Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy
reuters.com
reuters.com
Caste is familially inherited. So a person is being judged based upon their ancestry. The only difference between "that group of families is inherently inferior" and "that race is inherently inferior" seems to be how broadly/narrowly you define "race". So a legal argument should be able to be made that discriminating based on caste is discriminating based on race, a protected class.
Am I missing something? If so could someone correct me?
My grandparents were born in the 1920s. One side is Polish, the other side is Italian. With the exception of my Grandfather who looked extremely Sicilian, none of them would have their ethnicity readily apparent to someone in the late 30s who may have posted a job with "Poles need not apply". Until they mentioned their surname, of course.
There's plenty of racism still against Jewish people as well, and I would argue that the vast majority of Jewish people are utterly invisible, unless someone jumps through very similar hoops to the Indians you mention, asking about family name etc.
Columbus Day was started by the Italian community to show that they were 'really American':
> The first national Columbus Day was proclaimed in 1892 by Republican President Benjamin Harrison to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus’s supposed discovery of America.
> But for Harrison, it served another purpose: to help resolve a diplomatic crisis with Italy — and gain support among Italian American voters — after rioters in New Orleans lynched 11 Italian immigrants the year before.
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/10/10/columbus-d...
Italians were not "white" to many Americans:
* https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/colum...
Isn't that true?
I'm torn between calling you out and asking for a source for your claim. Going to do both.
Salty much? Plz link to source lol.
Surely if caste implies a class, that has to have bias for/against others too
Ideally, this should also apply to investors not only employers.
When you remove the human element (including intuition, tacit knowledge, reading of social-behavioral cues, and subjective assessments of temperament and character), you're going to get absurdities that cost society way more than any conceivable benefit.
prove it.
Anyway, doesn't seem likely, there are first of all various medical and psychological conditions in which intuition, reading of social-behavioral cues, and subjective assessments of temperament and character are impacted, which would mean that some people with these conditions would not be prone to the beliefs that come from these states.
Furthermore there are wide variances in humans as to how much one accepts tradition, authority, how much one searches out newness etc.
given all these factors it strikes me as unlikely that every human would be susceptible to the beliefs that probably affect most of the population around them.
I am however perfectly content to say the person who has no such beliefs is an outlier.
Which one do you hire?
(1) The candidate with a face tattoo and ear gauges (holes) who was observed to "roll coal" when he left the interview in a lifted truck with entirely too many skulls and anarchist emblems.
(2) The one with an extremely thick accent that is near unintelligible. [HR says he has a top TOEFL score and satisfies the "speaks English" requirement.]
(3) The candidate who showed up a little late, a little underdressed, a little distracted--maybe demure--, and who just generally didn't seem to want the job.
(4) The candidate who is enthusiastic, pleasant, good at small talk, and who uses the "do you have any questions for us?" part of the interview to ask surprisingly pertinent/proactive questions about the challenges your team is facing instead of focusing on benefits/pay etc.
You might argue that many of the attributes I've mentioned are valid "professional qualifications". But remember, that term--under OPs law--will not be your notion of qualifications: it'll be a contorted mess of statue plus case law plus HR policies plus things you can clearly articulate in advance in the job criteria and prove to some jury against a plantiff with a sob story.
second of all this seems like a variation of that old interview question - tell me a reason why we should hire you over any other candidate that had your same skills but had X (I was asked once why should we hire you instead of someone who speaks our language better) to which I replied obviously if you have someone who has all the same skills but one thing better than me you should hire that person.
Going back to the problems that were initially under discussion; The problem that is supposed to be addressed is not candidates who have all the same skills and abilities and how to choose one because at that point you might as well just draw lots. The problem is candidates who have superior skills but are not taken, candidates with inferior skills but right social markers being preferred.
> it'll be a contorted mess of statue plus case law plus HR policies plus things you can clearly articulate in advance in the job criteria
HR policies and clear articulation of job criteria are things the company controls, but in your scenario they seem to be some insurmountable barrier put in place to catch them out. An organization that is damaged by its own HR policies and job criteria should do something to fix that.
>and prove to some jury against a plantiff with a sob story.
If you chose a candidate from a list of candidates that all were exactly the same qualified it seems doubtful that the sob story will be much good.
Finally:
candidate number 1 doesn't seem likely to me because my prejudices tells me the candidate with face tattoos AND ear gauges is most likely a member of Earth First, and is not going to roll coal but will probably have gotten to the interview on skateboard or something else generally environment friendly.
Candidate number 2 so you're saying HR made a mistake and he did not pass the speaks English requirement adequately.
I don't think I would care much about differences between 3 and 4.
But, I do not see how in the US, that claim somehow makes its way around racial discrimination laws, where to someone not sharing that religious belief, it very much appears as though people are simply discriminating based on ancestry i.e. race.
[1] the wife of my dad's friend who is high caste brahmin refused to enter our home and stayed in my brother's bedroom during the whole visit because we eat meat. Then she made a big fuss about being brahmin and how awful it must be to be a minority in both America and India. She was not very nice
As a counter anecdote, I know several tens of families of both India-born and American-born Indians, and caste has never been brought up or mentioned in the US. It's...just not something you talk about, a bit like race usually doesn't come up in conversations, unless you're talking about it in the context of an article like this one.
I have certainly heard die-hard vegetarian Indians, for example, not want to eat in a restaurant which cooks both meat and vegetarian dishes, but that's more of a "I don't want food that has been in contact with animal flesh/fat" thing that is perhaps a bit hard, but not impossible to understand.
Caste does not go away if you convert to an Abrahamic religion.
Asian christians pray in separate churches and are buried in separate cemeteries from White Europeans.
Non-black christians/muslims/jews have a history of treating their black counterparts very differently.
I can only speak to my own experience and this is not mine.
that's not due to some artificial separation like caste...
it's something to do with homesickness/cultural/language-related natural phenomenon. (eg. church pastor is a friend of a relative etc)
and no one thinks one is above the other due to the separation. (except for cooking...)
and conclude that people just regulary kill other people just because they feel like it...
Google’s caste-bias problem - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425308 - Aug 2022 (249 comments)
Google cancelled a talk on caste bias - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31593799 - June 2022 (946 comments)
Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30515099 - March 2022 (543 comments)
India’s tech sector reinforces old caste divides - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29994226 - Jan 2022 (5 comments)
The Casteism I See in America and American Tech Companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29133517 - Nov 2021 (5 comments)
How Big Tech Is Importing India’s Caste Legacy to Silicon Valley - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26435117 - March 2021 (195 comments)
Caste discrimination in some of Silicon Valley's richest tech companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 - Oct 2020 (322 comments)
India’s engineers have thrived in the tech industry. So has its caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24923338 - Oct 2020 (6 comments)
How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24555492 - Sept 2020 (47 comments)
Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24552047 - Sept 2020 (613 comments)
Silicon Valley Has a Caste Discrimination Problem - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065132 - Aug 2020 (14 comments)
California sues Cisco alleging discrimination based on India’s caste system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23798922 - July 2020 (56 comments)
California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083 - July 2020 (592 comments)
Ask HN: There is caste system in the Silicon Valley? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13704504 - Feb 2017 (6 comments)
Many seem to forget India is a very diverse nation and you end up with entirely different cultures in the same nationality.
Is such a useless broadbrush; it exists only as a dogwhistle for “reverse-discrimination” (which isn’t a thing; that’s just discrimination).
Make no mistake the southern drawl cannot be masked. *Everyone knows*. Words and actions give one away more than the drawl.
I had a coworker whose native accent was a southern one, out of Missouri, but he'd disguised it very effectively, if you met him you'd assume just another California techie.
Here are two examples from Telugu folks. One guy came to USA in 1997 on H1-b, and he even sponsored his wife's sister and the latter's husband for green cards. His wife's sister family moved to the states. They even had joint businesses. By 2006, this guy regretted his decision of sponsoring his wife's sister. My friend, another telugu speaker, was working at his check cashing places in Jersey city, NJ, while being on H1-B (this from 2006). Even though my friend took care of two check cashing businesses in Newark, NJ and Jersey cit, NJ, that boss did not want to help my friend. Now this boss owns five check cashing businesses, 50% of a trash collecting company (which he purchased from Italians). One lesson: never underestimate human emotions such as jealousy.
The second example from 2021. Another friend, a telugu speaker, was working as a contractor at a famous shoe company in Portland. One of his colleagues, a telugu woman, whose husband also works at the same company, gave him hard time by sabotaging him. How did she sabotage? When his manager gave him tasks, the manager asked him to take help from this girl. Whenever she share some thing, she hided the crucial detail, and this friend was on the wrong track. Later, this girl started complaining about my friend to the desi manager. Another Indian FTE came to rescue my friend, not because my friend is Indian, but he wanted to assess my friend objectively, and went through the code he wrote, and then helped him change some APIs. Later, this colleague warned about this girl to my friend: "she is badmouthing you in our FTE meetings, be careful with that snake". This is pure, plain jealousy from fellow native language speaker. Many don't want to see their fellow men from India to succeed at work.
Third example: Some Babu is both Tamil and telugu speaker. He claims he is tamil to Tamils, but as telugu to telugu people, because he comes from that part of TN, that is 20 kms away from Andhra border. This Babu told my friend many times: "how did you come to America, and you don't have good personal skills". My friend is more than average at technical stuff, but he lacks the skills of chamchagiri.
The list goes on: just ask gujarati guys about their experience with fellow gujjus, after making friends with them.
Marwaris and Sindhis do help each other (I am not talking about their helping each other in the states). In Andhra, many marwaris come from Rajastan to start samosa, chai stalls, clothing stores, kirana tores, etc. These people recruit 15 years old marwaris from RJ, and make them work for them for five years or so. After that, big boss helps these works to start their own business.
You know what non-marwaris and non-Sindhis do when they are given an opportunity to work for Marwaris in some gold shop or other place? First complaint: why should I work hard? If I work hard, my boss makes more money. Marwari workers work as if they are the boss of the store: they try to learn every thing to succeed as a business owner, as their goal is start a next business and the bosses are ready to help them. The attitude of Marwaris and Sindhis are differnt from non-marwaris/non-sindhis wrt business. Just like Phoenicians (ancient tradesmen, you can see modern phonecians in the successful Lebanese people in Mexico and Africa), Marwaris/sindhis learn "kuladharma" from their grandparents, they don't like to take shortcuts. That's why in many parts of Andhra, Marwaris have taken over, as vysyas/baniyas left the business because their kids are in USA or in Hyd/Bangalore working as software engineers.
In Vijayawada, during the covid time, one Telugu worker working for marwari jewelry store, ran away with 1Kg gold, as the owner got covid, and gave keys to this telugu worker to run the store.
But... I don't want to learn which last names are low or high caste. I don't want to learn which regions are low or high. I rather appreciate my ignorance on the matter.
The US has its own very fine-calibrated class system from blue-blood to redneck that pretty much everyone is aware of.
Meanwhile, the same people seem to have no problem automatically discerning that someone living on the Upper East Side in NYC is high class and treating them several times better than someone who comes from Random Town, Kansas.
In India, current caste system purely exist as vote bank for politicians. It is sad to see “caste” people now trying to push same affirmative actions with their discrimination shenanigans in US. They grew up entirely on Indian politics holding their hand while pushing out more deserving people. It is completely and utterly bogus claims that these people apparently now being prevented from getting promoted and hired due to discrimination in US. As an Indian living over 3 decades in US, I have never ever seen a single instance of anyone asking or disclosing their “caste”. To uninitiated, there is NO way to tell if some Indian person belongs to caste unless they disclose themselves with some certificate from their village. I grew up in India and I cannot tell which last name belongs to what caste. New generations and cities are extraordinarily cosmopolitan and I have never seen any discrimination based on cast in city I grew up in India for over two decades. Unlike African Americans or immigrants, there is no physical or language or any other externalities that gives away your caste. So, all these discrimination claims are just bullshit.
For many (the 98% who are not the correct caste), caste is a sin that they cannot be freed of.
This has been well being entrenched in place for over 20-25 years. It can be found at any large tech company not just in SV, but beyond too.
Children are destined to be treated as less as if they had control of which families they were born into.
[1] In the State of Tamil Nadu, the caste-based reservation stands at 69 percent and applies to about 87 percent of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
I think HN has articles about people changing their names.
Also, people who are anti-caste are quite open about it. The rest probably not so much, or will say it's not so bad, or it's been mis-understood, or that the root of it was better than the practice, or the practice of it now is much better than the root was.
It's difficult to reconcile and self-examine the blurring of socio/cultural/political/religious division among a billion people to keep them focused on pinning each other down, instead of building each other up.
Caste also works in the shadows, like every downvote I'm grateful to pay for with not having that kind of karma.
Nothing personal, I just think every human life is equal in potential and things like caste (like education) limit access to opportunity to uplift your own life and the generations after you.
1. Whoever first came to USA on H1-B (just before Y2K) are in high positions at many companies. They are VPs, not because they have good managerial skills, not because they have great competence in solving technical problems. Just they came early, these folks got green cards so fast, and they got Exec MBA from weekend/night schools. You can see a lot them at many FANG companies with MBA from Wharton or berkely-columbia mba, etc.
2. Just like a white VP from X co, hires his subordinates and friends from his old company, these Indians follow the footsteps of these white leaders. Mind this, before harping about 'caste'. When white managers engage in whatever Indians do, you won't call it 'casteism', but you call it cronyism and collusion. You can see this in every mega company, where new SVP brings in his cronies from his old company, and tries to get rid of the old structure.
3. In India, going to USA to work for a software company is seen as a bragging right (unlike those Indians who come to USA to work for cruise liners--C-1/D visa). So, when fellow country men come to work with an Indian in the states, these Indians get jealous, not because of caste, but because of the fact "oh, I am not unique anymore, as more Indians are coming to America". My friend, who is not a brahmin, but belongs to non-reservation category in India, was given hard time by a person belonging to the same caste as he does. In another place, his contract was not renewed even though his Indian manager wanted him, but this full time employee who speaks the same language as my friend, has grudges against my friend. These cases are dime a dozen: no brahmins involved here.
4. The trash from the point 1 (esp senior management who got lucky because they came early to usa, and moved up the ladder faster) is replicating the corporate illness that non-Indians do. Instead of socializing at golf clubs, these people socialize by inviting each other to their homes.
5. H1-B is the large culprit of exploitation of Indians. Karlheinz Deschner, in his 10 volume work on Christianity, said this: "the oppressed become the future oppressors". Same thing is happening here: now, Indian managers at FAANG and other companies, exploit their country men. Here, the white senior management is culprit: they just put Indians as managers for Indians, and ask them to deliver results. When green card process takes decade, what can one do? Here is one example I experienced at CISCO: all team members are Indians, almost all on H1B; I saw my colleagues replying to emails from 6 am to 11 pm. Everyone tries to oneupmanship in these teams.
6. Imagine India sent only 10 Indians every year to USA. In such a case, every Indian would have helped their new countrymen. USA has 3 million Indians. Here, every Indian colleague is jealous of another Indian. I am not saying that white people are selfless. With respect to Indians, one more dimension of jealousy should be added.
7. One of things Indian learned in India is chamchagiri (brown-nosing). Look at all those Brahmin (and non-brahmin as well) authors of Sanskrit to English translations during British Raj. In the second page of their books, you see "dedicated to Lord Viceroy blah blah". This is something almost every Indian has mastered. So, this makes these Indians probe each other about their backgrounds, their interests, their sh1tty after-work cricket/basketball camaraderie, their weekly visits to lunches, etc. Here, everyone is assessing everyone else: if Mr X is super smart in coding/solving problems, other colleagues brown-nose this Indian guy; if Mr Y is a chamcha (ears) for a Sr Director of Engg, people try to be nice to him; this is the shit these people do; etc. Next time, when your Indian colleagues go for beer party, or to play a game or to watch a movie with their Indian managers, wear these lens to see what these Indian subordinates do. Even if you are a brahmin, and if your boss is a brahmin, still you have to do a bit of brown nosing to move up--by talking about some Carnatic music or by discussing about some ritual you gonna do next month, etc.
8. There is something Indian about Indian managers. In old days, say, Zamindars (a person, who has a lot of land/zamin), had a lot of servants. These servants dedicate their lives to them. Whenever a son of a servant goes to college, the servant asks Zamindar for financial help; whenever someone in his family is sick, the servant asks a favor from the big boss(zamindar). In these situations, the big boss gives money, sometimes jewelry for servants' daughters' marriage. In other words, servants expect more than salary, and a good boss delivers on these 'un-assumed', 'un-enforceable' obligations.
When Indians become managers, they act like these Zamindars, but these Indian managers don't deliver on 'un-assumed', 'un-enforceable' obligations. These managers just use their Indian subordinates, by calling them at 8 pm to deliver on some feature because some VP wanted it for Tuesday's demo.
9. There are Indian bodyshops. Owners of these bodyshops came before Y2K, after Y2k. They just sponsor H1b en-masse; then these guys tell their employees, "oh your billing rate is $65, and shows a fake contract from primary vendor that shows $65 per hr, while he actually bills $100 per hr". Whenever an Indian employee transfers out his H1-b to another company, this bodyshop owner doesn't pay him 3 months of salary. This is how many Indian bodyshop owners became multi-millionaires.
I can go on. Don't blame Brahmins in any of these. Just look at a broader picture of how Indians operate.
This seems kind of weird to me. Regardless of how fast they get a green card, they're going to face competition existing Americans. I don't think speed of green card would matter much unless there's a very large shortage of qualified existing Americans.
So a a manger in 2003 will become a vp today, unlike the manager of 2015.
After they've come in as managers or VPs, they get to control who the company hires. That's when the casteism comes into play cause they'd only hire from their own caste or village. I've seen whole teams hired, not in the US, where everyone was from the same village and related to each other. Of course this was only known after one of them accidentally let it slip out.
It is thinking only my caste is good or having prejudiced ideas that is wrong.
Caste identity is essential to maintain tribal relations and networks (every part of the world has this and practices this), but feelings of caste superiority are to be eradicated.
I feel pity for your son because instead of giving him a choice and making him understand what is good and bad, you are preventing him from hearing about it at all, which, in my view, is even worse and will be a shock to him when he encounters situations he cannot handle because of your ignorance.
You may keep him away from caste, but the society will not.
This is going to become easier now once forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts are no longer enforceable.
The food thing might be separate to tone down the spice levels for what's served to you.
I was just trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the family you ate with. But I now know whats going on here.
e.g. this trader from China came via sea to Kerala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
(Not 100% serious, but not 100% joking.)