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A new bill introduced Wednesday in California’s state Senate could be a historic win in the fight against caste discrimination in the United States. If signed into law, it would make the state the first to explicitly name caste as a protected category.

State Sen. Aisha Wahab, who represents Fremont, San Jose and other South Asian American hubs in Northern California, said she has been aware of casteism’s negative impact for much of her life. The caste system has dominated in South Asia for centuries, stratifying society into immovable social classes that impact work, marriage and daily life.

Though discrimination based on caste is now illegal in India, it’s still present in the lives of Dalits, those born at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. And as Indians have settled in other parts of the world, the caste system has followed them.

“The more diverse California becomes and the United States becomes, we need to protect more people in the way the American dream was originally supposed to,” Wahab told NBC News. “Our laws need to expand and cover more people and go deeper.”

With stories of pervasive caste discrimination coming out of places like Silicon Valley, Wahab says a bill like this would ensure companies are taking accountability for the way Dalit employees are treated. It would carve a path to preventing issues like wage theft, social exclusion and harassment in the office, she said.

“More and more people are sharing their personal stories of…

THURSDAY, MARCH 23

• The Al-Anon Lunch Bunch AFG will be held beginning at 11:30 a.m. at Sidney First United Methodist Church, 230 E. Poplar St., Sidney. Those attending may park behind the church and meet in room 306.

• The Writer’s Club meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Piqua Public Library, 116 W. High St., Piqua. 937-773-6753.

• Hope and Revelation, a 12-Step Recovery through the Life Recovery Bible, is a weekly meeting for recovering addicts based on Biblical teachings. Meetings are held every Thursday at 7 p.m. at the offices of Samaritan Works, 315 E. Court St., Sidney.

FRIDAY, MARCH 24

• The Senior Center of Sidney-Shelby County is hosting their free veterans coffee and donuts event from 9 to 11 a.m. at the center. The event is free to any veteran over 50 years of age.

• Sidney Noon group of Alcoholics Anonymous of Covington-Piqua-Sidney-Troy will be held from noon to 1 p.m. at St. John Lutheran Church, 120 W. Water St., Sidney. Contact 937-622-1294 for information on meetings or visit aa.org or

• Staying Clean for the Weekend Alcoholics Anonymous weekly meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Sidney Baptist Church at 1322 E. Court St.

SATURDAY, MARCH 25

• Saturday Morning Eye Opener group of Alcoholics Anonymous of Covington-Piqua-Sidney-Troy will be held from 10 to 11 a.m. at Sidney First United Methodist Church, 230 E. Poplar St., Sidney. Contact 937-622-1294 for information on meetings or visit aa.org…

On YourConroeNews.com: Discarded Christmas trees now help rebuild environment at bottom of Lake Conroe

“Some of the things the slave log contained gave me a new-found respect for all my ancestors had to endure,” said Anderson, 63, of Conroe. “Lil Bob and Eliza and some of their children traveled by foot and wagon train from Alabama to New Orleans and then on to Galveston. From Galveston they traveled by foot and wagon train to Danville where they arrived at their new home the Green Wood plantation.”

 
This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Rachel Sterzer Gibson, Church News

In 2006, Brigham Young University professor and researcher Brian Hill traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa. With the help of DNA, or genetic genealogy, he was able to help youth who had been abandoned on the streets as children identify their tribes and families.

“They had some fun singing and dancing what they had learned,” Hill recalled to the Church News.

Afterward, he interviewed the youth. “I remember very vividly how some of them said that before the program, ‘I didn’t know who I was.’ … This meant to me that knowing where we are from and about our family tells us who we are. Family history knowledge is a bedrock part of our identity.”

This experience illustrates in part the results of a study on the impact of family history on adolescent identity. “People almost universally know where they are from and something about their family. We take this knowledge for granted, but now I can imagine what it might feel like to be without that,” Hill said.
 

Why Study Family History?

Hill, along with fellow researcher Clive Haydon, have been studying family history in an academic sense for more than 15 years.

Through the…

HANCEVILLE, Ala. – The Wallace State Community College Genealogy program recently aided a Nashville, Tennessee, writer researching Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl and the Cullman County family she used as influence for her legendary comedic character. Dr. Rachel Martin is writing about Minnie Pearl for Oxford American magazine.

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon portrayed Minnie Pearl for more than 50 years and was best known for her enthusiastic “how-dee” and the straw hat she wore with the price tag still attached. Cannon, who passed way in 1996 at the age of 83, received the National Medal of Arts award in 1992, was the first woman to be inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame, and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Martin said she pitched the idea for the article to the magazine. “I had seen the story about Minnie Pearl/Sara Colley coming to Baileyton, Alabama, and I said, ‘Well, this seems fascinating. I wonder what else I can learn,’” she said.

In January 1936, the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company of Atlanta sent Sarah Ophelia Colley to Cullman County to perform in “The Flapper Grandmother,” to raise money for the DAR school in nearby…

In 1723, 15 German settler families paddled down the Susquehanna River in dugout canoes from the village of Schoharie in the British colony of New York in search of a better life in the colony to the south founded by William Penn.

Their arduous trek on the mile-wide Susquehanna, according to historical accounts, took them about 200 miles to the mouth of the Swatara Creek, just below Harrisburg, where they surely had to set up camp before embarking on the final leg of their journey.

About 35 miles to the east by way of narrower waterway lay their destination — thousands of acres of unsettled, fertile ground along the Tulpehocken Creek.

The pioneers’ legacy endures in western Berks and eastern Lebanon counties, most tangibly with the boroughs and villages that bear their names: Bernville, Frystown, Myerstown, Newmanstown, Rehrersburg, Robesonia, Stouchsburg, Schaefferstown, Strausstown, Schubert, Sheridan, Wernersville, Womelsdorf — the list goes on.

There are about a dozen impressive Protestant churches that stand on ground where those early settlers worshipped.

On Saturday one of those churches hosted the kickoff of a series of events and activities planned this year to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the 15 German families to the Tulpehocken Territory.

About 200 people, many…

From time to time I refer to my list of genealogy rules, and sometimes I update that same list. All of the rules on my list are important to me, and help me with my own genealogy research. Today I thought I should go through a few of the items and add a few examples to illustrate what I mean. First on today’s items is Rule 21, “Share what you know.” This is a good thing because we all need help in finding what we are looking for, whether it be a missing relative or a date, or place, where some event happened.

My example for that is someone named Tammy. She decided to help out with findagrave.com and has been photographing tombstones and adding memorials to the website for a few years. Findagrave is a volunteer site and wouldn’t exist if people didn’t help each other. I have found information on many of my relatives because others took the time to add that information. I’ve also added almost a hundred photos from requests by others. Tammy, though, has taken it to a much higher level. I just checked her profile and she has now added 6,866 photos. That’s amazing! What a help she has been for many people looking for their relatives.