READ: Kshama Sawant claims cops ignored poop-tossing attacks on her home (October 26, 2022)

AB: What are your next steps? How do you ensure that passed ordinance effectively enables those who may have been victims of caste based discrimination?

KS: One of the most important steps to enforce this law is to make sure workers understand that this law is meant to protect them from caste-based discrimination.

So, we will be carrying out various steps for political education, including upcoming public hearings. We also need to make sure to enforce the law by holding corporations accountable in the courts.

Winning in the courts will also require continued building of the kind of movement we built to win the law in the first place, because the judicial system is not on the side of working people. We also need similar victories to be won in other cities.