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Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

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Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#641

Post by wellWisherToday »

lowend wrote: post #214

ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming: 1. This is due to a few bad apples 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) 3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't…

We should also realize that a child's performance also depends on how his/her parents are treated. A child who sees parents being looked down upon will not be as confident as a child who sees parents being respected. So reservation will be required for generations in India even for "rich" people who are not respected.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#642

Post by ascat »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #554
ascat wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the empty seats of SC/ST in the IITS reflect that they are disadvantaged? They have much less cut off, many SC/ST give the exam, their fees is much much less than the general category, they get scholarships. How are they disadvantaged ?

My brother living in his hamlet has no electricity after 8pm, has 0 access to coaching and has little to no access to books or anything related. This is circa 2000s though. The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people a…

I get what you are trying to say. But this is generally the story of every first generation learner, even if they aren't lower caste. I have seen these kind of situations all around me in the past, my dad only used to own a bicycle, worked hard, passed the exam (general category) and now have a decent house. Everybody who is economically is suffering but this doesn't mean that reservations are the only way/help to succeed

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#643

Post by goku99 »

I am shocked how this ended up in Hacker News.

I believe this is just human nature to view everything in binary, and discrimination looks like inbuilt into us, it's like remanence of our animal nature. I would just like to move on and focus on things that matter to the world, than complain. We are imperfect and stupid, with our own biases. There is no right way.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#644

Post by saagarjha »

timwaagh wrote: post #572
magicalhippo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Norwegian, living there. A very good friend is Indian, her parents moved here while she was just a few years old. I never heard her talk about her caste, or the system in general really. That is, until one day, out of the blue, she said she was getting married. Her parents had found a boy who also grew up here in Norway that she was to marry the following year. After a bit of talking it was clear she was not very…

Shouldn't it be more shocking that your friend agreed to an arranged marriage? I mean I'm not in Norway (pretty close though) and I don't know to what degree this is acceptable in Norwegian culture. But in mine it very much isn't. We ought to expect more from women these days. Because caste might be a completely foreign problem to us, but arranged marriages used to be the norm here as well. It took the second wave of…

Modern arranged marriage is usually "here is someone you may be interested in" rather than "you must marry this person that you have never met".

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#645

Post by saagarjha »

_hhkc wrote: post #507
neilk wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising to you because North Americans have gotten used to saying "people of color" as if they were all united. Upper-caste Indians basically see themselves as people on top of the racial hierarchy. In many ways they identify far more strongly with British or American elites than with Dalits.

I was more surprised because I assume they’ve faced their own fair share of discrimination from Americans

It's often hard for many people to empathize with people they view as being entirely separate from themselves, even when undergoing similar hardships.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#646

Post by tracker1 »

nunb wrote: post #629
tracker1 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No computer, no internet growing up, but then again, I was born in '74. If I were to guess, probably grew up in the bottom 30% or so. Never had a "new" car growing up, always rented (though my parents did finally 'buy' when I was around 25 or so). Didn't put down on a house of my own until about 2 years ago (43yo at the time). That said, I've had a tendency to spoil myself since I started making good money over a dec…

Interesting ramble and thank you for sharing. I would be curious to hear more about the interesting interactions based on the caste they grew up in! I will say that of the people from other cultures that I've worked with in my life, those from India tend to have more interesting interactions based on the caste they grew up in. The variance is far broader than most...

Just a tendency to either be very timid, or very outgoing and really no in between. It just feels obviously it's a cultural difference that frankly I don't understand.

I've always appreciated competence and rejected unsubstantiated arrogance. So to me it's kind of alien.

I haven't seen the interactions as described in the article, but have noticed things like lunch group clustering that seemed to go beyond a typical US High School. And it wasn't really a grouping by type of work. I was working in a position that was a very large company group that was around 75% Indian H1Bs.

I never really knew how the caste system worked, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. At the time I just chalked it up to a culture thing.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#647

Post by fakedang »

fwiwm2c wrote: post #524
fakedang wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had seen the recent CISCO case, then you'd know it is definitely the latter.

Using 1 example and generalizing is literally what I am arguing against in my comment above.

You forget that this entire trove of research on Indian-American hiring policies is coming out of the woodworks because of that one case.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#648

Post by tassl »

timwaagh wrote: post #581
tassl wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>t might work if intelligence wasn't important for members of lower castes but was for higher castes, perhaps due to the nature of their culture or work. Then low castes wouldn't select for intelligence but high castes would. Not saying that's what actually happened but it shows that selective pressure could still exist without inter-caste mobility. This makes absolutely no sense, unless the "not so smart" were not c…

It really depends how things work over there. Castes are associated with jobs and I have seen some articles that some 'teacher' cast has higher intelligence, just like eg ashkenazi jews. It could be that being pretty unsuccesful at your caste-assigned job would have left you unemployed and thus not being able to support a family, thus not being able to marry. thats obviously speculation, of course.

It does not make any sense, no matter how you look at it.

Sure, you can see those "articles", but don't forget that those are going to be based on IQ tests, and those are correlated with intelligence and... wait for it... education.

If I was of the superior caste that's what I would try to make people believe: "we are superior, and we are here because we are smarter than you. Best of luck in your next life".

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#649

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tomp wrote: post #295
cvhashim wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I scoff and roll my eyes at individuals who argue that tech is a meritocracy when discrimination between countrymen is happening even in companies like Google.

Nobody argues that tech is a meritocracy. Meritocracy is just an ideal, just like freedom, equality and defensive driving; it’s worth striving towards but you cannot ever reach it (and if you think you’ve reached it, you’ll inevitably start falling behind). Having said that, it’s one of the most meritocratic industries; do you know any billionaire doctors or lawyers that are college dropouts?

Yes, tech is meritocratic- as long as you are a white middle-class dude in your twenties. That is, in order to make it in tech you have to be a white middle-class dude in your twenties, but once you have that bit down pat, everything else is a matter of skill and intelligence.

Edit: I'm speaking from my experience working as a developer in the UK. About 99% of the people I've worked with were white, middle-class dudes in their twenties or at most mid-thirties. There were the odd female developer. I had two coleagues who were Indian, one of whom was female and every other Indian person I've worked with was a consultant. I had one technical coleague who was of Chinese descent. And I've never had a colleague who was black (although I knew a black man who was a soft. eng.).

So, you want to make it big in the software industry in the UK? Better be white, male, middle-class and be in your twenties. Oh- and be good with code, of course. But first be white, male and middle-class.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#650

Post by fakedang »

brokenmachine wrote: post #639
fakedang wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll sneak in the odd question here and there. Maybe they'll find out from the surname, or perhaps the locality of the town/city you're from in India, or the kind of food you eat (upper-castes are mainly vegetarian), or your dialect. Heck sometimes the deity you worship will reveal one's caste.

But then what? They talk down to you if you are a lower caste? In what ways does their behavior change if they know your caste? If they talked down to you and you told them that you don't appreciate their tone, then what would happen?

Yes, they talk them down, berate them more often, mostly involuntary cues of rejection. Most people would not talk back for the sake of being passed over for promotion/raises. I understand most Westerners wouldn't balk from the idea of talking back at them, but cultural norms in Asia effectively discourage back-talk against superiors, hence why it has been prevalent in SV for this long.
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