New Delhi: Fresno in California has become the second city in the United States to ban caste discrimination after Seattle outlawed it in September last year.The unanimously passed Bill by the Fresno City Council on Thursday, September 28, aims to address the caste discrimination faced by people of South Asian descent and casta in the case of Oaxacans from Mexico. Casta, a hierarchical social order, is analogous to the caste-based hierarchies practiced in South Asia.Tens of thousands of Sikhs along with Oaxacans have led the movement to outlaw caste discrimination. The two communities have been farmers or farm workers for years in Fresno County and Central Valley, the Los Angeles Times reported.The movement had picked up steam since October 2022 following a leaked audio in October 2022 in which three Los Angeles City Council members were heard making racist comments against Oaxacans. The incident, which outraged the members of the civil rights movement in the US, has also drawn renewed attention to the discrimination faced by Oaxacans, due to the casta system.“I’m proud of our City for once again, raising the bar on civil rights protections,” Fresno City Council vice-president Annalisa Perea was quoted as saying by the television network. “While we acknowledge that discrimination won’t end overnight, our City took bold action by passing this anti-discrimination policy to strengthen civil rights protections against caste discrimination.”When Mexico was colonised by Spain, a system called Sistema de Castas was established. According to this, those born in Spain as considered “pure Spaniards”, placed at the top of the hierarchial order, followed by Spaniards born in Mexico. Oaxacans, who are indigenous peoples, are placed at the bottom of the hierarchical order alongside Blacks.“During the colonial period, the Spaniards implemented this system that resembled very much the system of India,” LA Times quoted Gaspar Rivera-Salgado as saying. Rivera-Salgado, an Oaxacan American, is the director Center for Mexican Studies at UCLA and a board member at the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities.Sikhs in Fresno saw in the plight of Oaxacans, the discrimination and oppression faced by the members of lower castes from South Asia. “When groups have shared a common experience of inequity and being treated as less than, right away they can understand each other’s pain,” LA Times quoted Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, as saying.The passage of the Bill by Fresno City Council is a shot in the arm for the larger movement advocating for a ban on caste discrimination across California state. Although the California Senate passed a Bill with an overwhelming majority outlawing caste in May this year, it is still pending for an approval from governor Gavin Newsom.Several rights’ bodies have been exerting pressure on Newsom to sign the Bill in order to make it a law. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, an Indian American Dalit rights activist, has been on a hunger strike for about a month demanding Newsom approve the Bill.However, Hindu nationalist groups in America have been opposing the latest Bill passed by the Fresno City Council and the movement and groups calling for laws at the federal level to identify and ban caste discrimination. According to them, such laws would “single out” the Hindu community as perpetrators of discrimination.