New Roots in America's Sacred Ground
Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America
What does race have to do with religion? According to Khyati Y. Joshi, quite a bit. In this compelling look at the ways that second generation Indian Americans develop and change their sense of ethnic identity, she reveals how race and religion interact, intersect, and affect each other in a myriad of complex ways. In a society where Christianity and whiteness are the norm, most Indian Americans are both racial and religious minorities. At the same time-perceived as neither black nor white-they are a racially ambiguous population. One result of these factors is the racialization of religion, on which Joshi offers important insights in the wake of 9/11 and the intensified backlash against Americans who look Middle Eastern and South Asian.
- Rutgers University Press
- 2006
- Paperback
- Hardcover
- eBook
About the Book
What does race have to do with religion? For second-generation Indian Americans, everything.
Drawing on case studies and in-depth interviews with forty-one second-generation Indian Americans, Joshi analyzes their experiences involving religion, race, and ethnicity from elementary school to adulthood. She shows how their identity has developed differently from their parents’ and their non-Indian peers’, and how religion often exerted a dramatic effect. She maps the many crossroads that they encounter as they navigate between home and religious community, family obligations and school, and a hope to retain their ethnic identity while also feeling disconnected from their parents’ generation.
Through her candid insights into the internal conflicts that contemporary Indian Americans face as they negotiate this pastiche of experiences, and the religious and racial discrimination they encounter, Joshi provides a timely window into the ways that race, religion and ethnicity coincide in day-to-day life.
Table of Contents
Chapters
01
Religion in America
02
Ethnicity and Religion
03
Facets of Lived Religion
04
What does race have to do with religion?
05
Religious oppression
06
Case studies
Praise
What Readers Are Saying
“For far too long, scholars have studied religions as if they were abstract collections of beliefs and practices that could get along just fine without living, breathing people. This beautifully crafted and admirably empathetic study of second-generation Indian Americans rightly fixes its gaze not on such abstractions as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam but on the actual lives of specific Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. Along the way, it teaches us much about race and religion in American life, not least the fact that discrimination-both racial and religious-is an ever-present reality in the lives of this so-called ‘model minority,’ and that religious affiliation stands shoulder-to-shoulder with race, ethnicity, and gender as a key identity marker in the twenty-first century.”
Stephen Prothero · Chair, Department of Religion, Boston University
New Roots in America’s Sacred Ground provides both a detailed analysis of second-generation Indian Americans and identity, and a sophisticated and lucid argument about the integral role religion and religious oppression play in race and ethnicity in the United States. Joshi’s insightful intervention about the role of religious identity has gained even more significance in light of discriminatory practices occurring since 9/11.”
Jigna Desai · Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Minnesota
“Joshi has written a ground-breaking contribution on the racialization of religion, an issue scholars have long been reluctant to address. This stimulating and important book is essential in the study of South Asian Americans, second-generation immigrants, and Asian American religions.”
Paul Spickard · Coauthor of Colorism in Asian America
“This is a ground-breaking book in the contested territory of race, religion, and ethnicity in the United States. Despite being one of the fastest growing, most upwardly mobile groups in the country, second generation Indian Americans-Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Muslims-are conspicuous by their absence in scholarly studies. This book has invaluable data and case studies, which have been skillfully analyzed and thoughtfully presented. A “must-read” book for all those interested in immigration studies, transnational religion, Asian Americans, and American Religions.”
Vasudha Narayanan · Professor of religion and director of the Center for the study of Hindu Tradition
Resources
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About the Author
Dr. Khyati Y. Joshi
Dr. Khyati Y. Joshi is a full Professor in the School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University and one of America's leading voices on the intersections of race, religion, and immigration. She is the author or editor of seven books and a frequent commentator on MSNBC, CBS, C-Span, BNC, and NDTV. Her work has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe.
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Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans
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