South Asia, Place-Making and Assimilation:Connecting Flushing to India Through The Ganeša Temple

Rebecca Book, Elizabeth Cohn-Martin and Hannah FleisherPLANA6205: Transnational Planning Final Report

Prof: Clara IrazabalFall 2013

(Image source: Hannah Fleisher)

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1. Introduction

The Ganeša Temple, located in the heart of Flushing, Queens, is a critical site for identity-making and place-making for the South Asian’s within the Flushing community, and also New York City as a whole. Shared Hindu beliefs informed and inspired the original design and construction of the temple, but the space has subsequently evolved and expanded in its function from a primarily religious institution, to South Asian community space, to key actor in the development of Flushing as a diverse, multiethnic community. The conscious place-making of the Ganeša Temple and its organizers has brought together various South Asian groups who share similar geographic backgrounds, but different cultures, languages and traditions with a burgeoning hub of commercial, cultural and ethnic forces in the city.

The Ganeša Temple offers to South Asians in New York City unique services and community activities that would not normally be implemented in a traditional Hindu temple found in India. This adaptation of the temple’s function to the particular context of New York City can be viewed partly as a form of acculturation to the American religious landscape, and partly as a reflection of South Asians being a minority in this particular community. For example, the temple offers immigrants services such as finance seminars, community integration events, venues for weddings or traditional ceremonies, food services and sale of religious materials and traditional health goods, which would be provided elsewhere within the community in South Asia, but is not otherwise available in the US. Furthermore, the temple actively contributes to community building efforts in Flushing, reflecting a facet of their identity as a distinct group within the network of ethnic minorities which constitute Flushing, Queens - particularly by promoting religious and cultural integration and collaboration within an ethnically disparate community through various events.

This research intends to explore how the Ganeša Temple acts both as a space for South Asians and Hindu’s to maintain connection to their native practices and culture - creating a homogenous community for themselves - and also as a space to ease migrants adaptation to the

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US context by integrating them into the local community. First, brief backgrounds on Hindu and South Asian cultures and communities, as well as a portrait of the rapidly changing Flushing community will be provided to give context to this discussion. Next, to guide this investigation, four main means of inquiry will be approached: how the temple serves as a site for the formation and evolution of the identity of individuals in the community, and how this process in turn informs the creation of an open and welcoming transnational space; how the temple affects the South Asian community’s acculturation and assimilation to the local community; how the South Asian community in Flushing has adapted to American norms and values in religious practice; and how the temple community contributes to the makeup of Flushing as a whole. These inquiries illuminate the need to revisit our conceptions of assimilation and community integration by viewing the Ganeša Temple as both a self-sufficient South Asian community space and also a key actor in maintaining a diverse, collaborative and integrated community in Flushing. By acting as a cohesive community space, which is culturally specific yet open and integrated into the local community, the Ganeša Temple has simultaneously acted as a space for South Asians and Hindus to remain rooted in their specific culture and community while firmly integrating into the strong, multiethnic and growing community of Flushing, Queens.

Figure 1: According to the Pew Center, 94% of the worlds Hindus live in the Asia-Pacific region (Pew Research Center, 2012).

2. Background

2.1. Hinduism in the Global Context

While subsequent research in this paper will prove that the Ganeša Temple acts as more than just a religious institution, it is still by definition a Hindu house of worship. Therefore, brief background on Hindus as a social group can productively inform our social analysis of the temple. Hindus constitute the fourth largest religious group in the world by total population, tallying approximately 1.03 billion adherents worldwide. What is perhaps most unique about the Hindu religion as a group, however, is their geographic concentration - 94% of the world’s Hindus live in India. Most other nations containing substantial numbers of Hindu practitioners are located within Asia: Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Burma, leaving less than 1% of Hindus who live outside of the Asia-Pacific region. Other regions containing notable Hindu populations are the United Kingdom and the United States, but are fairly minute in comparison to the population in Asia (See Figure 1)(Pew Research Center, 2012).

Understanding this unique geographic concentration provides an essential lens for assessing migration and immigration trends and experiences of the relatively few Hindus who do leave the Asia-Pacific region. While there is no question that incredible numbers of regional languages, cultures and religious sects exist in South Asia, the relative homogeneity of this region is highly unique. Given the concentration of this community, the line between what is a religious group, a cultural group, and a social or ethnic group becomes blurred. These dynamics made completing research on this group tenuous - it is never clear whether to focus inquiry on

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Hindus, Indians, or South Asians. Given that the temple is a Hindu institution, but the US Census data used to quantitatively assess our target community is only given for ethnic divisions, our theoretical research has tried to integrate various findings using all three descriptors aforementioned. Additionally, subsequent investigation of the Ganeša Temple has lead us to believe that this space is very much open to non-Hindus, of both South Asian and non-South Asian backgrounds, and hence taking a broad scope for our research was appropriate.

2.2. South Asians in the US

As mentioned in the previous section, quantifying the Hindu population in the United States is difficult, as most formal demographic research is qualified by ethnic and not religious groups - a difficult task in and of itself, given the massive ethnic diversity of South Asia. In fact, early South Asian immigrants were a small group, often colloquially called “Hindus” in the US, despite being comprised mostly of Sikhs, and to a lesser extent Muslims, Parsees and Afghans (Das, 2002: 2, 5), abjectly denying their diversity based on their appearance. It wasn’t until the Immigration and Nationality Act, 1965, which ushered in a radical change in immigration policies, that substantial immigrant flow from South Asia began (Das, 2002: 2). South Asians were particularly favored by the skills requirement introduced into the new act - many of them having acquired advanced education at home - and most South Asian immigrants from this wave were doctors, lawyers, and engineers: members of an “urban bourgeoisie” (Das, 2002: 5). The growing presence of South Asians in the US was formally recognized in the 1980 US Census, when “Asian Indians” was included as a unique demographic status.

Since 1965, the US South Asian community has grown immensely. In 2010, it was estimated that 3.4 million South Asians reside in the United States, an 81% increase from 2000 (SAALT, 2012). It was also estimated that the Hindu population in the United States as of 2010 was 1.79 million (Pew Research Center, 2012), though this only represents 0.2% of the total world Hindu population. The largest South Asian population within any US city is found in New York City, and the states with the largest South Asian populations are California, New York and New Jersey (SAALT, 2012). Over their history of immigration to the US, South Asians have been noted for having some of the highest income and education levels of any foreign born group in the country (Das, 2002: 7). Furthermore, Asian Indians tend to have higher median incomes than the average population, higher rates of education, a strong presence in the professional workforce, and hence attain certain types of social and economic mobility more readily than other immigrant groups. These dynamics of rapid growth and economic strength may illuminate factors contributing to the success of the organization of the Ganeša Temple – where this group attained the vast resources used to support its creation, proliferation, and continued success.

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Figure 2: The intersection of Flushing Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue – with businesses primarily East Asian in languages and services (Image source: nycgo.com).

2.3. Flushing, Queens: History and Current Demographics

When departing from Flushing Main Street Station into central Flushing, the surrounding businesses and majority of people on the street read as almost entirely East Asian - Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese. Business signs and advertisements are in East Asian languages and largely cater to these cultures (see Figure 2). Given this atmosphere, it was initially surprising to also find the Ganeša Temple located within this community. However, the history of Flushing establishes it as an area of religious plurality and ethnic diversity - though not without many growing pains - and further exploration of the area confirmed this to still be the case.

Today, Flushing, Queens has the third highest share - 53.5% of total - of foreign-born residents of all neighborhoods in New York City - significantly higher than the citywide average of 36%. It is said that Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world (The City of New York, 2013) (see Figure 3). Flushing contains over one tenth of the Asian Indian population in all of Queens - out of roughly 100,000 Asian Indians living in Queens, just under 10,000 live in the Flushing area. When looking at the census tract divisions of Queens it is apparent that certain neighborhoods link together much higher populations of South Asian people. The band directly to the south, southeast and southwest of Flushing contains up to 52% residents of South

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Asian heritage in each of those census tracts and to the west we see that there is also bunching of a high percentage of residents with South Asian heritage (see Figure 4).

Two major periods of immigration occurred that have shaped Flushing: Post-Immigration & Nationality Act in 1965 and Post-Cold War diasporas. While community members often refer to Flushing as the ‘birthplace of religious freedom’ (Hanson, 2002: 169), this self-proclaimed air of religious acceptance became strained after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 led to the first large influx of new immigrant groups which many Anglo-Saxon residents feared would be inassimilable (Hanson, 2002: 157). Subsequently, much diversification in the cultural landscape occurred since the 1980’s, creating a new community greatly divergent from the area’s Anglo-Saxon roots. A large part of this landscape diversification has been attributed to Taiwanese immigrant and real estate developer Tommy Huang, who bought many properties in the 1980’s recession and made them accessible to entrepreneurs from his migrant community. He developed many low-rise residential units with street level retail space - a familiar and preferred typology for Taiwanese small business owners that encouraged both their adaptation to their new community and their businesses to flourish. This innovation catalyzed the beginning of a large system of chain immigration from East Asia and a blossoming of the Asian immigrant community in the area. This influx of Taiwanese business owners changed not only the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood, but also its income demographics. In 1980, Flushing was a predominantly Anglo-Saxon area that was in decline, with over 50% of all businesses closed. Huang’s investments catalyzed a wave of ‘migrant gentrification’ that rapidly changed the face of downtown Flushing into the diverse center we see today (Huang, 2010: 60-62).

These waves of immigration have not just ethnically diversified Flushing, but also guided its rapid growth and expansion, making it a center of cultural and economic activity in Queens and New York City. Understanding both the physical planning and socio-demographic aspects of Flushing are critical to this study. Today, Flushing is the fourth largest central business district in all of New York City, anchored by a strong network of local small businesses - 80% of which have fewer than 10 employees (One Flushing, 2013). The Flushing Main Street Station is the busiest MTA subway station outside of Manhattan and the 10th busiest in the entirety of the New York City subway system (DiNapoli & Bleiwas, 2010). Total wages, jobs, rent levels, home values and school enrollment levels have all increased within the last decade in Flushing and ‘gentrification’ by middle class immigrants is a process continually in effect (Huang, 2010).

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Figure 3: Population distribution in Queens by race, with area immediately surrounding the Ganeša Hindu Temple highlighted (Sources: 2010 US Census, ESRI).

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Figure 4: South Asian populations in Flushing, Queens, as a percentage of total, 2010

Figure 5: The official plan for the $850 million Flushing Commons development project (Image source: NYCCEDC, 2011).

Reflecting on, and driving, this gentrification in Flushing is the site of an $850 million mixed-use redevelopment called the “Flushing Commons”, slated to break ground in the upcoming year (Colangelo March 12 2013). The project, approved in 2010, will be built within the neighborhood core and will further produce gentrification as well as pressures on local business owners, infrastructure and community services (NYCEDC, 2011) (see Figure 5). The project can be viewed as a necessary improvement to the area, whose infrastructure and services are buckling from rapid population and economic growth - a project to ensure “Flushing’s economic future and its quality of life,”(DiNapoli & Bleiwas, 2010: 1). However, the project has not been advanced without controversy - many local business owners are concerned that bringing competitive national retailers into the area will damage the specific business typologies cultivated by Huang and the East Asian community (Santos July 14 2010). Leading the movement to gain recognition for the economic benefit these immigrants have brought to the area and preserve their small-business ecology in the face of the massive development is “One Flushing”, a community-based economic development center. The group is dedicated to bridging the sizable gaps in language and culture between the Flushing business communities, and uniting the diverse opinions represented therein in order to present a stronger voice in requesting assistance and protection from the city, whom they feel does not adequately address these types of needs within the community:

“The city government has no idea why [Flushing] is prosperous, who is here, what drives people here, what distinguishes South Asians from Chinese...There is very little ability to distinguish different groups and how we can tailor resources to help them. That’s the role that [One Flushing] is playing - to provide a much more nuanced understanding of what’s going on in this community” (John Choe, 2013).

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One of the ways One Flushing gains these nuanced understanding of their community is by facilitating events that include all ethnic communities in the area, many of which the Ganeša Temple participates in. The Ganeša Temple and its associated properties – all elements of the Hindu Temple Society of North America - are located in the center of District 20 (Flushing), approximately a 20 minute walk south-east from Flushing Main Street Station (the last stop on the 7 train), in the heart of this diverse and growing region. The Ganeša Temple primarily serves residents located in Flushing and District 20, but also draws patrons from other districts of Queens, New York City, and the New York metro region (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013).

2.4. History of the Ganeša Temple

The Ganeša Temple is an element of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, a non-profit religious institution that was incorporated on January 26, 1970, and now oversees both the Ganeša Temple and community center. Officially named Šri Mahã Vallabha Ganapati Devasthãnam, the temple and adjoining community center are referred to amongst residents and temple-goers as Ganeša Temple, after the elephant headed god of wisdom and remover of obstacles. It was the first Hindu temple constructed in North America. The structure is composed of largely imported materials and was constructed by artisans from India, and the temple and community center occupy nearly a quarter of its block on Bowne Street. The initial temple construction was completed in 1977, with materials from India, by artisans from India, in accordance with the Agama Shastras scriptures on temple building (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013). This collaboration indicates a strong tie with the religious and cultural communities in India by placing this importance on traditional religious practices. These complex, international ties and exchanges are typical identifying characteristic of transnational communities (Foner, 1987: 9), and in this sense reveal the temple’s critical importance as a space for American South Asians trying to maintain a connection with their native communities.

Given the temple’s size and ornate construction, it is unsurprisingly regarded as one of “the most impressive and historically important Hindu temples in the West” (Hanson, 2002: 122). Given the temples propensity for inclusionary practices, within and outside of the South Asian community (as will be discussed subsequently), the logo of the Society is especially fitting (see Figure 6): a light surrounded by insignias of several religious symbols with the OM sign on top, signifying universality, catholicity and spirit of tolerance of Hinduism. Within the vast complex run by the Hindu Temple Society, Ganeša Temple offers not only traditional Hindu worship

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Figure 6: The official logo of the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Image source: The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013).

space similar to what immigrants would have known in their home country, with formal instructions in religion, but also a variety of educational and cultural programs targeting needs of youth, seniors and immigrants (though not in the temple space itself, but in the adjoining community center)(The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013).

Figure 7: From left to right – the walkway from the Hindu Temple Society’s community center to the temple building; and, the from exterior of the temple building, both constructed using materials from India, by artisans from India. (Image source: Hannah Fleisher)

Currently, the Hindu Temple Society of North America has over twenty thousand devotees who benefit from religious and cultural activities of the Temple. The temple funds its upkeep and ministries mainly through gifts and donations from its members, as well as fund raising activities including organizing pooja sponsorship (services), cultural events, fund raising dinners, and sponsorship of one of the various projects of the temple. The temple’s organizers work to cultivate a very active community for their patrons, organizing cultural festivals, disaster aid fundraisers and other charitable activities, and maintaining 23 different committees within the temple in addition to its Board of Trustees – half of which are outreach oriented (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013). This expansive organization and its well established community of patrons clearly indicates a successful model for temple and community organization, and in this sense, “the Temple owes its success to the visionary who founded it, a record of sound leadership and organization, a central location in an area with the largest concentration of Indians in the US, and, many would insist, divine grace” (Hanson, 2002: 122).

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Expanding on this accolade, the location of the temple does indeed seem pivotal to its success. Flushing, Queens was a logical location for the Ganeša Temple because it is at the center of the large concentration of South Asians and Hindus in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (Hanson, 2002: 123). The current site of the temple was ideal for serving this community as it is within walking distance for many and easily accessible by public transportation for others, and is in a low density residential area easily accessible by car with many parking options (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013). The particular parcel the temple complex now sits on was originally home to a Russian Orthodox Church, meaning it was already zoned for a large religious institution, making its conversion into a temple space relatively easy from a legislative point of view (Hanson, 2002: 123). This evolution from church to temple is also symbolic of the demographic changes in Flushing as aforementioned – shifting from a landscape of mainly white, Christian, European immigrants to its current population of mainly East and South Asians, as well as Latinos and some Middle Eastern subgroups.

The Temple has served as a model for many other Hindu communities in the US, a testament to its success as a transnational space. One of the major advents of the temples organization was the inclusion of a community center, expanding its supportive community functions beyond the religious realm, symbolizing a critical adaptation of a temples particular function within a community in India to the North American context. In this way, the Temple does not function alone but is supported by it’s large community center, which was also funded and constructed by the Hindu Temple Society, and opened it’s doors in June, 1998 (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2013). The community center is a vast space, containing three floors of gathering spaces that continuously offer services, events, informational groups, and educational activities. On the main floor is a large wedding hall, the second floor houses an auditorium with seating capacity of over 700 and in the lower level is an industrial kitchen with a large dining hall and public canteen.

Many people from different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds within and outside of the South Asian community are invited to use these spaces, and based on our observations of the temple, often do so. None of these social programmatic elements would be included in a traditional Indian temple structure, and clearly represent key adaptations to the American religious landscape. It is through these adaptations that the South Asian community in Flushing has been able to create a place for themselves, and adapt their South Asian identity to the North American context, cultivating this successful and productive transnational space as a result. The temple organizers’ recognition of the need for outreach and an expanded sense of community inclusion has allowed the temple to grow both organically but with purpose and direction, and allowed them to become both a critical service for South Asians as well as a community leader in Flushing. These dynamics and processes will constitute the subsequent analysis of this report.

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3. Place Making & Identity Making

What, it may be said, motivates the creation of a space like the Ganeša Temple, is a desire for place-making and identity-making. This process is something that all communities do in some capacity; however, the act of place-making in the immigrant context has some explicit goals. Creating a unique space to pay homage to one’s culture and religion is essential in creating and maintaining a distinct religious or social community, particularly in an immigrant context. As Schneekloth & Shibley explain in their research,

“the making of places...not only changes and maintains the physical world of the living; it is also a way we make our communities and connect with other people ...place making is not just about the relationship of people to their places; it also creates relationships among people in places” (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2008: 317).

In this way the act of place making, from the organization required to procure land to the expertise required to design the physical structure, becomes important in the creation of the community and maintaining a specific cultural identity. For example, in a study of new Hindu immigrants building a temple in Southern California, it was inferred that by building a physical edifice to their culture, these Hindu Americans create “a sacred microcosm...in their cultural image” (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2008: 321).

This process of physical place-making also encompasses cultural and personal identity-making for the immigrant group, and the ties to their community built through this process are reflected in the possibility to publically enact their cultural and religious heritage. When immigrant groups cannot anchor their culture within their new home, their settlement process is often stifled. As Berger & Luckman (1967) explain:

“the individual living for many years among people of a different faith and cut off from the community of those sharing his own may continue to identify himself as, say, a [Hindu]...They will, however, become subjectively empty of “living” reality unless they are “revitalized” by social contact with other [Hindus]” (in Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2008: 316).

We can view the act of temple building for the South Asian community as an effort to instigate this strongly beneficial social contact, and create a place for themselves that they are motivated to invest in socially. The Ganeša Temple acts as a revitalization space – a place where South Asians know they can come to find this authentic, living reality of their Hindu identity and South Asian identities. The temple replicates a kind of social dynamic that speaks to the South Asian immigrants former reality, and also connects American South Asians with a world they have been reminded of and tacitly raised within.

In these ways, the Ganeša Temple brings together not only South Asian Hindus, but also diverse subgroups of the region that share only their geographical origins with the majority South Indian membership. For example, the temple provides an extracurricular after school programs for children, including services and lessons tailored to their distinct ethnic groups such

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as homework help for youth in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Sanskrit; cultural arts and dancing (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2010). The unifying factor for these geographically disparate subgroups in this space is, ultimately, their religion, but their level of integration within the temple is unique to the American context, whereas in South Asia all of these sub-groups have established and separate communities. For example, while observing youth dance performances by students of the temple’s traditional Indian dance classes during the temple’s 2013 Deepvali (New Years) festival, it was apparent that many of the youth participating were Indonesian or Malaysian in background - a strong example of the inclusionary practices of both the religion and the adapted function of the temple and community center in the North American context (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: Traditional Indian dances were performed by youth from many different cultures for the temple’s Deepvali (New Years) celebrations (Image source: Hannah Fleisher)

Furthermore, while the temple membership consists of people from many different Hindu cultures, events and activities are open for anyone in the community or visiting the area to observe and enjoy. This practice is typified in the Canteen, which serves a variety of South Asian food seven days a week, at a reasonable cost (most meals are less than $10) (see Figure 9). On several visits to the temple, it appeared that many patrons of the Canteen, as well as people exploring the temple and facility, were not likely of South Asian or Hindu heritage, but were comfortably occupying the space and integrating with fellow patrons and staff, indicating that the identity of the temple is firmly entrenched in Flushing as a community, as well as Hindu

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practice and South Asian heritage. Anecdotally, the idea to investigate the temple for this research was resultant from a conversation with a long-time (non-South Asian) resident of the community and member of the Flushing-Corona Meadows community garden, whom, while not a formal patron of the temple, recommended a stop at the Canteen for “the best Indian food in Flushing” and a visit to one of the “most unique places in the city”. These types of observations clearly allude to a strong, open institution that has a positive integration within the identity of Flushing.

Figure 9: From left to right – a typical meal of dosas and daal offered at the temple canteen; the large sign beside the temple entrance directing people to the common social spaces of the temple complex (Image source: Hannah Fleisher and http://www.whrtny.com/2010/06/ganesh-temple-canteen.html).

Thus the temple is inherently generative of community, yet also dependent upon the community that it serves. A temple of this size, and so ornately and carefully constructed, would not be here without a large, well established community desiring its types of services in the surrounding area. Site visits and research of property records in the area also revealed four additional, unrelated Hindu establishments within a two-block radius of the Ganeša Temple (see Figure 10). Religious communities are also subject to supply and demand, and a certain amount of immigrants must donate their funds and participate in activities that legitimize the construction of the temple. Many new immigrant communities must first focus their activities on obtaining financial stability and normalizing their activities to those of the host society in order to ‘fit in’. The ability to construct a large, ornate temple in a traditional style shows that the community has obtained a significant level of belonging in the host society. The construction of the temple is also symbolically important as it establishes the community as permanent residents rather than temporary aliens (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2008), making their efforts to create a ‘living reality’ of their culture more entrenched as a distinct element of the local community.

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Figure 10: From left to right – another Hindu temple on Robinson Street; and, Hindu/South Asian community center on Kissena Boulevard, found in the area immediately surrounding the Ganeša Temple (Image source: Hannah Fleisher).

In an effort to further understand the relationship the Ganeša Temple holds within Flushing, we interviewed John Choe, the founding Director of One Flushing, a non-governmental community economic development center in Flushing. Choe emphasized the importance of religious institutions and in particular the Ganeša Temple in organizing and assisting immigrants in Flushing to integrate into the community and find the services they need. At its core, One Flushing was formed with the goal of representing the collective needs of small business owners in the Flushing community – a unique task, as these businesses are so closely associated with ethnic groups and communities (see Section 2.3). In order to be a functional, equitable organization, and also to garner the appropriate attention from the broader city government, it was deemed necessary to form an organization that would unite the many heterogeneous groups that make up Flushing. Significant language and cultural barriers had to be overcome to unite the organization within the community, and networking with various religious organizations and other centers of immigrant life was instrumental in doing so. On this note, Choe explained,

“…because Flushing is so diverse you can’t have the cookie cutter model of economic development... you have to have relationships with institutions like the Hindu Temple Society that are kind of the locus of where people come from, where the activity takes place, where information is shared” (John Choe, 2013).

Creating a separate space for immigrants, which supplies them with many services and a separate community, results in connections and ties between new immigrants and with their more well established colleagues – both integrating them into the local community, and legitimizing their efforts towards place-making and identity-making by being recognized as a distinct group. In Flushing this process is even more complex, as there is not a clear ‘host community’ – almost all large groups living in the area are relative newcomers, although, as aforementioned, the business areas read as primarily East Asian. To some extent, this supports disassociation from mainstream American culture and hinders assimilation, by encouraging the group to remain autonomous and distinct within a larger organization. However, Hinduism is a traditionally adaptable religion; South Asians have proven particularly adept at adapting to the expectations of American culture. To quote K.G. Jan Pillai, “Tolerance and adaptability are rooted in our culture” (in Das, 2002). This particular community organization explicitly involves itself with events and outreach programs within the larger Flushing community, including participation in Flushing culinary events, such as the Flushing Dumpling Festival we attended, and hosting workshops to describe their beliefs to outsiders, therefore acting not just as a conduit for South Asian immigrants and Americans to participate in their traditional cultures and practices, but also to connect their ‘place’ in a meaningful way. This reciprocal connection – a kind of cultural

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discourse – is what makes the Ganeša Temple a truly transnational space, where we see both an import and an export of traditions, practices and place-making taking place.

4. Assimilation and Acculturation

To further assess the role the Ganeša Temple plays for the South Asian community, and the place it occupies in the community of Flushing, distinguishing between the processes of assimilation and acculturation in the experience of US immigrants is important. Assimilation implies adopting the host culture’s “intrinsic cultural traits”, which are vital to the core culture, while acculturation consists of adopting the host culture’s “extrinsic cultural traits”, and making necessary accommodations to operate in the new environment (Alba & Nee, 1997: 829). While the former often leads to loss of many of the immigrants’ cultural original practices such as say, wearing a sari, the later implies that immigrants learn elements of social life and the legal system of the host country so they can continue their traditional practices in their new home. These distinctions also play a role in the type of place-making and identity-making a group engages in – how literal or adapted from its reference point, and open or insular, a space a group creates is can be largely dictated by how much pressure there is to assimilate or acculturate in a community.

An example of these distinctions at play can be observed in the adaptation of the typical temple building typology to the North American context. In order for Hindus to adapt their religious practices to the American Religious landscape, many traditional elements of temple design and function were altered. In the most literal sense, the built environment had to be amended to fit building codes and new programmatic needs. Hinduism considers bathrooms to be profane, and contact with them is believed to defile the sacred. In India these facilities are constructed outside the temple grounds. However, American building codes require their inclusion within the facility, and as such, the Ganeša Temple includes a large bathroom, with baby changing amenities.

As aforementioned, to foster greater community involvement, the Ganeša Temple also includes a community center with classrooms, spaces for weddings, and a kitchen - features not normally found in an Indian temple (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2008: 326), and another form of assimilation succeeded by the Temple organizers to the North American climate. The large, affordable Temple Canteen in the basement of the temple provides additional space for the community to meet and socialize with other Hindus as well as the larger community. It is in this area of the Ganeša Temple where most non-Indian patrons were observed participating in the facility. While this programmatic element is not necessarily one seen in temples in India, it provides a positive and open way to interface with the larger community and open the facilities of the temple to other religions and community members in the North American context.

Further adaptations of Hindu temples in the United States can also be seen in how the religion itself is practiced and in the types of events the community organizes. In contrast to

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many ‘western’, Abrahamic religions, Hinduism is non-proselytizing and most worship is individual. However outreach and congregational worship were deemed necessary in the American context to attract and maintain a membership base. While this type of adaptation might be viewed as assimilation – something slightly forceful, and not always positive – this requirement appears to have instigated some of the Ganeša Temple’s most successful community building practices. Advertisements, administrative functions, and community events are incorporated in the temple in many languages, and both in religious and non-religious contexts. At the Ganeša Temple, these events take the form of public holiday celebrations (such as the Deepvali festival the researchers attended), finance seminars, language classes, and even health seminars including, for example, a special initiative undertaken with the New York State Health Department to address the issue of diabetes in the South Asian community (The Hindu Temple Society of North America, 2010).

From a policy level, many of these changes can be traced back to the IRS definition of religious institution, which stipulates that they must maintain ‘regular congregations’ and ‘Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young’. Additionally, the majority of founding board members are required to be US citizens, placing an additional burden on immigrant groups to prove their legitimacy in their new community. These requirements have made it particularly hard for Hindu temples to obtain ‘religious institution’ status (Kurien, 2006: 72 -728). American tax laws and building codes are based on the Christian tradition and understanding of the role of religious organizations. They force some of these preconceptions of religious practice on Hindu temples which normally have no congregations, and whose priests are not formally ‘ordained after a course of study’ as required by the IRS. Instead many priests hail from Brahmin families and have not been to a religious school as defined in the Christian theological sense. The few Hindu organizations that have managed to gain religious institution status within the US are classified as ‘neo-Hindu’ reformist groups.

Additional American laws stipulate the social organization and management structure of religious groups. Tax code requires that religious organizations must maintain a board of trustees, of which the majority must be US citizens, placing an additional burden on immigrant groups. This stipulation has lead to conflict within Hindu communities in the past, of which a court case involving the Hindu Temple Society provides the most notable example. In 2001, 28 temple-goers went to the state courts, alleging that the by-laws gave trustees undemocratic control of the temple. Temple President, Dr. Uma Mysorekar argued that the courts were violating the First Amendment rights of the community, and the board of trustees was “trying to prevent the court from imposing a non-Hindu form of control on the largest Hindu temple in America” (from Kurien, 2006: 728).

These types of restrictions and classifications delegitimize the place-making and identity-making for these groups, for as much as these processes are about the internal identity of a group, having these formalized, acknowledged identities are part of what anchors and integrates them into their new communities. The inclusion of a financial mechanism (through tax breaks

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available to religious organizations) to encourage non-Christian groups to alter their traditional practices and conform to Christian ideas of worship. When formal legislation impedes the settlement of an immigrant group, it inevitably draws a boundary around their ability to settle comfortably into their new society, and impedes the process of community building in the surrounding context.

In order to combat this de-legitimization, Hindus have attempted to become recognized as an ‘American religion’ by emphasizing characteristics of their community such as their low divorce rate and high education rates to appear more assimilated and homogenous with the status quo. Beginning in the 1990s, Hindu American leaders began to consciously participate more in interfaith events to educate the public about their religious beliefs and present Hinduism in a way that conformed to Western expectations (Kurien, 2006:730-731). Hindu religious leaders emphasized that although Hinduism has many deities, they believe these are all manifest in one supreme being - an interpretation that more closely aligns with the form of worship in dominant Western religions. These claims assisted in allowing immigrants to acculturate without losing their traditional practices, by projecting an image that they were not so unlike the predominant culture they now found themselves in. Uptake in ‘American cultural values’ has gone beyond religious identity as well:

“Asian Indian immigrants have assimilated without losing their ethnic identity, of which they are very proud. Integration into the value systems of American society, such as competitiveness, achievement orientation, egalitarianism, and objective individualism has been eagerly adopted by Asian Indian immigrants to achieve success and contribute effectively to the larger society” (Das, 2002: 11)

This type of assimilation and acculturation was apparent amongst the patrons during visits to the Ganeša Temple. While attending the 2013 Deepvali Festival, it was observed that the patrons were from many backgrounds - some appeared to be multigenerational South Asian Americans, some appeared to be more recent immigrants, and many appeared to be from South-East Asian regions such as Indonesia and Malaysia. The very active temple youth group, for example, appeared to be comprised of many members whom were born in the US and India - a mix of native English speakers and speakers of South Asian languages. The festival program was centered on activities of the youth group, which included dance performances, and an art exhibition (see Figure 11). An upcoming event for the youth group was an essay-writing

competition on several topics of Hindu practice. Patrons of all ages attended and interacted, and there appeared to be no boundaries between people of different ethnic, religious, linguistic or national backgrounds. Despite the general fluency in American legal and cultural practices, temple goers still remain silent during the singing of

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the American National anthem while they wholeheartedly belt out the Indian national anthem, a sign of their pride in their background. All of these observations lead to the conclusion that the South Asians and Hindus of the Ganeša Temple have found a way to balance their assimilation and acculturation into the larger society of New York City and the United States by embedding their cultural and religious identities in a strong, open physical place that is genuinely integrated with the community at large. In this way, they are able to mediate a reciprocal dialogue between their new and old homes, allowing their community members to participate in a ‘living reality’ of their native home while also being firmly rooted in their new home. This type of community building is exemplary, and could potentially be used as a model for other ethnic and immigrant groups to follow in order to not only remain critically connected to their culture and practices, but also to integrate positively and dialectically into their host environment.

5. Conclusions

The Ganeša Temple acts as a space of community integration and inclusion. It is a hub within the broader New York region and a safe space for religious practices, establishment of cultural norms, and mixing of different ethnic groups. Through its community services, it has created a broader identity group for South Asian migrants: Hindus, Indians, and all South Asians. As a community space, it exemplifies the benefits of having a large network of diverse groups and individuals who have immigrated into the US to assist other new immigrants adapt to their adopted home. As this space has already developed a central role as a community and educational space within the immigrant groups that they serve, it provides a primary node for the dissemination of information from the municipality to their membership. By communicating with these already well-established networks, the municipality can ensure that they are connecting with immigrant populations. By networking with religious groups with a large immigrant constituency we can develop a more inclusionary planning practice that attempts to serve what is historically one of the most vulnerable population subgroups (immigrants) and strengthen diverse communities within North America, which are increasingly becoming the status quo.

As the United States becomes a host to an increasing number of immigrants, our theories on assimilation and acculturation need to evolve as well. Alba & Nee show that immigrants often feel more connected to other immigrants dealing with a similar process of identity making. This theory helps explain why locating the temple in a majority East Asian immigrant community of Flushing was appealing. This could also explain the existence of Tamil and other South Asian cultural events within in a primarily South Indian temple. The Hindu Temple simultaneously represents a strong self-sufficient community space for South Asians, as well as active and unifying community leader for Flushing.

As planners, there are many lessons we can learn from Flushing. As New York City and the country as a whole become home to an increasing number of immigrants, identifying and

19/22Figure 11 – Participants in a ribbon-giving ceremony for the youth art exhibition during the 2013 Deepavali Festival (Image source: Hannah Fleisher).

developing relationships with nodes in the immigrant community will become increasingly important. In this way we can overcome many cultural and language boundaries that have limited the amount of input immigrant groups have had in the development of urban space. In a rapidly diversifying nation the only way to design an urban environment that meets the needs of its inhabitants is to make use of the already established centers for dispersal of information and culture.

These established centers that bring communities of immigrants together exist in many different spaces throughout New York City, the US, and the world. What should be noted is that the immigrant community and its associated centers of connection have different physical and social manifestations depending on spatial context with the urban fabric that they exist within. What we currently see in Flushing is not the same as what is currently occurring in downtown Manhattan within Chinatown, per say. The immigrant community’s relationship with its physical surroundings inherently affects that communities social and spatial formations – networks, community hubs, religious spaces, and housing and business typologies each form as a result of the interaction between the immigrant community and itself, the larger community that it finds itself within, and its spatial location and physical surroundings. The Ganeša Temple is one clear example of this. When planning for and with immigrant communities, such as that of the Ganeša Temple, it is important to consider initial and continual community formation as linked to its physical context. Planning efforts can clearly allow for this and enhance immigrant community formation, integration and strength or, it can deter from it, negatively affecting community social and spatial organization. The Ganeša Temple can only serve as an exemplary example for immigrant community planning in the future.

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