THE RACIALIZATION OF MINORITIZEDRELIGIOUS IDENTITYCONST.docx

THE RACIALIZATION OF MINORITIZED
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY:
CONSTRUCTING SACRED SITES AT THE
INTERSECTION OF WHITE AND
CHRISTIAN SUPREMACY
JAIDEEP SINGH
INTRODUCTION
Among the most dynamic sources of diversity in the United
States is thatemanating from the numerous religious groups that
are flourishing under
the relative religious freedom offered by this country. While
there cannot be
an official state religion in the United States, Christianity has
historically
been given unofficial sanction and privilege in virtually every
sphere of
American life. Resulting from this long tradition of Christian
dominance is a
strong sense of entitlement and xenophobic entrenchment in
significant and
powerful sections of the population.
In 1997, Henry Jordan of the South Carolina Board of Education
retorted
to those who objected to a prominent display of the Ten
Commandments in
the State’s public schools: “Screw the Buddhists and kill the

Muslims.”
Jordan later explained his strong reaction in the following
manner: “I was
expressing frustration.... [Schools] can teach any kind of cult.
Buddhism is a
cult. So is Islam. I’m getting a little tired of it.” Meanwhile,
undeterred by
the opposition of these “cultists,” Nebraska Governor Benjamin
Nelson pro-
claimed May 17 of the same year “March for Jesus Day.”1
And in August 2001, Rep. Don Davis, a white, Republican state
legislator
in North Carolina, forwarded via email a letter to every member
of the state
House and Senate that stated:
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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 87
“Two things made this country great: White men &
Christianity....
Every problem that has arrisen [sic] can be directly traced back
to our
departure from God’s Law and the disenfranchisement of White
men.”2
While he later distanced himself from the remarks, Davis
initially explained
his reason for forwarding the email as: “There’s a lot of it that’s
truth, the way
I see it. Who came to this country first—the white man—didn’t
he? That’s

who made this country great.”
As evidenced by these examples, religion has become a
particularly power-
ful method of classifying the “enemy” or “other” in national life
in recent
years, impacting primarily non-Christian people of color. For
instance,
Muslims have become among the most demonized members of
the
American polity, as a result of international events and
domestic actions by a
miniscule handful of their co-religionists. In return, their
religion has repeat-
edly been characterized in an inaccurate, misleading, and
blatantly racist
fashion in the media and public discourse; their property and
religious sites
have been vandalized; and their bodies have been targeted for
hate crimes in
alarming numbers. As the venerable scholar Edward Said has
noted, the last
sanctioned racism in the United States is that directed at
followers of the reli-
gion of Islam.3
The validity of this statement was evident in March of 2000,
when
Reverend Jerry Falwell, a powerful and influential Christian
minister with a
national following, told a religion website that “the Moslem
faith teaches
hate.”4 He later tried to clarify his comments by claiming that
he was refer-
ring to any group “bearing any bigotry toward any human,”
apparently fail-

ing to see the irony in his “clarification,” in which he
specifically cited the
Aryan Nations and the Church of Scientology as examples of
such preju-
diced groups.
Noting this paradox and highlighting some possible
consequences of
Reverend Falwell’s bias-laden discourse, Omar Ahmad of the
Council on
American-Islamic Relations faxed a letter to Falwell in which
he explained
that “These offensive remarks are symptomatic of the very
intolerance that
you claim Islam promotes.... Your destructive rhetoric could
lead to discrim-
ination and even physical attacks against Muslims.”5 The
violent, racist
backlash mentioned by Mr. Ahmad has recurred across the
nation in the
wake of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Gulf War, and the
terrorist attacks
upon Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center, and the
Pentagon.
The notion of the “Muslim terrorist” is one powerfully etched
on the
minds of most Americans. The blatant racism behind this
characterization,
which goes unquestioned even by the intelligentsia in American
society, can
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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 88

be gleaned from the complete dearth of depictions of the
perpetrators of the
Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, abortion clinic
bombers, and
various white militia groups, as “Christian terrorists.” When
such acts are
perpetrated by white Americans, the specificity of their
religious affiliation is
neither a matter of newsworthiness nor comment. The
utilization of the
term “terrorist” enables the facile dehumanization of the targets
of that pejo-
rative by the press and the public.
Analogously, Sikh migrants to the United States—who most
Americans
find indistinguishable from Muslims—have found themselves
the target of
racist scapegoating and media misrepresentations. The ruinous
and recurring
depiction of the “Sikh terrorist” was revived most recently when
most of the
country’s major media outlets mistakenly reported that a plane
hijacked in
India had been seized by Sikhs.6 Although many media outlets
later apolo-
gized and printed corrections in the wake of this erroneous
accusation, the
hurtful initial reports only confirmed the validity of the siege
mentality
many Sikh Americans feel on many levels. They believe that
they are second-
class citizens not only because of their racial background, their
accents, and

their lack of English proficiency, but also because of the
religion they prac-
tice. This is an especially disquieting notion to Sikhs, because a
number of
them came to the United States to escape the religious
persecution suffered
by the tiny Sikh minority in India.
The new society into which Sikh immigrants have transplanted
their cul-
ture, once they perceive as hostile and forbidding to their
cultural traditions,
has racialized them as a result of their ostensible “racial
uniform,”7 which in
the case of the Sikhs is also a religious uniform. This conflation
of racial and
religious identity has further convoluted the already demanding
attempts of
Sikh Americans to develop and crystallize a diasporic identity—
one
intensely informed and complicated by transnational factors—
efficacious
for themselves, and communicable to American society at large.
The inter-
sections of white supremacy and Christian supremacy have
made the inte-
gration of Sikh Americans into the Republic all the more
formidable a task.
In a fervent attempt to cling to the most salient aspects of their
religio-
historical identity, Sikhs have built a gurdwara (Sikh temple)
wherever they
have migrated. This has become a source of conflict in a number
of communi-
ties around the country in the past three decades since Sikhs

started arriving in
the United States in large numbers. As a case study in this
trend, I will exam-
ine the recent struggle of the Sikh community in San Jose,
California to build
a new gurdwara, and the highly racially-charged objections of
members of the
local community that opposed the construction of the new
sacred site. I will
examine the racialized and xenophobic aspects to the opposition
of certain
RACIALIZATION OF MINORITIZED RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 89
members of the surrounding community, linking the situation in
San Jose to
other struggles by Asian Americans seeking to build places of
worship.
XENOPHOBIA AND OPPOSITION TO THE CONSTRUCTION
OF SACRED SPACES
Silicon Valley has attracted a sizable number of Sikh Americans
in the past
two decades. The remarkably diverse population of the area
contains sizable
Sikh American and South Asian American communities, many
of whom
work in various sectors of the high-tech industry that propels
the region’s
economy. However, the Sikhs in the area are visible not only

behind com-
puter terminals and in the boardrooms of computer companies,
but behind
the wheels of taxi cabs and the counters of convenience stores
and gas sta-
tions. Their visibility and sizable presence, as well as the broad
mixture of
racial and ethnic groups in the vicinity of San Jose, would seem
to make the
likelihood of the Sikh community facing resistance in their
attempt to con-
struct a sacred site unlikely.
However, San Jose, like the rest of the nation, remains highly
segregated
along racial lines. The Sikhs sought to locate their new
gurdwara in an afflu-
ent, primarily white neighborhood, and consequently became
viewed as a
threat by some of the residents of the locale. The visible
presence of the Sikhs
in the community evidently was the basis of some residents’
desire to prevent
them from entering their neighborhood in large numbers—a fact
that
became painfully evident during the contentious approval
process for the
new gurdwara. Nevertheless, the progressive political
atmosphere in the
region, as well as the general emphasis on supporting diversity
by City offi-
cials and numerous faith-based community leaders, became a
tremendous
boon to the Sikh community as they sought support for the
gurdwara project
from non-Sikh members of the community. They formed a far-

reaching
coalition of political, community, and faith-based leaders in
support of their
cause—one that was the source of vigorous and often bitter
contestation and
confrontation.
The July 31, 1997 edition of the San Jose Mercury News,
carried an article
entitled “Residents Protest Temple Plans,” which began with the
following
lines:
People who live near a proposed Sikh temple in San Jose’s
Evergreen
foothills packed a city hearing Wednesday to complain about
the size of
the sprawling structure, which some have dubbed the “Taj
Mahal of the
West.” Opponents said the temple, however beautiful, will
increase traf-
fic and ruin the tranquility of their semi-rural neighborhood.
Some fear
JAIDEEP SINGH © 90
06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 90
that the giant onion-domed facility, to be built on a 40-acre
apricot
orchard... will become a regional tourist attraction.8
This instance, when examined closely, resembles many other
such con-

flicts faced by Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and
members of
other minority religions throughout the United States. The
friction often
boils down to a situation in which the Constitutionally-
guaranteed religious
freedoms of an easily differentiated, racialized community of
Asian
Americans are trampled by “mainstream” opponents seeking to
abridge their
right to build a site in which to peacefully worship and practice
their reli-
gious and cultural heritage. The arguments put forth by the
opponents of
the construction of such sacred sites are often no more than
thinly-veiled,
xenophobic opposition to members of a non-Christian,
racialized minority
entering their community in sizable numbers. The problems
faced by the
Sikhs in San Jose are a classic illustration of this trend.
Since the gurdwara project met all of the City of San Jose’s
requirements,
the city staff expressed no real opposition to the plans, and it
moved quickly
through the initial planning stages.9 The development of
significant com-
munity opposition appeared quite suddenly, after the process
was well under
way to get approval for the building of the new gurdwara.
As the date neared for the Planning Commission meeting in
which the
final approval for the project could be granted, the Sikhs
noticed a good deal

of activity in the neighborhood. They noticed people in the
Evergreen com-
munity—a primarily residential enclave in the San Jose
foothills, where the
Sikh community purchased land on which to construct the new
gurdwara—
getting organized to oppose the project. The Sikhs saw
provocative flyers
that had been distributed to residents, alerting the neighbors to
the impend-
ing building of a Sikh Temple.10
The opposition was led by a local real estate developer who
distributed
flyers through the neighborhood that attacked the gurdwara
project. The fly-
ers contained inflammatory statements like “A church the size
of K-Mart is
coming to the neighborhood, and it will create major traffic
problems!” The
rising resistance astonished the Sikhs, who had always had
cordial relations
with members of the surrounding community, although Sikh
community
leaders later admitted they had been too insular. As a result, the
Sikhs were
stunned that so many people were suddenly so interested in the
project—
and that they all viewed it negatively.11
At an August 13, 1997 meeting in the San Jose City Council
chambers,
city planning official Joseph Herwedel told a standing-room-
only crowd of
more than 350 people that there was no reason to deny the
project approval

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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 91
from the City. He immediately became the target of “loud boos
and mur-
murs of disapproval from angry area residents.... The meeting
was punctu-
ated by shouting and catcalls. ‘Put it in your neighborhood,’
someone from
the audience shouted. ‘We don’t want it in our
neighborhood.’”12
Opponents of the gurdwara project vowed to file an appeal with
the plan-
ning director, and consider a lawsuit if the planning commission
upheld the
decision. Opposition leader Walter Neal revealed that, “they
may seek an
injunction based on what they see as an inadequate
environmental impact
report and traffic study.”
The gurdwara opponents put forth five primary reasons for their
opposi-
tion: 1) the increase in traffic to the gurdwara would inundate
the neighbor-
hood with cars; 2) noise from the gurdwara would disrupt their
lives; 3) the
architecture would not fit into the neighborhood scheme; 4) the
building
would be too large and obstruct their view; and 5) tourists

would flood the
area because of the tremendous beauty of the new gurdwara.
These ostensible
objections were all dismissed by the City’s independent experts
as being base-
less, because of the numerous special precautions that the Sikh
community
had taken to accommodate their neighbors.
The Sikh community was shocked by the sudden groundswell of
resis-
tance they faced. As a Mercury News editorial elucidated, “The
Sikh commu-
nity is ready to pour a fortune into the temple and feel
ambushed by the
opposition, since it followed all of the city’s rules in developing
the plan.”13
In order to accommodate their neighbors, the Sikhs had already
agreed to
putting a cap of 1500 people in the facility at any one time, as
well as accept-
ing restrictions on the operating hours of the gurdwara.14 In
fact, no other
site of worship in San Jose has any such strictures on time of
services or size
of congregation applied to it. “The limit was termed ‘appalling’
by commis-
sioner Linda Lezotte, and Gloria Chun Hoo said the Sikhs had
tried to reach
out to the community by even considering it.”15
Despite all of the assurances and allowances made to prevent
Sikh wor-
shippers from having an inordinate impact on the community,
the exagger-

ated fears of Evergreen residents continued to proliferate in the
media.
Obviously voicing the fears of some of her compatriots, one
resident
claimed, in a letter published in the Mercury News, that,
“property values will
decline due to large crowds of people loitering in the
neighborhood.”16
Finally, the true basis of a large portion of the opposition was
becoming
apparent. To assert that Sikhs will “loiter” in the neighborhood
such a dis-
tance from the large parcel of land on which they have
constructed their site
of worship is to depict them as a gang, instead of as a highly
respected reli-
JAIDEEP SINGH © 92
06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 92
gious congregation. Imagine the public outrage if the same
accusation had
been directed against a Judeo-Christian religious group. The
racial subtext of
this remark raised serious questions about the true motivation
behind the
opposition’s tenacity, something becoming increasingly visible
in their dis-
course of opposition.
Despite the Sikh community’s assurances of good intentions and
willing-

ness to compromise, as well as numerous evidentiary
contradictions pre-
sented to refute their concerns, gurdwara project opponents
continued to
proffer illegitimate arguments as the basis of their opposition.
The
intractable insistence of some Evergreen residents in clinging to
discredited
arguments certainly seemed informed by their own myopic
experiences of
attending various churches, and their obvious ignorance about
Sikhs and
their religious practices—which they may have perceived as
something very
different from peaceful prayer and hymn-singing that comprises
the majority
of Sikh religious ceremonies.
In addition, their feelings of uneasiness in dealing with a group
of highly
visible, ostensibly different, “others” played a conspicuous role
in the con-
flict. But such explanations remain insufficient to explain the
persistence of
their combative stance. Other factors had to play a role in the
failure of rea-
sonable people to appreciate overwhelming evidence from so
many indepen-
dent sources, such as those employed by the City of San Jose, in
addition to
the good faith promises of the Sikh community.
THE RACIALIZED BASIS OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST
THE GURDWARA
In a nation so obsessed with race, where many major issues of

public debate
become racially-tinged in some manner, one has to wonder if
such impas-
sioned opposition would have been generated if a Christian
church of simi-
lar proportions were being built on the same property. The
comments of
some of the residents who oppose the gurdwara project bring
such a proposi-
tion into serious doubt.
While most people—including many in the Evergreen
community—
cherish the idea of a peaceful site of worship becoming a part of
their neigh-
borhood, certain individuals in this particular instance appeared
ready to use
any excuse to keep the Sikhs out of their community. Dr. Loren
Chan Singh
sensed racial bias in segments of the opposition, albeit subtle in
its use:
On the part of some people, a lot of what they said, I felt, were
just code
phrases for racism. They made various excuses . . . [for
opposing the
gurdwara project, consisting] of different code words and
phrases which
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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 93

I felt [indicated] some underlying racism. It was always
couched in a
very diplomatic way.17
Dr. Gurinder Pal Singh notes that those opposed to the new
gurdwara
seemed determined to prevent the construction of the building,
regardless of
how much the Sikhs acquiesced to their demands, or offered
assurances for
their concerns:
Later on, I noticed that they changed their strategy. First they
were
attacking the purpose of the Temple, saying this is going to be
noisy. . . . Then they started saying it is going to be an ugly,
monstrous
building. Then once other people’s opinion came out that it
looks like it
is going to be a beautiful structure, they said it’s going to be a
tourist
attraction and attract too many people. I saw a constant shift in
their
pattern of trying to find faults which didn’t exist. . . . I saw
things con-
stantly shifting over time. [emphasis mine]18
This constant shifting of grievances and proffering of new
complaints
once previous claims had been assuaged, manifests a powerful
indictment of
some members of the opposition. Their true dissatisfaction
obviously lay in
areas other than the ostensible objections they mouthed—and
repeatedly
changed.

In voicing disapproval towards the construction of the
gurdwara, oppo-
nents of the project repeatedly asserted the absence of any
prejudice in their
motives. In fact, many of the strongly worded letters to the
editor published
in the San Jose Mercury News by opponents of the gurdwara
began with
explicit disavowals of any racial or religious partiality. A public
anti-bias
proclamation became almost a prerequisite for anyone
criticizing the project:
I am certain that the Sikh community believes that the protest
by
Evergreen residents is due to racism or, at the very least, a
negative cul-
tural bias. 19
This is not a religious or cultural issue.20
It’s not about the Sikhs— it could be another Mormon temple or
the
Vatican.21
“This is not a religious issue,” [Jim Zito] said. “This is not a
racial
issue.” . . . [Mr. Zito] wants people to know that his opposition
has
nothing to do with religion or race.22
Despite such strident claims, opponents of the gurdwara project
repeat-
edly alluded to a violent conflict that had occurred in 1997 at
another gurd-

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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 94
wara, about 25 miles away. Using this isolated incident as the
basis, they
classified all Sikhs as inherently violent, and undesirable
additions to the
neighborhood. In fact, a lengthy piece in the Mercury News,
focusing on a
couple who live next to the parcel on which the gurdwara would
be built,
contained a very pointed reference to this incident, and what it
supposedly
revealed about the Sikhs in San Jose, and by extension, the
entire world.
In their appeal to the city, Jim and Zoe Zito cited past problems
at the
Sikh temple in Fremont, where members fought each other and
police
were called in. “The Sikh organization has established a
precedent of
being undesirable neighbors with incidents involving their
temple in
Fremont,” wrote the Zitos in their appeal.23
Not only was Mr. Zito’s racism laid bare with his words, but so
was the
fact that he and his wife knew almost nothing concerning the
people about
whom they had just issued a blanket condemnation. They were
apparently

unaware that they were slandering members of the fifth largest
religion in the
world, not some local “organization.” Ironically, the article this
interview
appeared in was entitled: “Sikh Temple Opponents Deny Racist
Motives.”
The blatantly racist generalization utilized by the Zitos was
repeatedly
proffered by opponents of the gurdwara project. For instance, a
letter to the
editor published in the San Jose Mercury News exclaimed:
“This little com-
munity is about to be hit by... potential violence from the Sikh
temple gath-
erings.”24 Despite the fact that the Sikhs in San Jose had had no
such
problem whatsoever in the dozen years they had been holding
religious ser-
vices in the area, such rhetoric pervaded the dialogue on the
construction of
the new gurdwara.25 Though sometimes just below the surface
of the dis-
course, the language of race remained a powerful tool with
which to publicly
denigrate the Sikhs by guilt through racialized association.
In response to such comments, Hindu American Annie
Dandavati, who
led a group called Evergreen Citizens Coalition which supported
the gurd-
wara project, issued a spirited response: “The author referred to
the Sikh
community as undesirable neighbors and went on to suggest that
this entire
community was somehow made up of outlaws.”26

Ms. Dandavati explained, “there were a few letters that went out
to some
of the [San Jose] Council members that were pretty racist. . . . I
remember
the language in one of them. This obviously uneducated person
wrote this
letter saying, ’I don’t want this church to be built there. These
Sikh seniors,
they walk around like ‘crows’ [emphasis added]—because our
seniors always
walk in the evenings.”27 The common habit among South
Asians of taking
evening strolls apparently disrupted the visual image some
Evergreen resi-
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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 95
dents had of their community. These swarthy immigrants, with
“foreign”
attire, evidently did not fit into their conception of desirable
neighbors.
Echoing the beliefs of the Sikh community and Ms. Dandavati,
Elbert
Reed, executive director of the African-American Community
Service
Agency, pointed towards racial motives behind the opposition to
the gurd-
wara:

“Whenever there’s a plan for a minority church, there’s always
protest. . . . They have done nothing wrong. . . . I think it’s
going to be
a plus for the community.”28
Confirming the suspicions of the Sikhs and Mr. Reed, Fred
Fong, an
Asian American member of the opposition, uncomfortably
acknowledged
that the group included “some prejudiced people,” but insisted
that most
opposed the temple for “legitimate” reasons.29
Members of the opposition even went to the length of issuing
thinly
veiled threats in demanding to have the gurdwara moved out of
their neigh-
borhood. Said one gurdwara opponent in a letter published in
the Mercury
News, “The Sikhs have been respected, and accepted, members
of our com-
munity for many years now. We want to continue this
relationship, which is
why we are asking them to look for another site for their
church.”30
Obviously, she meant that Sikhs would no longer be granted the
favor of
being “accepted” by the majority community, were they to
construct a new
gurdwara in Evergreen.
Mr. Zito also issued a cryptic warning, one particularly
disquieting in
light of the hate crimes which have plagued Sikhs and their
gurdwaras

around the country.
Everyone loses if this structure is built as proposed. The
community will
have a hard time welcoming a group [the Sikhs] which has such
disre-
gard for their quality of life.31
THE ASCENDANCE OF RACIALIZED LOGIC
Within the safe space created by the company of others who
opposed the
gurdwara project, the explicitly racist sentiments of several
Evergreen resi-
dents flowed easily—even in the obvious presence of members
of the Sikh
community of San Jose. Bhupindar S. Dhillon reveals that
gurdwara oppo-
nents expressed their true feelings quite freely in the early
community meet-
ings that they organized, but later tempered their language after
the Sikhs
began highlighting the racism explicit in their dissent. The
opponents real-
JAIDEEP SINGH © 96
06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 96
ized that such blatant racism could quickly backfire on them,
and became
more sophisticated in their assault.32
Dr. Tarlochan Singh, Chairman of the gurdwara’s Public

Relations
Committee, attended the neighborhood meetings organized by
those
opposed to the gurdwara with his children, and described what
he heard:
There were all kinds of racist comments. One white woman
came up
with a cardboard drawing, with some characters in black,
pushing dag-
gers into each others’ bodies. She was saying that this is how
Sikhs fight
in the gurdwara. That was the impression she was trying to cre-
ate. . . . She was basically trying to scare people away, and
trying to mis-
lead them with racist stereotypes.33
Dr. Singh reports one of the most alarming comments he heard
at one of
these meetings, in which opponents of the gurdwara rarely
disguised their
real target: the Sikhs, not the gurdwara.
[Someone] said, “They’re going to take over the entire
neighborhood,
and we want a good mix in the neighborhood. We’re going to
have to
leave and sell our houses.”34
This statement indicates the potential for great difficulty in the
new millen-
nium for a city as ethnically, religiously, and racially diverse as
San Jose.
According to census data, in 1999, whites became a minority in
the county
of Santa Clara, which contains the City of San Jose.35 The

racial code words
of seeking “diversity” and a “good mixture” in the area barely
mask the ugly
underside of this statement. It not only raises the ugly specter of
white flight,
but also attempts to give credence to the racialized image of the
inundation
of the neighborhood with “hordes” of Sikhs. The stark
insinuation is unmis-
takable: that the Sikhs are unwelcome in the neighborhood,
particularly in
any sizable numbers.
The most prominent racist incident—and eventually the most
damaging
to the opposition—occurred at the City Planning Commission
meeting, in
front of over a thousand people and local news station cameras.
A person
opposed to the gurdwara project carried a large picket sign
emblazoned with
the words “NO SIKH JOSE.” Imagine the outcry if the word
‘Sikh’ had
been replaced with ‘Jew’ or ‘Black.’ As it was, an African
American professor
from San Jose City College, Dr. Merylee Rucker Shelton, saw
the placard
and reported the rueful incident to the City Human Rights
Commission,
which later sharply reprimanded the opposition.
Without taking the time to learn anything about their Sikh
neighbors or
their worship practices, some of the residents of the surrounding
community

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06 Singh 7/15/02 1:51 PM Page 97
were ready to believe the worst about this “strange-looking
Other” that was
“invading” their neighborhood. Echoes of present-day “white
flight” res-
onate loudly …
KINE 4358 Assignment 4.2 Template
Student Name:
Date:
Health is affected through interaction with different ecologies
including the physical, biological, political, and socioeconomic
environments. Varying cultures face vulnerability to disease
differently. Answer the following questions:
Question
Response
Describe how the political and economic environment of various
cultures impacts health.
When do you think it is fair to point to individuals as a fault in
terms of disease?
When do you think it is fair to point to larger forces - at a
societal level - as a fault?
Provide an example of vulnerability as it relates to culture and
disease to support your thoughts.
Reference at least one example from your readings this week in

Chapters 7 and 8.
In the text “Religion, Race, and Orientalism,” I learned how
strongly Western influence changed my people’s (Pilipinx
people) religious beliefs. I learned that religion was defined by
western thought and defined during the 18th century as
requiring a canon, a God, and a covenant that can be made with
said God: “the dominant conceptual model...refers to a covenant
that entails obligations between individuals communities and
their God.” (Lee 131) Western religion focuses solely on a
singular God, and this leaves other religions out of the picture,
including shamanism, and other religions that believe in
multiple deities.
This is an interesting fact to me as a Filipino American who’s
practiced Catholicism (which believed in one deity, one canon)
all our lives and is aware of Pilipinx indigenous communities
belief in multiple deities/spirits. As our Spanish colonizers (and
later our American colonizers) forcibly converted us to their
faith, we’ve essentially forgotten our old religions. Many
Pilipinx-Americans in the diaspora don’t know of the pantheon
of deities that the indigenous people of the Philippines kept -
and still keep. (Miller) The majority of the Philippines had been
converted to Catholicism by our Spanish colonizers and
remained to this day. Though a handful of indigenous people
that still practice the pre-Hispanic belief system - the majority
of our people in the mainland, Manila, are Catholic! I find it sad
that our colonizers so deftly managed to sweep away my
people’s old traditions, beliefs, and customs because of their
“crusade” to rid our people of our more “inferior” religious
practices. The only reason I know of our pre-Hispanic
religious/belief system is because I actively sought out more
information about it. The superiority of Christianity essentially
rid our Pilipino culture of its own belief system.
I also learned of the strong interconnectedness of race and

religion in “Race and Racialization.” Specifically, I learned
how racialization of religion has greatly influenced how we
individuals approach our own faith. This is experienced by
many Indian Americans who are immediately assumed to be
practicing Hindu just because their skin is “the color of mocha.”
(Joshi 96) It results in religion being one dimensional, and thus
amplified the idea of “othering” religious groups and
individuals. Ultimately, it seeks to oppress minorities who
may/may not fit in to their “standard” religion.
One example I can remember is when I also went to a private,
Baptist Christian high school. I always felt as if I was always
going to be a “foreigner” though I classified myself as Christian
like everyone else - though my family was notably Catholic.
Though I said I was a born again Christian just like them, it
didn’t stop them from asking questions such as: “where are you
really from,” or seemingly innocuous remarks such as “you’re
Filipino? I love lumpia!” It creates this one dimensional,
stereotypical picture of me that was hard to steer away from. I
was always going to be defined by my race despite accepting
white Christianity. It’s ok wonder that after high school I was
drawn back to my Catholic Church - because it was filled with
people that looked like me and where I felt like I belonged.
Racialization, in my personal experience, has affected the way I
view white Christianity - as being seemingly “accepting,” but
subtly oppressive.
I also learned in the video “Race and Racialization” of the
importance of critically defining race as a social construct. Race
was a human invention that essentially classified people in to a
social hierarchy and gave rise to legitimizing white oppression
and gave whites people the excuse to exercise their supposed
superiority over another. (Frontline PBS) In the documentary
“A Class Divided,” an experiment on creating socially
constructed hierarchy (where a teacher deemed that brown eyed
kids were inferior) leads to this false identity of superiority; one
child when asked why he was so eager to discriminate, he says
that it made him feel “like a king.” (Frontline PBS) This false

sense of superiority defined by race gives white people the
excuse to discriminate. This is exemplified in the way the
Spanish approached their crusades- under the guise of
“indigenous people are inferior, and we know better.” Because
of this false sense of superiority, they managed to find an
excuse to rape, pillage, and colonize brown people and take
away their land and belief systems. It’s crazy for me to think
that giving a group of people the excuse to exercise authority
over another immediately leads to hatred - in a classroom
setting it can be as small as teasing, but when applied in a
larger context it leads to mass colonization, death, and
oppression of a minority group for generations.
Works Cited
Frontline PBS. “A Class Divided.” Youtube, 18 Jan.
2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE&t=12
s
Joshi, Khyati. “What Does Race Have to Do With Religion?”
New Roots in America Sacred Ground. New York, Routledge,
2016, pp. 89-117.
Lee, Jonathan, et. al., “Religion, Race, and Orientalism.” Asian
American Religious Cultures. Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015.
Religious Oppression
1. Racialization: Human invention of
classification/categorization based on idea of race. Use to
inform a social structure that is racially hierarchical with
unequal access to power and privilege.
2. Religious racialization / racialization of religion: Conflating
one’s religious beliefs and practice with one’s perceived racial
category.
1.
1. Examples: Give examples?
3. Religious Oppressions
4.

4. Forms of it:
0. Dust-buster
0. Rag-head
5. Readings and learning materials for this week provide case
studies and examples of “religious oppression” in the United
States. Historically, religious oppression was not subtle, but
today, they are. They are coded in language about building
codes and zoning, and coded in Orientalized imaginations of
what and how Asian religions should be and look (e.g. Yoga).
6. Note how race and religion intersect in this week’s readings
and learning materials.
Have fun.
RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION
-buster
-head
tion of religion
Religious OppressionSlide Number 2
Acting Out: Thai American Buddhists Encounters with
White Privilege and White Supremacy

Jonathan H. X. Lee, Ph.D.1
San Francisco State University
Department of Asian American Studies
This article examines Thai American Buddhist communities and
their expressions in the
United States. Anchored in ethnographic data, it takes a socio-
historical approach. Asian
Buddhist communities have encountered xenophobia, American
white ethnocentrism,
Orientalism, and cultural imperialism, which have directly and
indirectly transformed the
shapes and contours of Buddhist communities and their
practices in America. The
expressions of Buddhism by Asian American Buddhists are
unlike those found in Asia.
This is not to suggest that there is a loss or a gain; rather, it
highlights the flexibility and
adaptability of Buddhism to conform to American society. This
is not new in the history
of Buddhism. New forms of Buddhism, new ways of passing,
transmitting, and teaching
the dhamma develop over time and in different locations.
Examining these locations, both
historically and in contemporary life, reveals the complexity of
social relationships
among various Asian, Buddhist, and non-Asian, non-Buddhist
communities. Due to
historical, political, economic, and social conditions, Asian
Buddhist communities have
encountered and have resolved different forms of racial
discrimination in different ways
— for better or worse, successfully or unsuccessfully. Two

interlocking questions are
examined in this article: How can Thai American Buddhist
communities in the United
States teach, live, and practice the dhamma harmoniously with
neighboring communities
of different ethnic backgrounds and faith traditions? How have
Thai American Buddhists
negotiated their encounters with expressions of white privilege
— subtle and
unambiguous — that sustains the ideology of white supremacy?
Introduction
Melvin Urofsky counters the popular common understanding
that the freedom of
religion is a Constitutional guarantee that began with the birth
of the United States.
Urofsky argues that the pilgrims came to America to practice
their religion freely, “not to
allow other groups, which they believed to be in error, to
worship as well.”2 Religious
tolerance, Urofsky asserts, is an epiphenomenon. “The colonies
and later the country first
developed religious toleration and then freedom not because
particular sects stopped
believing they alone knew the true word of God, but because so
many different groups
came in search of a better life.”3 As such, the new frontier
became more diverse and it
became necessary for people to learn to live with one another
peacefully; thus, they
“learned tolerance as a necessity, and then turned it into a
virtue.”4 The necessity and
virtue of tolerance requires constant work to sustain it.
Americans by-and-large subscribe
to the idea that the individual has the right to choose his/her

beliefs and practices, and that
1 Jonathan H. X. Lee is Assistant Professor of Asian American
Studies at San Francisco State University. Lee’s
research interests are in contemporary Chinese religions in
‘cultural China,’ material and visual religion, postcolonial
studies, Asian American religious studies, and Asian and Asian
American folklore. Lee is co-editor
of Greenwood/ABC-CLIO’s Encyclopedia of Asian American
Folklore and Folklife (2011); and author of Kendall &
Hunt’s Cambodian American Experiences: Histories,
Communities, Cultures, and Identities (2010).
2 Melvin L. Urofsky, Religious Freedom: Rights and Liberties
under the Law (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002), 2.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
government has no business interfering with religious matters.
A cursory examination of
the interplay between religion and politics in the United States
would indicate that it is
not absolute. An underlying assumption of the freedom of
religion clause is that
individuals can practice their religion — as long as it is a
Judeo-Christian variant. The
religious landscape in America privileges Christianity; the
racial landscape privileges
white individuals. The intersection of race and religion here
creates what Peggy McIntosh
describes as the socio-cultural phenomenon of “white
privilege.” 5 White privilege
includes mundane quotidian effects, for example: the
accessibility of being around other

white people, the ability to rent or buy a house in any
neighborhood that one can afford,
and the freedom to go shopping at any time and be assured that
one will not be followed
or harassed.6 McIntosh directs our attention to a subtle aspect
of racism as being not mere
individual acts of “meanness” but rather, as “invisible systems
of conferring dominance
on my [white] group.”7 Since racial order is nested in a socio-
political hierarchy that
privileges white, Christian, male individuals and social groups,
white privilege is
inherently religious. Joseph Cheah describes white privilege in
terms of an ideology of
white supremacy, which he defines as “a hegemonic
understanding, on the part of both
whites and non-whites, that white Euro-American culture,
values, attitudes, beliefs, and
practices are the norm according to which other cultures and
social practices are judged.”8
Cheah’s insights are useful for how we understand race
relations in the United States.
White privilege does not replicate itself, but rather, is in a
dialectical relationship with
non-whites who also play a part in replicating white privilege,
albeit implicitly and,
perhaps, unconsciously. White privilege and the ideology of
white supremacy are
expressively written in movements that oppose the building of
Asian religious temples in
America. There are many cases of white majority neighbors that
mobilize in an effort to
stop the building of Asian religious temples in “their”
communities. This article seeks to
unpack their coded messages and reveal their underlying
expressions of white privilege

embedded in, and informed by, an ideology of white supremacy.
Building Asian Religious Temples in America
There is a plethora of cases of white majority residents who
mobilize against the
construction of an Asian religious temple in “their”
neighborhoods. The largest Chinese
Buddhist monastery in North America, the Hsi Lai Si (西來寺
Coming West Temple)
began construction in 1986, although the land had been
purchased in 1978. The temple
was completed in 1988. White Euro-American residents opposed
the construction of the
temple, citing that it would not fit in with the landscape of
residential single-family
homes, would increase traffic and noise, and would be a
“jarringly inappropriate cultural
presence.” 9 Residents opposing the construction of the temple
cited traffic as their
greatest concern.10 Opponents problematically acted out of
ignorance as illustrated by
their erroneous fear of animal sacrifices. Their list of
complaints illustrates that they knew
nothing about Buddhist beliefs and practices.11 Irene Lin notes:
5 Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible
Knapsack, 1988.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Joseph Cheah, Negotiating Race and Religion in American
Buddhism: Burmese Buddhism in California. Unpublished
dissertation (Graduate Theological Union. Berkeley, California.
2004), 1.

9 Irene Lin, Journey to the Far West: Chinese Buddhism in
America. Amerasia Journal 22:1 (1996): 110.
10 Mayerene Baker, Buddhist Vision of Temple Complex
Clashes with Real World. Los Angeles Times (February 21,
1982).
11 Ibid.
Other concerns resulted from the community’s
misunderstanding of
Buddhism and Chinese culture, including noise from chanting of
sutras,
gongs, and firecrackers; the “adverse influence” on the youth
resulting
from the unfamiliar clothing of Buddhist monks and nuns; the
unfounded
fear of animal sacrifices on the temple site (and thus the fear for
neighborhood dogs because “the Chinese all eat dog meat”); and
the worry
that the children might be entrapped by the new “religious
cult.”12
After six public hearings and more than one hundred meetings,
the Hacienda
Heights City council granted Hsi Lai Temple a construction
permit. In the process, Hsi
Lai Temple made several concessions, agreeing to: eliminate the
pagoda and Buddha
statue; restrict building height to only two stories; reduce the
number of buildings (15
buildings were eliminated); and to reduce the overall size by
15,000 square feet. 13
Additionally, Hsi Lai Temple agreed to change the color of the

roof and the buildings,
taking extra measures to decrease fire risk from incense, and
limiting its parking spaces to
prevent too many people from attending the temple at once.14
Today, the Hsi Lai Temple
encompasses 15 acres and a floor area of 102,432 square feet.
The temple’s Ming
Dynasty (1268–1644 C.E.) and Ching Dynasty (1644–1911
C.E.) architecture is faithful
to the traditional style of buildings, gardens, and statuary of
traditional ancient Chinese
monasteries, but not as brightly colored or opulent.
A little more than a decade later, the Sikh community of San
Jose, California
faced similar racially-charged objections against their efforts to
build a new gurdwara,
Sikh temple, on a 40-acre apricot orchard it had purchased.
Similar to Hsi Lai Temple’s
experience, the Sikh community purchased land in an affluent
rural community (i.e., San
Jose’s Evergreen foothills). The predominantly white
neighborhood perceived the
gurdwara as a “threat.”15 The opponents dubbed the temple the
“Taj Mahal of the West”
and cited concerns about increased traffic and the size of the
giant onion-domed temple as
their primary reasons for opposing the construction. 16 Flyers
with inflammatory
statements such as, “A church the size of K-Mart is coming to
the neighborhood, and it
will create major traffic problems!” appeared throughout the
community during the days
leading up to the hearing.17 Opponents cited five reasons for
objecting to the gurdwara:
increase in traffic, noise from the temple, the architecture would
not fit into the

neighborhood landscape, the temple would be too large and
would obstruct the view of
the natural surroundings, and tourists would flood the area
because of the novelty of the
new gurdwara.18 “In order to accommodate their neighbors, the
Sikhs had already agreed
to putting a cap of 1500 people in the facility at any one time,
as well as accepting
restrictions on the operating hours of the gurdwara. In fact, no
other site of worship in
San Jose has any such strictures on time of services or size of
congregation applied to
it.”19
Opponents claimed their opposition was not on the basis of race
or religious
intolerance. But, the Sikh community experienced it differently
and viewed it as a
“subtle” form of racism. “This constant shifting of grievances
and proffering of new
12 Lin, 110.
13 Jack Birkinshaw, Buddhist Temple Gets OK to Build. Los
Angeles Times (June 2, 1983); and Baker.
14 Lin, 110.
15 Jaideep Singh, The Racialization of Minoritized Religious
Identity: Constructing Sacred Sites at the Intersection of
White and Christian Supremacy. Jane Naomi Iwamura and Paul
Spickard, eds. Revealing the Sacred in Asian and
Pacific America (New York: Routledge, 2003), 90.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid, 91.
18 Ibid, 92.
19 Ibid.

complaints once previous claims had been assuaged, manifests a
powerful indictment of
some members of the opposition. Their true dissatisfaction
obviously lay in areas other
than the ostensible objections they mouthed — and repeatedly
changed.”20 During the
city’s final approval meeting some opponents outwardly
declared, “We don’t want it in
our neighborhood.”21 “Nevertheless, the progressive political
atmosphere in the region, as
well as the general emphasis on supporting diversity by city
officials and numerous faith-
based community leaders, became a tremendous boon to the
Sikh community as they
sought support for the gurdwara project from non-Sikh members
of the community.”22
Since the 1960s, other Asian American communities have
experienced and encountered
similar expressions of white privilege that maintains an
ideology of white supremacy.
The growth of Theravada Buddhist temples throughout the
United States centered
along the east and west coasts during the early 1970s. Sri
Lankan and Thai Buddhist
temples were the first to be established, with a concentration in
California. “By the end of
the 1970s, Theravada Buddhist centers had been established or
initiated by Sri Lankans,
Thais, Burmese, Cambodians, Laotians, and native-born
Americans in the United States,
and a native-born American had received higher Buddhist
ordination on American soil.”23
This growth was punctuated by encounters with racism as
witnessed by Cambodians and

Laotians, as well as by subtler expressions of racism and white
privilege anchored in an
ideology of white supremacy.
Building Theravada Buddhist Temple in America
The 1970s have been described as a decade of stagflation, an
unprecedented
mixture of double-digit unemployment and inflation rates.24
These economic conditions
impacted how Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees
were received in the wake
of the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. Theravadian Buddhist
temple building comes with a
backlash from xenophobic neighbors who — under the guise of
zoning laws and
regulations — invoke their privilege supported by the ideology
of white supremacy in
attempts to stop the building of temples in their neighborhoods,
as evidenced by an
example in Silver Spring, Maryland, where, in 2008, neighbors
counted cars and kept
detailed records and photos of people visiting the temple during
festival celebrations. The
Maryland State Supreme Court denied the group, then known as
the Khmer Buddhist
Society, a permit to build a temple on Newtown Hilltop.
Afterwards, the Newtown
Zoning Board presented the Khmer Buddhist Society with an
order to “cease all religious
services and festivals permanently.”25 In the late 1980s Laotian
refugees in Rockford,
Illinois, a rural blue-collar town, faced extreme violence in
their attempt to build a temple
on a small farmstead on the outskirts of town. The Laotian

temple was the target of a
firebomb and drive-by rifle fire. Although Burmese Buddhist
communities have not
received the level of opposition with respects to their
establishment of religious temples,
the Alohtaw Pyayt Dhamma Yeiktha (APDY) in the City of El
Sobrante, California,
received complaints from its predominantly white neighbors
soon after the home temple
was established on November 1998.26 Joseph Cheah notes that
members of the Burmese
Buddhist community “received complaints from the city that
there were ‘weird’
20 Ibid, 94.
21 Ibid, 92, emphasis added.
22 Ibid, 90.
23 Wendy Cadge, Heartwood: The First Generation of
Theravada Buddhism in America. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2005), 32.
24 Michael C. LeMay, U.S. Immigration: A Reference
Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003), xv.
25 Elizabeth Hamilton, A Battle Over Rites and Rights.
Hartford Courant (July 19, 2008).
26 Cheah, 181.
gatherings of people there and they were cultish.”27 Here again,
neighbors complained
about noise, traffic, and parking. “Because most residents would
declaim that they
possess any discriminatory sentiment or religious bias against
the presence of a non-
Christian place of worship in their neighborhood, the words

‘traffic’ and ‘noise’ have, at
times, become code words for covert racism.”28
Unlike their Cambodian and Laotian neighbors, Thai Americans
did not come to
the United States as refugees. The first settlements of Thai
immigrants did not appear
until the late 1960s, immigrating to America for many different
reasons. Thai migration
to the United States was fueled in the 1960s and 1970s by
Thailand’s social and political
upheaval in combination with changes in U.S. immigration
policy that lifted the ban on
immigration from Asia. The Immigration and Nationality Act of
1965 also established a
preference for skilled labor. Therefore, the first wave of Thai
immigrants primarily
consisted of doctors, nurses, and other white-collar
professionals. 29 In particular, a
shortage of nurses in the United States drew large numbers of
Thai immigrants. In the late
1960s the American government began to give a warm welcome
to Thai nurses by
offering green cards to them right upon their landing on
American soil. Additionally, an
increased number of Thai students immigrated for educational
purposes, although that
goal was not achieved as easily as expected. Thai exchange
students faced financial
hardships and unexpected scholastic demands were compounded
by language problems
that made successful completion of a degree impossible. Those
who dropped out did not
return to Thailand, but instead, found unskilled and semi-skilled
jobs. Later, when their
student visas expired, many petitioned for a change of status to

permanent resident. Since
the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of
1984, a change in status
became nearly impossible. Further, another group of Thai
immigrants came as wives of
U.S. service personnel stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam
War. Similar to
immigrants from other parts of the world, Thai immigrants
brought their religion and
religious institutions with them. The growing number of Thai
temples throughout the
United States attests to the growing presence of Thai
Americans. “Today 105 wats can be
found scattered throughout North America in 32 states,
including six temples in
Canada.”30 Nearly 30 percent of the temples are located in
California.31
The formation of Thai Buddhism in America unfolded in two
phases. Initially it
was a top-down formation that was spearheaded by royal,
ecclesial, and civil authorities
in Thailand, who in the mid 1950s and 1960s sought to expand
Thai Buddhism beyond its
geographical and national borders.32 During this period,
Thailand envisioned itself as a
“world center of Buddhism.” As such, it funded the
development of the first transnational
Thai temples under royal patronage in India in 1959, with the
construction of Wat Thai
Buddha-Gaya, then in the United Kingdom in 1965, with Wat
Buddhapadipa. There were
also plans to construct a Thai temple in New York’s Staten
Island, but the plan was
aborted due to complications, while simultaneously a group of
Thai immigrants and

American-born Buddhists successfully formed the Buddhist
Study Center in New York as
a legal entity in 1965.33 This event, followed by the 1972
establishment of the first and
largest Thai temple in Los Angeles, foreshadowed a new
bottom-up, lay-centered
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid, emphasis added.
29 Susan Aurebach, 1994, cited in Jenjira Yahirun, Thai
Immigrants. Ronald H. Bayor, ed. Multicultural America: An
Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans Volume 4 (Santa
Barbara: Greenwood, 2011), 2105.
30 Todd LeRoy Perreria, Thai Americans: Religion. Jonathan H.
X. Lee and Kathleen Nadeau, eds. Encyclopedia of
Asian American Folklore and Folklife (Santa Barbara: ABC-
CLIO, 2011), 1110.
31 Thai Temples in North America
http://www.dharmanet.org/Dir/thai-wat.html (last accessed
September 9, 2011).
32 Perreria, 2011, 1110.
33 Ibid.
approach in the institutionalization of Thai Buddhism in the
United States. “In June 1971
a mission of Thai monks led by Ven. Phra Dharmakosajarn
arrived in Los Angeles, and
lay people began to raise funds to purchase land. In 1972, land
was donated and
construction began on a main hall, a two-story Thai-style
building that was completed and
dedicated in 1979.”34 The bottom-up approach maintained close
links with Thai royalty

and high-ranking civil servants, but was financed and led by the
growing Thai immigrant
population in America. Wendy Cadge notes, “Buddha images
for the shrine hall and two
sets of scriptures were carried to the United States by monks
and lay people from
Thailand, and in 1979 His Majesty the King and Her Majesty
the Queen of Thailand
presided over the casting of the principal Buddha image for the
temple at Wat Po
(officially called Wat Phra Chetuphon, or the Monastery of the
Reclining Buddha) in
Thailand.”35 Throughout the 1970s Thai immigrants established
Thai temples in several
metropolitan areas: Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver, and San
Francisco. This growth
in the United States necessitated the formation of the Council of
Thai Bhikkhus to act as
liaison for the missionary monks that were coming from
Thailand to serve the growing
community; the Council was established in 1977.36 Cadge
describes the general process
of Thai temple building from the bottom-up approach:
Most Thai temples followed similar patterns in their
development. A group of lay
people in a given city who were interested in building a temple
first formed a
committee to consider the issues involved. They often sought
advice from the
monks at Wat Thai L.A. or Wat Thai Washington, D.C., or from
monks that they
knew in Thailand. Often a monk came to the area to visit and
meet with people,
and then the committee started to collect donations from Thai

people in the area.
An apartment or single-family house would be rented or
purchased and monks
would take up residence, normally from Thailand rather than
from another temple
in the United States. Many temples remain in these original
buildings now, while
others, particularly those that continued to accumulate financial
resources,
purchased new buildings or land and often began to build Thai-
style buildings….
Some temples, like Wat Phrasriratanaram Buddhist Temple of
St. Louis, moved
into existing buildings, in this case a former Assemblies of God
church. In many
cases, the traditional rules regarding the construction of temples
were amended
slightly, for example, when portions of temples normally housed
in separate
buildings in Thailand were combined for reasons of cost or
practicality. The
distinctions between commercial and residential zoning were
particularly
challenging for many Thai and other Asian temples, and many
had to relocate to
areas zoned for religious gatherings.37
Because the majority of Thais in Thailand, America, and within
the Thai diaspora
are mainly Buddhist, Buddhist rituals and beliefs are key to
being Thai in America. In
Buddhist custom, people can go to a temple any day to offer
food to the monk(s), as a part
of religious practice called thumbun, literally meaning making

merit. Buddhist monks
(and nuns) are the most serious Buddhist learners and
practitioners, providing a role
model of Buddhism for the common people. In addition to
conducting Buddhist rituals,
monks are supposed to lead and teach the way of Buddhism.
Although there are some
Thai-American-born monks, the majority of monks in the
United States are invited from
34 Cadge, 27
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid, 33.
Thailand. Currently, there are more than 482 Thai monks in 105
temples across America.
The greater the number of monks at the temple, the larger the
community; and the larger
the community, the greater the likelihood they will be a target
of white supremacy and
coded expressions of racism.
Berkeley’s Wat Mongkolratanaram
Wat Mongkolratanaram, locally referred to as the Berkeley Thai
Temple, was
established in 1978,38 when a group of volunteers formed a
small temple committee and
invited two visiting monks from Thailand to serve as spiritual
leaders and assist with
building the temple. In 1981 the temple received non-profit
status as a religious

organization, and established the Thai Buddhist temple and
cultural center at its current
Russell Street location in the City of Berkeley. By 2001 the
temple was recognized as an
official Thai Buddhist ubosoth, or place of worship, in full
accordance with Theravada
Buddhist doctrines. For nearly three decades the Berkeley Thai
Temple held a Sunday
Food Offering — locally called the Thai Temple Sunday brunch
— where members of
the temple prepared and served food to visitors — Buddhist,
non-Buddhist, Thais, non-
Thais. Thai and Thai American Buddhists who volunteer at the
Sunday brunch
understand their work as an expression of thambun, or merit-
making. Merit, is the counter
of karma, which Buddhists believe chains all living creatures in
the endless cycles of
reincarnation and suffering, known as samsara. Merit, as the
counterweight of karma,
may be gained primarily by supporting the community of monks
and nuns, by assisting
the needy, or through Buddhist meditation. Merit is also
transferable. Hence, the living
may perform rituals and offerings to earn merit, which may then
be transferred to their
beloved to assist them in the afterlife and in being reborn into
the human realm. From a
Thai American perspective, volunteers at the Berkeley Thai
Temple engage in the religio-
cultural practice of thambun, which in turn, sustains the temple
for the community, and
the livelihood of the Thai monks who reside there. In addition,
the temple offers Thai
language and cultural classes and programs.

38 Wat Mongkolratanaram’s Application for a Broader Land
Use Permit.
Wat Mongkolratanaram, September 13, 2011
(Photo by Jonathan H. X. Lee)
The popular Sunday Food Offering came under attack in 2008
when the Berkeley
Thai Temple applied to the City of Berkeley’s Zoning
Adjustments Board to build a
Buddha Hall (bood) larger than the size allowed by the
municipal code. The Buddha Hall
would be 16 feet wide, 24 feet long, and 44 feet high (including
a 14-foot spire), the
proposed sanctuary would include three Buddha statues on a
raised platform.39 Nineteen
neighbors who reside on Oregon Street gathered to protest the
proposed expansion of the
temple, citing that the “architecture” would change the
character of the residential
neighborhood.40 Additionally, upon discovering that the
temple’s 1993 zoning permit only
allowed for food to be served three times a year, Oregon Street
residents used this
opportunity to voice their concern about the Sunday Food
Offering. They cited it as
“detrimental” to the health of the neighborhood, and suggested

that the food service be
moved to a different site because it created noise, parking and
traffic problems, litter in the
neighborhood, and was the source of “offensive odors.” 41 The
Berkeley Zoning
Adjustments Board investigated the allegations, and “. . .
announced in June that the
Berkeley Thai Temple had repeatedly exceeded the number of
events allowed by its use
permit. Although no one was able to ascertain just how …

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