The proposed ordinance, being thought of Tuesday, is a contentious challenge, particularly among the many nation’s South Asian diaspora. Supporters argue it’s wanted as a result of caste will not be coated underneath present civil rights protections. Teams opposing the measure say it would malign a neighborhood that’s already the goal of prejudice.

Activists and organizers on completely different sides of the difficulty started arriving in Seattle on Monday.

As early as final week, greater than 100 individuals had put in requests to talk on the assembly. Early Tuesday, a number of activists braved chilly temperatures and wind gusts to line up outdoors Metropolis Corridor so they’d get an opportunity to talk to the council previous to the vote.

Council Member Kshama Sawant, a socialist and the one Indian American on the Metropolis Council, stated her proposed ordinance doesn’t single out one neighborhood, however accounts for a way caste discrimination crosses nationwide and spiritual boundaries.

The origins of the caste system in India could be traced again 3,000 years as a social hierarchy primarily based on one’s occupation and start. It’s a system that has developed over the centuries underneath Muslim and British rule. The struggling of those that are on the backside of the caste pyramid – referred to as Dalits – has continued. Caste discrimination has been prohibited in India since 1948, a yr after the nation’s independence from British rule.

Dalit activists from Seattle and past deliberate two rallies at Seattle Metropolis Corridor in assist of the ordinance, stated Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and government director of California-based Equality Labs.

The U.S. is the second hottest vacation spot for Indians residing overseas, in response to 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 group South Asian People Main Collectively stories that just about 5.4 million South Asians stay within the U.S. — up from the three.5 million counted within the 2010 census. Most hint their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Over the previous three years, a number of faculties and college programs have moved to ban caste discrimination.

In December 2019, Brandeis College close to Boston grew to become the primary U.S. faculty to incorporate caste in its nondiscrimination coverage. The California State College System, Colby Faculty, Brown College and the College of California, Davis, have all adopted comparable measures. Harvard College instituted caste protections for scholar staff in 2021 as a part of its contract with its graduate scholar union.

The proposed Seattle measure has the assist of Dalit activist-led organizations like Equality Labs and others. The teams say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities manifesting within the type of social alienation and discrimination in housing, training and the tech sector the place South Asians maintain key roles.

Opposition to this proposed ordinance comes from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North America who say it unnecessarily singles-out a neighborhood already weak to discrimination within the U.S.

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