Editing Caste (section)

=== Americas ===
==== Latin America ====
{{Main|Casta}}
{{See also|Mestizaje}}
[[File:Casta painting all.jpg|thumb|150px|Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century]]
In colonial Spanish America (16th-early 19th centuries), there were legal divisions of society, the Republic of Spaniards ({{lang|es|República de Españoles}}), comprising European whites, African slaves ({{lang|es|negros}}), and mixed-race {{lang|es|[[casta]]s}}, the offspring of unions between whites, blacks, and indigenous. The Republic of Indians ({{lang|es|República de Indios}}) comprised all the various indigenous peoples, now classified in a single category, {{lang|es|indio}}, by their colonial rulers. In the social and racial hierarchy, European Spaniards were at the apex, with legal rights and privileges. Lower racial groups (Africans, mixed-race castas, and pure indigenous), had fewer legal rights and lower social status. Unlike the rigid caste system in India, in colonial Spanish America there was some fluidity within the social order.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cope |first=R. Douglas |title=The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720 |location=Madison |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] |date=1994}}</ref>

==== United States ====
{{main|Caste discrimination in the United States}}
In the opinion of [[W. Lloyd Warner]], discrimination in the Southern United States in the 1930s against [[African Americans|Blacks]] was similar to Indian castes in such features as [[Residential segregation in the United States|residential segregation]] and marriage restrictions.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1086/217391 |title=American Caste and Class |journal=[[American Journal of Sociology]] |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=234–237 |year=1936 |last1=Warner |first1=W. Lloyd |s2cid=146641210}}</ref> In her 2020 book ''[[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]'', journalist [[Isabel Wilkerson]] used caste as an analogy to understand racial discrimination in the United States.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

[[Gerald Berreman|Gerald D. Berreman]] contrasted the differences between discrimination in the United States and India. In India, there are complex religious features which make up the system, whereas in the United States race and color are the basis for differentiation. The caste systems in India and the United States have higher groups which desire to retain their positions for themselves and thus perpetuate the two systems.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berreman |first=Gerald |date=September 1960 |title=Caste in India and the United States |journal=[[American Journal of Sociology]] |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=120–127 |jstor=2773155 |doi=10.1086/222839 |s2cid=143949609}}</ref>

The process of creating a homogenized society by social engineering in both India and the Southern US has created other institutions that have made class distinctions among different groups evident. Anthropologist [[James C. Scott]] elaborates on how "global [[capitalism]] is perhaps the most powerful force for homogenization, whereas the state may be the defender of local difference and variety in some instances".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scott |first=James C. |author-link=James C. Scott |title=Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed |date=1998 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0-300-07016-0 |location=New Haven |page=8 |oclc=37392803}}</ref> The caste system, a relic of feudalistic economic systems, emphasizes differences between socio-economic classes that are obviated by openly free market capitalistic economic systems, which reward individual initiative, enterprise, merit, and thrift, thereby creating a path for social mobility.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}} When the feudalistic slave economy of the [[southern United States]] was dismantled, [[Jim Crow laws]] and acts of [[domestic terrorism]] committed by [[white supremacists]] prevented many industrious [[African Americans]] from participating in the formal economy and achieving economic success on parity with their white peers, or destroying that economic success in instances where it was achieved, such as [[Greenwood District, Tulsa|Black Wall Street]], with only rare but commonly touted exceptions to lasting personal success such as [[Maggie L. Walker|Maggie Walker]], [[Annie Turnbo Malone|Annie Malone]], and [[Madam C. J. Walker|Madame C.J. Walker]]. Parts of the United States are sometimes divided by race and class status despite the national narrative of integration.{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}

A survey on caste discrimination conducted by Equality Labs{{efn|Described as a "Dalit rights organisation"<ref name="The Hindu opposes">{{cite news |first=Sriram |last=Lakshman |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/group-opposes-protection-from-caste-discrimination-in-california-varsitys-faculty-union/article38319866.ece |title=Group opposes protection from caste discrimination in California Varsity's faculty union |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=24 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250114005223/https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/group-opposes-protection-from-caste-discrimination-in-california-varsitys-faculty-union/article38319866.ece |archive-date=14 January 2025}}</ref> and a "nonprofit organization focused on ending what it calls caste apartheid".<ref>{{cite news |first=Nani Sahra |last=Walker |url=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-07-04/fight-to-add-caste-as-protected-category-in-us |title=Even in the U.S. he couldn't escape the label 'untouchable' |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=4 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240814010520/https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-07-04/fight-to-add-caste-as-protected-category-in-us |archive-date=14 August 2024}}</ref>}} found 67% of Indian Dalits living in the US reporting that they faced caste-based harassment at the workplace, and 27% reporting verbal or physical assault based on their caste.{{sfn|Equality Labs, 2018|pp=20, 27}} However, the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] study in 2021 criticizes Equality Labs findings and methodology noting Equality Labs study "relied on a nonrepresentative snowball sampling method to recruit respondents. Furthermore, respondents who did not disclose a caste identity were dropped from the data set. Therefore, it is likely that the sample does not fully represent the South Asian American population and could skew in favor of those who have strong views about caste. While the existence of caste discrimination in India is incontrovertible, its precise extent and intensity in the United States can be contested".<ref>{{cite web |date=9 June 2021 |first1=Sumitra |last1=Badrinathan |first2=Devesh |last2=Kapur |first3=Jonathan |last3=Kay |first4=Milan |last4=Vaishnav |title=Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2021/06/social-realities-of-indian-americans-results-from-the-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey?lang=en |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250128050508/https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2021/06/social-realities-of-indian-americans-results-from-the-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey?lang=en |archive-date=28 January 2025}}</ref>

In 2023, [[Seattle]] became the first city in the United States to ban discrimination based on caste.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64727735 |title= Seattle becomes first US city to ban caste discrimination |first=Max |last=Matza |date=22 February 2023 |work=[[BBC News]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241228045646/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64727735 |archive-date=28 December 2024}}</ref>