Religion and houses in a transnational setting: A study of interior decoration of Hindu immigrants from India in the United States

This study explores the dynamic ways in which Hindu immigrants in the United States decorate their houses on religious principles within a transnational setting. It demonstrates the way regular travel between the two countries, made possible due to cheaper, non-stop flights and better paying jobs, allow Hindus to bring religious items from India to the United States. Furthermore, due to the impact of modernity on religious art in India, the items are smaller in size, lighter in weight, and better equipped for transportation. It documents five religious items that are commonly transported. These include the Hindu domestic shrine, sandpainting, decorative door hanging and the Hindu calendar. The study compares immigrant traditions in two communities in Plainsboro, New Jersey and Salt Lake City, Utah. The first comprises of one or two bedroom apartments rented mainly by transient immigrants who are working on short term contracts. The second community contrasts with the New Jersey population because these are two story or rambler houses independently owned by a stable and wealthy population of immigrants with green cards or U.S. citizenship. However, despite Salt Lake City's smaller Hindu population, it proves an ideal location for comparative research since it provides a broader perspective to the ways immigration status, duration of stay, and immigrant population in the neighborhood affects interior decoration. Its central arguments prove that Hindu immigrant houses are spatially organized based on four Hindu notions of darshan, auspiciousness, purity and pollution. It also demonstrates the way in which in these economically strained times Hindu religious art is negatively impacted by a hostile reception by American neighbors. Lastly, it examines the way Hindu polytheistic consciousness enables Hindus to dwell as a "social fabric" forming an interdependent community in spite of the isolated and privatized architectural design of suburbs in the United States. It broader significance lies in highlighting the Hindu house as an important building for cultural analysis. Unlike temples, houses reveal religious and cultural practices that are less institutionalized and therefore more conducive for integrating the ordinary and the everyday in conversations about transnationalism and religious experiences of immigrants in the United States.