After a unanimous City Council vote, caste and indigeneity are now protected categories in Fresno, California.

Fresno, California, has become the second city in the U.S. to ban caste discrimination, after the City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to incorporate two new protected categories into its municipal code.

Discrimination based on caste or indigeneity is now illegal in the city.

In the midst of a nationwide civil rights movement, led mostly by South Asian Americans who come from caste-oppressed backgrounds, local governments, business and institutions have been contending with the caste question. In February, Seattle became the first U.S. city to explicitly ban caste discrimination, and in California, a bill currently on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk would do the same statewide.

  • bob_wiley@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    9 months ago

    Arranged marriages seem to have a very high rate of success and satisfaction. Why trade that for the typical marriage, which in the US is about as good as a coin flip for its chances of success?

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201511/why-are-so-many-indian-arranged-marriages-successful

    Despite doubling in urban areas since 2007[1], only about 1 in 100 Indian marriages end in divorce.[2] This is one of the lowest divorce rates in the world. Even more impressive is the second statistic, about the high levels of satisfaction reported by those in arranged marriages over the longer term.

      • bob_wiley@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        9 months ago

        Marriage and freedom don’t really go together. Marriage is making a choice to give up the freedom of being with anyone, to be with one person who isn’t going to run away when things get hard, like all those free people would/could.

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        Is there any law in the US mandating arranged marriages? If not, then it reinforces the freedom we have here, including the freedom to marry someone we have never met because our mother tells us to.

        To those of us who grew up outside that culture it seems absurd, but to people from India living in the US who also want to maintain a connection to their culture, I won’t tell them they can’t do it. Having the government tell them who they can’t marry is just as misguided as telling them who they can marry. Your mother has a different, non-governmental influence over the decision, though.

    • Syo@kbin.social
      21·
      9 months ago

      That’s more due to lack of women rights and cultural of discrimination. There is little resources and alternative for many of the women in arranged marriage. Just because cultural and societal road blocks married prevent divorce, doesn’t mean it’s a better.

      The marriage assumptions has been debunked as linking to happiness. You should just look directly at human rights indexes and happiness survey instead.

      Unless your whole ideology was people must marry, then that’s a different discussion.

      • bob_wiley@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        The article also mentions Indian-American couples and some info around that. It wasn’t as clearly stated, but it didn’t sound like it faired worse than traditional American marriage, and the women should have free will in the US.

        I’m not married, so my ideology really can’t be that one must marry, or else that would leave me in a weird spot. But I can ignore statistics, that married people live longer and a generally happier, especially as they get older. As I enter middle age, the idea of growing old alone sounds awful and I have a very real fear of dying over something really stupid, because there is no one around to notice I’m dying and get help. The stress around that is real.