Trying to figure out what was going on re: caste is very difficult – it seems to me that many migrants to Singapore (including untouchable convicts who were shipped over) deliberately chose to leave those details blank. John Solomon describes it as "conscious acts of forgetting"
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Solomon: "The Singapore Story" is the narrative of the achievements of specific elites of society – little emphasis was given to how common people psychologically transitioned from being domiciled migrant residents in a colony, to becoming citizens of a nation-state."
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Was just telling a friend this: while I was raised semi-'caste-blind' by a family + community that's trying to be more polite, globalization + technology means I'm rubbing up against others from around the world who ARE caste-conscious. Discovering one's ignorance is unsettling
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It's an interesting + highly personal dilemma. Diaspora Indian communities are internally conflicted about this: do you tell your children the truth about how some of them are descended from castes that were considered inferior? Should you burn history books that were racist? 🤔
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(I find myself thinking here about Albion's Seed, and how the Scots-Irish borderers who migrated to America were quicker than the others to shed their former identities and call themselves Americans) slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/boo
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Why so many untouchable Tamils in Singapore? Colonialism! It was colonial policy to recruit South Indians for menial work– it was cheaper to recruit labor near the eastern port cities such as Negapattinam (pics). They wanted to avoid spending money on train tickets and lodging.
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TIL: The Hindu deity Muneeswaran was particularly associated with the Tamil untouchable community. That makes sense. I don't think I've ever actually heard any mention of him outside of Singapore. But I never thought to question this, either. Huh. Hm. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muneeswar
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As a child raised on books and the Internet, I've always been generally disinterested in Hindu temples and the Tamil newspaper – but this is making me realize what is obvious on hindsight – that was their Twitter and FB! It was how they constructed meaning and collective identity
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since many south africans don't know this: the reason many (Tamil) south african Indians seem to have a very small number of very common surnames (like Pillay, Moodley, Reddy, Naicker...) among a relatively large community of people is because of indenture and caste.
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Was still only about 20% into the PDF when I stopped! 😅 should pick it back up. And yeah it’s nice to hear people aren’t hung about this stuff as much anymore (though I do still worry that there will be some sort of dumb resurgence at some point)
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