As a Singaporean Indian (Tamil) I've always found caste identity talk in the US/India very intriguing. I've never heard caste mentioned here in SG; in fact I don't even know what caste I'm from. How would one identify your caste? Can't those from a lower caste just claim that they are brahmins?
That can be generally done by checking what traditions one follows. For example, Brahmins are supposed to be involved with all priestly work and a strict Brahmin does not eat meat and wears Janeu[1].
As Dravidians your people have been on the receiving end of caste imposed by Aryans, so unless you were Brahmins they did not have the same incentives to preserve the system once they left the suffocating environment of India.
