Most Indians in the US come from upper castes and are used to being treated as royalty. Many of them came here relatively wealthy and work high wage jobs while also living in fairly insular communities. Many of them are used to a world with levels and are ok with it, at least on some level, as long as they're on top.
I think a lot of them would be absolutely shocked if they had to spend a month living in a truly rural area in the US.
That's exactly what it is. Upper caste people come here thinking they're one of the good ones (because back in India they are) and then get all Pikachu face when they realize the lowest socio economic level white folks think of them as untouchables. It's interesting to them because they just assumed racism didn't apply to them.
Most likely racists have been speaking with them peppered with dog whistles they can't understand, or they think aren't directed at them, but are.
You see this exact same thing with a lot of Latinos who think that because they are fair skinned enough to pass for "white" in Latin America that they will be given the same treatment in the States. But as soon as some of these conservative white folks see a Hispanic surname, then all of a sudden they are put in the same category as insert slur ______.
Around 10 years ago, an Indian man was severely beaten by the police after someone called them about a strange black man in their neighborhood. I can’t remember which state it happened.
hey, i don’t know if we should be substituting in “N-words” for the words “black people” here, just feels kinda odd to refer to them as such, even for the purpose of a situation talking about how others may look at them, i’m just a white guy though so feel free to tell me if i’m wrong
Some people in California had been pushing to ban caste discrimination because many Indians, Nepalese, and immigrants from those regions are bringing their own brands of discrimination with them to the US.
They pretend they want to escape to a better life by coming to the US yet they bring their own brand of bullshit with them.
Then they have the audacity to be shocked when they find out, as you said, that they are treated like the waste scum on the bottom of the barrel, just as they did and do to others that they have spent their lives looking down on in their own countries and communities.
They actually do caste discrimination in the US, in fact some wealthy high caste Indian Americans are VERY angry that low caste South Asian immigrants are now pushing for caste discrimination action in places like California.
There have been some newspaper articles about this in the last 2 years, I believe.
Indian on Indian discrimination is the only blatant discriminatory behavior I’ve seen (and reported to HR) in my entire career. It was amazing how someone who is a hard worker and has been great to me flipped the second they got signals that the other person was from the wrong group.
I worked for very large corporations. I've seen whole teams become Indian - it's natural. Forever whites hired only whites, men hired only men. Then we became cognizant that leaving out talented people due to bigotry was stupid. We made sure to bring in diversity , which is a good thing.
So it's been kind of weird watching an immigrant population throw diversity away and hire only Indians. Pretty soon I was the only white person left. 3 levels up all Indian.
Before attacking me, I'm from an immigrant family and I believe in immigration. But I'm not going to hide an ugly truth.
This has been a common pattern in US immigration for at least 150 years. Someone gets their foot in the door and hires a lot of their buddies from back home.
With Indians, there's the additional dynamic that's often missed from outsiders is that they are biased mainly to Indians from the same regions and castes within that region vs Indians in general.
To give an idea of a similar dynamic, I have a buddy who sold a townhouse about 5 years ago. In the ~5 years he lived there (original owner), his entire row of ~10 houses went from 1-2 Indian families to him being the last non-Indian in the row as houses turned over. When he sold due to life circumstances changing, he had 10+ offers, all appeared to be Indian, and it went well over asking (around $100k over). He found out at closing that not only were all the other owners in that row Indian, they were all originally from the same village in India. To put it in perspective, that county is 23% Asian and about 5% Indian.
Exactly this … they are used to being treated like royalty back in the motherland, but are going to have to learn to live with blatant rudeness and ugliness directed at them for probably the first time ever.
As an upper caste Indian who now lives and is a citizen in the US, I fucking hate it when I see my own people side with the assholes who actively are against them. All for the sake of imaginary “economic gains” and a false sense of “security”. The amount of times I’ve just ditched conversations with other Indians after trying to show them how Trump will screw them over is starting to make me feel tired.
It's a lot harder to immigrate from anywhere to the US if you don't have money. India is already a hard country to immigrate from, given the small number of people we let in relative to the size/demand of the country. It's next to impossible to get in if you're not already very wealthy or highly educated (investment in the US, grad school, and STEM degree holders are immigration shortcuts).
There are very few people in India who are very wealthy and not high caste. All of those categories are biased toward high castes, but wealth even more than education. The end result is a lowest caste person who makes it to the US has essentially won the lottery 3 or 4 times to make it here.
Why is this nonsense even upvoted? Indian Americans are pretty liberal, if anything. Something like 70% of registered Indian Americans voted for Biden in 2020. They are literally one of the most liberal groups among Asian Americans. But apparently, it's okay to be racist to them because they're successful?
I know Indian Americans who run the whole gamut from very liberal to qanon true believers. There are a number of high profile MAGA Indians today. This post is trying to make sense of them, given that they don't fit the statistics.
Every ethnicity will have members that span the whole political spectrum. That's not unique or insightful. Indian Americans are the highest earning demographic in the United States. It was inevitable some of them start getting positions of political power. However you went on a tirade calling most Indian Americans high caste members who see everyone as lower caste members. Not the small number that is MAGA, most Indian Americans. Widely making up beliefs of a minority group because some of them didn't vote for you is pretty racist, sorry to break it to you.
I worked for very large corporations. I've seen whole teams become Indian - it's natural. Forever whites hired only whites, men hired only men. Then we became cognizant that leaving out talented people due to bigotry was stupid. We made sure to bring in diversity , which is a good thing.
So it's been kind of weird watching an immigrant population throw diversity away and hire only Indians. Pretty soon I was the only white person left. 3 levels up all Indian. They also have a caste system.
Before attacking me, I'm from an immigrant family and I believe in immigration. But I'm not going to hide an ugly truth.
296
u/bolt_in_blue 2d ago
Most Indians in the US come from upper castes and are used to being treated as royalty. Many of them came here relatively wealthy and work high wage jobs while also living in fairly insular communities. Many of them are used to a world with levels and are ok with it, at least on some level, as long as they're on top.
I think a lot of them would be absolutely shocked if they had to spend a month living in a truly rural area in the US.