James

The USA does have castes. The WASPs at the top, other Europeans, Jews, Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and Natives are roughly the caste groups. The African American caste was allowed to vote only in 1965, about 180 years after the USA was free. Lower castes in India could vote the same day as everyone else.

The word "caste" is a Portuguese word, not an Indian one. The whole concept grew in Latin America, where the amount of European blood determined one's caste. Even today, that is the basis for discrimination in Latin America.

Due to much less racial intermixing in the US and Canada, there weren't many levels of European blood in mixed groups.