Hinduism in the United States

The United States Department of State's 2004 Religious Freedom Report[9] found some 1.5 million adherents of Hinduism, corresponding to 0.50% of the total population. The Hindu population of USA is the world's eighth-largest; 10% of Asian Americans who together account for 5.8% of US population, are followers of the Hindu faith.[10]

Most of the Hindus in America are immigrants (87 percent) and nine percent are the children of immigrants and 10 percent of the Hindus are converts.[3] In the 1990s, Buddhist Bhutan expelled or forced to leave most of its Hindu population, one-fifth of the country's population, demanding conformity in religion.[11] More than 90,000 Hindu-Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in the United States.[12]

According to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies newsletter published March 2017, Hindus were the largest minority religion in 92 counties out of the 3143 counties in the country.[13]

Although Hinduism is practiced mainly by immigrants from India and Nepal, a sizable amount of Hindus in United States were converts to Hinduism. According to the Pew research estimates, 9% of the Hindus in United States belong to a non-Asian ethnicity – 4% of the Hindus in United States were White, 2% were Black, 1% Latino and 2% Mixed.[14] Converts to Hinduism include Hollywood actress Julia Roberts, actor Russell Brand etc.[15][16]

The Holi Festival in March 2013 at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Utah County, Utah.

American Hindus have the highest rates of educational attainment and highest rate of household income among all religious communities, and the lowest divorce rates. 48% of American Hindus hold a post-graduate degree.[17][18] According to a study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life in 2012, 48% of American Hindus have a household income of $100,000 or more, and 70% make at least $75,000.[5]

According to the 2008 Pew Research, Of all the America adults who said they were raised as Hindus, 80 percent continued to adhere to Hinduism which is the highest retention rate for any religion in America.[19]

According to the pew research statistics in 2014, 88% of the American Hindu population believes in god. However, only 26% believes that religion is very important in their life. About 51% of the Hindu population prays daily.[14]

Though 88% of Hindus believes in god, that is low compared to the 99% of Evangelical Protestants, 96% of Catholics, 99% of Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.[14]

Anandibai Joshi is believed to be the first Hindu woman to set foot on American soil, arriving in New York in June 1883 at the age of 19. She graduated with an MD from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania on March 11, 1886, becoming the first female of South Asian origin to graduate with a degree in Western medicine from the United States. Joshi returned to India in late 1886 but died within months of her return.[22]

Swami Vivekananda on the Platform of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.

One of the first major discussions of Hinduism in the United States was Swami Vivekananda's address to the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He spent two years in the United States, and lectured in several cities including Detroit, Boston, and New York. In 1902 Swami Rama Tirtha visited the US for about two years lecturing on the philosophy of Vedanta.[23] In 1920 Paramahansa Yogananda was India's delegate at the International Congress of Religious Liberals held in Boston.

Prior to 1965, Hindu immigration to the United States was minuscule and isolated, with fewer than fifty thousand Indians immigrating before 1965. It is worth noting that although most of these immigrants were Punjabi Sikhs, they were incorrectly referred to as "Hindoo" by many Americans, as well as in some official immigration documents.[24] The Bellingham Riots in Bellingham, Washington on September 5, 1907 epitomized the low tolerance in the United States for Indians and Hindus. In the 1923 case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court ruled that Thind and other South Asians were not "free white persons" according to a 1790 federal law that stated that only white immigrants could apply for naturalized citizenship.[25] The Immigration Act of 1924 prohibited the immigration of Asians such as Middle Easterners and Indians. This further prevented Hindus from immigrating to the United States.[26] Despite such events, some people, including professionals, stayed and worked until the Immigration and Nationality Services (INS) Act of 1965 was passed. This opened the doors to Hindu immigrants who wished to work and start families in the United States. It included Hindu preachers as well, who spread awareness of the religion among the people who had little or no contact with it.

Also during the 1960s, Hindu teachers found resonance in the US counter-culture, leading to the formation of a number of Neo-Hindu movements such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness founded by Swami Prabhupada. People involved in the counter-culture such as Ram Dass, George Harrison, and Allen Ginsberg were influential in the spread of Hinduism in the United States. Ram Dass was a Harvard professor known as Richard Alpert and after being fired from Harvard was receiving a lot of media coverage. He traveled to India and studied under Neem Karoli Baba and came back to the west as a Hindu teacher and changed his name to Ram Dass which means servant of Rama (one of the Hindu gods). A student of Ram Dass, Jeffery Kagel, devoted his life to Hinduism in the sixties and is now making many CDs chanting the sacred mantras or spiritual verses. He has been very successful and is considered the rock star of yoga. George Harrison was a member of The Beatles which in its peak of popularity was receiving more media coverage than any other band in the world. He became a devotee of Swami Prabhupada who is the founder of ISKCON (mentioned above). George Harrison started to record songs with the words "Hari Krishna" in the lyrics and was widely responsible for popularizing Hinduism in America with the younger generation of the time. Allen Ginsberg, the author of Howl, became a figure in the sixties that was also heavily involved with Hinduism and it was said that he chanted "Om" at The Human Be-in of 1967 for hours on end. Other influential Indians of Hindu faith are Mata Amritanandamayi, Chinmoy and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

A joint session of the United States Congress was opened with a prayer in Sanskrit (with some Hindi and English added), read by Venkatachalapathi Samudrala, in September 2000, to honor the visit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The historic gesture was an initiative by Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown who requested the US Congress House Chaplain to invite the Hindu priest from the Shiva Vishnu Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio.[27] Another Hindu prayer was read in the United States Senate on July 12, 2007, by Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Nevada.[28] His prayer was interrupted by a couple and their daughter who claimed to be "Christian patriots", which prompted a criticism of candidates in the upcoming presidential election for not criticizing the remarks.[29] In October 2009, President Barack Obama lit a ceremonial Diwali lamp at the White House to symbolize victory of light over darkness.

As of February 2017 92,323 exiled Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in the USA since 2008. Hinduism is the major religion of Bhutanese who resettle in the USA.[30][31]

The Swaminarayanan Akshardham Temple Complex in New Jersey is one of the largest Hindu Temples outside of India.

President of the United States Barack Obama receives a red shawl from a Hindu priest from Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Maryland (October 2009).

The Vedanta Society was responsible for building some early temples in the United States starting in 1906, but they were not formal temples. Earliest traditional Mandir in the United States is Shiva Murugan Temple, Concord, CA (1957)[32] known as Palanisamy Temple, it is one of the few temples that is run by public by elected members. The Maha Vallabha Ganapathi Devastanam owned by the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing, New York City was consecrated on July 4, 1977. This temple recently underwent significant expansion and renovation.[33]

Today there are over 450 Hindu Temples across the United States,[34] spread across the country, with a majority of them situated on the east coast centered around the New York region which alone has over 135 temples[35] the next largest number being in Texas with 28 Temples[36] and Massachusetts with 27 temples.[37]

Other prominent temples include the Malibu Hindu Temple, built-in 1981 and located in Calabasas, is owned and operated by the Hindu Temple Society of Southern California. The temple is near Malibu, California. Apart from these, Swaminarayan temples exist in several cities across the country with a sizable following.

The Sri Ganesha Temple of Alaska in Anchorage is the northernmost Hindu temple in the world.[38]

The oldest Hindu Temple in Texas is the Shree Raseshwari Radha Rani temple at Radha Madhav Dham, Austin.[39] The temple, established by Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj is one of the largest Hindu Temple complexes in the Western Hemisphere,[40] and the largest in North America.[41][42][43]

In Tampa, South Florida, the Sri Vishnu Temple was consecrated in November 2001.

Goddess Shakthi at Parashakthi Temple, Pontiac, USA

Parashakthi Temple[44] in Pontiac, Michigan is a tirtha peetham in the west for Goddess "Shakthi" referred to as the "Great Divine Mother" in Hinduism. The Temple was envisioned by Dr. G Krishna Kumar in a deep meditative kundalini experience of "Adi Shakthi" in 1994.[45]

Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey is one of the largest stone Hindu temples in the United States.[46]

The Indian American Cultural Center opened on March 9, 2002, in Merrillville, Northwest Indiana. It was in 2010 on June 18 that the temple was finalized and opened, The Bharatiya Temple of Northwest Indiana. This temple is adjacent to the Cultural Center. In the native way of Hinduism, one would never see different sectarian groups worship in one temple. The Bharatiya Temple is unique in its own way by allowing different sectarian groups to worship together. The Bharatiya Temple has four different Hindu groups as well as a Jain group.[47]

A Hindu Military Chaplaincy was launched in May 2011; Army Captain Pratima Dharm become the first Hindu to serve as a U.S. military chaplain.[48]

Tulsi Gabbard and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tulsi Gabbard became the first-ever Hindu to be elected to the US Congress in 2012; she is a Hawaiian of Samoan and European descent, the daughter of a Roman Catholic father and a Hindu mother.[49] Later, in 2016 two more Hindus were elected to Congress: Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna (Rohit Khanna).[50] American Hindus are now the third-largest Religious Group in Congress with four members.[51] Among the lawmakers declining to state their religious affiliations were Indian-American Pramila Jayapal elected to the House of Representatives; since her mother is a Hindu, the Hindu American Foundation suggests that Jayapal is also Hindu.[52]

• Bhatia, Sunil (August 1, 2007). American Karma: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-0919-1.

• The Council of Hindu Temples of North America (CHTNA)
• Hindu Youth Network
• Hindu Temples Directory, Showing All Temples in America on a Google Map
• Hindu Temples in USA
• Vivekananda Vedanta Society-Chicago
• State-wise list of Hindu Temples in USA with photos and addresses
• South Asian Pioneers in California, 1899–1965
• Parashakthi Eternal Mother Temple