SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Town Council has added caste to the town’s anti-discrimination rules, changing into the primary U.S. town to in particular ban caste discrimination.
Calls to outlaw discrimination in keeping with caste, a department of other people in keeping with delivery or descent, have grown louder amongst South Asian diaspora communities in the US. The motion is getting pushback from some Hindu American citizens who argue that such law maligns a selected group.
Proponents of the ordinance authorized Tuesday say caste discrimination crosses nationwide and spiritual barriers and that with out such rules, the ones going through caste discrimination within the U.S. will don’t have any protections.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s previous tale follows underneath.
Seattle Town Council individuals are making ready to vote on whether or not so as to add caste to the town’s anti-discrimination rules. If authorized, Seattle would turn into the primary town in the US to take action.
The proposed ordinance, being thought to be Tuesday, is a contentious factor, particularly some of the country’s South Asian diaspora. Supporters argue it’s wanted as a result of caste isn’t coated beneath current civil rights protections. Teams opposing the measure say it’ll malign a group this is already the objective of prejudice.
Activists and organizers on other aspects of the problem started arriving in Seattle on Monday.
As early as closing week, greater than 100 other people had installed requests to talk on the assembly. Early Tuesday, a number of activists braved chilly temperatures and wind gusts to line up out of doors Town Corridor so they’d get an opportunity to talk to the council ahead of the vote.
Council Member Kshama Sawant, a socialist and the one Indian American at the Town Council, stated her proposed ordinance does no longer unmarried out one group, nevertheless it accounts for the way caste discrimination crosses nationwide and spiritual barriers.
The origins of the caste device in India may also be traced again 3,000 years as a social hierarchy in keeping with one’s career and delivery. This is a device that has advanced over the centuries beneath Muslim and British rule. The struggling of those that are on the backside of the caste pyramid — referred to as Dalits — has endured. Caste discrimination has been prohibited in India since 1948, a 12 months after the country’s independence from British rule.
Dalit activists from Seattle and past deliberate two rallies at Seattle Town Corridor in toughen of the ordinance, stated Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and govt director of California-based Equality Labs.
The U.S. is the second one hottest vacation spot for Indians dwelling in a foreign country, in line with the Migration Coverage Institute, which estimates the U.S. diaspora grew from about 206,000 in 1980 to about 2.7 million in 2021. The gang South Asian American citizens Main In combination studies that almost 5.4 million South Asians are living within the U.S. — up from the three.5 million counted within the 2010 census. Maximum hint their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
During the last 3 years, a number of schools and college techniques have moved to ban caste discrimination.
In December 2019, Brandeis College close to Boston was the primary U.S. faculty to incorporate caste in its nondiscrimination coverage. The California State College Machine, Colby Faculty, Brown College and the College of California, Davis have all followed an identical measures. Harvard College instituted caste protections for pupil employees in 2021 as a part of its contract with its graduate pupil union.
The proposed Seattle measure has the toughen of Dalit activist-led organizations like Equality Labs and others. The teams say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities manifesting itself within the type of social alienation and discrimination in housing, training and the tech sector the place South Asians hang key roles.
Opposition to this proposed ordinance comes from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North The us who say it unnecessarily singles-out a group already at risk of discrimination within the U.S.
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