The Double-Edged Sword of Immigrant Culture

By Staff Writer Vikram Mahajan

All my life, I’ve been deeply proud of my Indian culture. As a second — perhaps first, since I was born in New Jersey but spent half my life in India — generation immigrant, my Indian heritage is a core aspect of my identity and one that I cherish greatly. One of the things I most appreciate about Fremont is the sizable diasporic community that disseminates many traditions, cuisines, languages, and beliefs. Rather than my cultural roots being lost in translation, they have instead become part of an ever-growing melting pot of culture that mixes diverse traditions to create Fremont’s unique, flavorful identity. From ethnic festivals and authentic cuisine to grocery stores and language classes, Fremont reflects a vast array of cultures and is all the more beautiful because of it.

Although our school community stands as testament to the beauty of syncretism, there is also a dark underbelly to many immigrant cultures that often receives less attention. Inevitably and inherently, cultural traditions contain both good and bad, and both sides should be recognized and distinguished from one another by society.

In India, for example, the negative consequences include an insidiously unequal caste-based system. Far from a relic of the past, casteism remains enshrined in South Asian cultures and I myself have witnessed family, friends, and neighbors express their belief in this backward practice. My grandmother once flatly refused to eat a meal prepared by a domestic helper of a lower caste. In response to demands from our neighbors, our apartment building in Mumbai forced such domestic helpers to take a separate freight elevator, judging them too unclean to be in the same elevator as the people whose meals they prepared and houses they cleaned. 

These anecdotes appear to be snapshots of a time long past, limited today only to developing countries. Through the Indian diaspora, however, this rigid hierarchy manifests itself even in the US — a classmate of mine admitted, for instance, to dating only within her own caste. In a country as purportedly equal and forward-thinking as ours, to discriminate on the basis of something so arbitrary seems absurd, yet it is a shocking reality.

It is the reality for Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Executive Director of the advocacy group Equity Labs. Soundarajan is a member of Hinduism’s long-mistreated dalit caste and moved from South India to CA to escape the social stigma her caste branded upon her. However, Soudaranjan found that the stigma followed her; upon her revealing her identity as a dalit, most of her Indian American professors at UC Berkeley ostracized her. “All of the Indian professors on campus were upper caste as well, and all, except one, refused to advise me on projects and blacklisted my work. I stopped getting invited to South Asian events,” Soundararajan said. In a society so supposedly forward-thinking as the US, in a university that appears so enlightened, such blatant discrimination feels almost unfathomable. Yet caste renders it inevitable, with its spectre hanging over even the most progressive-minded societies and institutions. “These are some of the structural manifestations of caste in the diaspora. Once you’re out [of the community], you’re … out.”

Soundararanjan and Equity Labs joined others in lobbying the California State Legislature to explicitly ban caste discrimination. Their activism proved successful, as the legislature passed the nation’s first ban on caste discrimination. The bill faced strong pushback, however, under the guise of religious and cultural freedom. Indian and Hindu American advocacy groups such as the Coalition of Hindus of North America insisted that casteism was a staple of Indian culture. Gov. Gavin Newsom would either have to veto the bill or become “the Hitler for all of us … [for beginning] the cultural genocide of Hindus,” Coalition member Geeta Sikand said. Caste being an integral part of Indian and Hindu culture made the battle to preserve it all the more polarizing and intense. These reactionaries, defending an egregious practice on legitimate cultural grounds, saw their efforts come to fruition as Newsom vetoed the legislation.

This incident exposed the fault lines in the seemingly monolithic Indian American and Hindu American cultures. For some, casteism is an unquestioned part of society; for others, it has left them haunted by social stigma. In any event, it is an integral part of South Asian culture.

With his veto, Newsom chose immigrant culture over tolerance and equality for the victims of casteism. The scourge of casteism cannot be ignored or swept away, but must be confronted directly in light of the discrimination it promulgates. South Asian culture can and must be distinguished between the good that it offers and the bad that it threatens, rather than receive the wholesale acceptance that is too often given.

Bigotry and intolerance under the guise of religious or cultural freedom persist in other forms as well. For example, in 2023, the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, with significant Bangladeshi and Yemeni Muslim populations, passed a ban on any non-American flags from being flown. This seemingly innocuous ordinance, passed by an all-Muslim city council, was widely considered to be aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, and seen as targeting pride flags in particular. Indeed, the passage of the ordinance followed anti-LGBTQ+ communal backlash, with desecrations of pride flags and homophobic graffiti. Similarly passionate demonstrations occurred in nearby Dearborn, another ethnic enclave home to a substantial Arab American population.

The issue here is not the religion of those who passed this bill — rather, it is the nature of the proposal itself, which, if passed by an all-white or all-Christian city council rather than an all-minority and all-Muslim body, would doubtless receive far more backlash. However, fear of being intolerant towards religious beliefs or cultural practices too often quiets many voices that would ordinarily rise in opposition. They seek to be tolerant of the right to practice an intolerant, bigoted, belief — a belief not necessarily even held by the majority of the group, but rather by a loud minority. 

Indeed, the blanket of cultural values, knowingly or unknowingly, conceals negative attitudes and harmful bigotry. It is essential to respect the idea of cultural values while also critically considering what the implications of those values and traditions are in actuality.

Ultimately, even if these beliefs are in fact ingrained into a certain culture, this does not excuse them or preclude them from criticism. Intolerance by a religious right-wing — intolerance under any grounds — is always wrong, no matter the sect in question. (Indeed, in the Dearborn case, the traditionally Christian religious right co-opted the support of right-wing Muslims for their cause.)

This double standard should be done away with, and a simple yet important truth must be considered: although intolerance is far from a staple in minority groups and immigrant cultures, certain beliefs in some of these cultures are simply incompatible with the ideals of equality and tolerance. It is also far too easy to conceal raw bigotry beneath the veil of religious or cultural beliefs, but bigotry is bigotry, no matter the motivation, and religious freedom cannot serve as a cover for discrimination. Where religious beliefs are incompatible with justice and equality, the latter must take precedence. 

Cultural traditions should be acknowledged in their entirety — both the good and the bad —  in order to foster the open and productive discussion that must be had. Ultimately, immigrant culture must be celebrated in its many positives, but just as surely rejected and condemned in its negatives.