Hacker News Reader

Comment by primitivesuave | Hacker News Reader

I was born in India and moved to the United States when I was very young. One of the other Indian-American kids asked me what my caste is after hearing my unfamiliar last name. At the time, I hadn't even heard of caste, and didn't realized what kind of parenting environment creates a 7 year old (who doesn't even live in India or speak the language) to question the caste of another Indian in the first place.

After school, when I asked my mother about my caste, she refused to tell me anything about it. "We left that silly system behind in India, and we're not bringing it here."

View on HN

For what it's worth, I think your mother's attitude is shared by the vast majority of Indian-Americans, and even first-generation Indian immigrants like me.

In India, there are egregious things reminding you about it, i.e. literally every government form ever -- but in the US it's reasonably easy to ignore and forget about completely unless you go out initiating conversations about it, or are unlucky enough to run into someone like your friend.

I have had a ton of both Indian-American and Indian immigrant friends in the US, and have had zero conversations with any of them that involved discussing caste.

As an American Indian I found the whole asking of race in government forms to be a bit crazy.

I usually end up putting “N/A” or equivalent.

If it's a drop-down, then I refuse to self-identify.

If it's a blank to fill in, then I write "Irish/Scottish".

It's never a blank.

As far as I know, the race question on government forms is for census reasons.

But this thread raises an interesting point.. asking about race or about caste on government forms could be potentially creating extra divisiveness, by making people identify themselves one way or the other and making them conscious of their differences.

It's on government forms?

That's how it goes. It was thus -and probably still is?- in Europe. It's thus in the U.S. It's thus everywhere that governments care about the racial/ethnic/religious make-up of their populations. For me there's always a fear of another Holocaust like that of the Tutsis in Rwanda or the Jews in Europe.

Yes, similar to how US colleges ask for race on applications. India's government programs have the equivalent of affirmative action everywhere; so all forms where affirmative action could be implemented ask about it.

As a white guy: I met one guy who was brahmin and was bragging about it and trying to explain to me that the caste system is good.

This has been my experience as well- 99% of Indians outside India don’t know and don’t care. If anyone has any doubts the system is still very much alive in India, just visit the ghats of Varanasi where even in death (i.e. cremation) the castes are kept separate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com