HOUSTON, TEXAS, July 10, 2011: 29-year-old Texas-born Rishi Bhutada had an arranged marriage in India three years ago and then brought his wife back to his hometown, where they recently welcomed a son. He is a strict vegetarian and avoids alcohol, as do many observant Hindus. And the dashboard of his Toyota Prius is adorned with a small metal statue of Ganesh, an elephant-headed Hindu God known as the remover of obstacles. And yet Bhutada is a different kind of Hindu than his mom and dad.
His parents were part of a major wave of Indians who arrived in the U.S. in the 1960s and ’70s and focused their religious lives on building a community of believers and temples around Houston, which was then a Hindu wilderness.
Bhutada, by contrast, wants his religion to step out from that now-well-established Hindu hive to engage the broader culture. He speaks of trying to forge a distinctly American Hindu identity that’s more tightly woven into the national fabric. “The immigrant generation is focused on India, on the home country,” he said, noting that the TV in his parents’ house is often turned to a Hindi-language channel beamed in from the subcontinent. “I’m focused on the United States, which is my home country.”
That helps explain why a national group he’s involved with, the Hindu American Foundation, recently launched a Take Back Yoga campaign, aimed at raising awareness about the practice’s Hindu roots and values among non-Hindus. And it’s why Bhutada testified at the Capitol in Austin last year against a statewide school curriculum that calls Hinduism a polytheistic religion, a characterization many Hindus reject. And it’s why one area temple has begun placing copies of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, in thousands of Texas hotel rooms, right next to the Gideon Bible.
The developments speak to a new, publicly assertive stance that’s shared by many first-generation American Hindus across Houston, home to one of the country’s largest and fastest growing Indian enclaves, and by many young Hindus across the nation.
“Our parents had to build everything from scratch to make a united Hindu community in this country,” said Tejas N. Dave, 17, a high school junior who volunteers with a project bringing yoga to unprivileged Americans. “Now we’re trying to reintegrate it back into society,” he said, “to make people realize that Hinduism is a religion and a way of life and a philosophy that’s not too different from what a lot of others believe. We’re all trying to make a better society.”
The U.S. Census does not track the number of Hindu Americans; the Census doesn’t ask about religion, period. But data from the 2010 Census show that Texas’ Asian Indian population nearly doubled in size in the past decade, to around 250,000. For the first time, Indians represent the largest Asian community in the state. Similar trends have emerged in other parts of the country. Nationally, Indian growth has surged by 60% in the past 10 years, according to the Census, with 2.8 million Asian Indians living in the U.S. today. Indians now represent the country’s second-largest Asian group, after the Chinese.
More at source.