Old Wisdom in the New World: Americanization in
Two Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples
Reviewed by Thomas A. Tweed
The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Vol.36 No.1 (March 1997)
pp.124-125
COPYRIGHT 1997 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
The study of Buddhism in the United States has focused
disproportionately on American converts, especially those who have
turned to the tradition since the 1960s. In this revised
dissertation, Paul Numrich makes an important contribution by
providing a book-length study of Theravada Buddhism at two immigrant
temples in the United States. He does not neglect the American
converts who affiliate with the temples he studies - Wat Dhammaram
of Chicago and Dharma Vijaya of Los Angeles - and so students of new
religious movements will find much here to interest them. At the
same time - and here is the main source of the book's significance -
Numrich offers a careful analysis of the Buddhist practice of the
Thai and Sri Lankan immigrants who organized these religious
communities.
Numrich draws on four kinds of sources in this sociological study -
observation, interviews, texts, and surveys - as he explores
accommodation and resistance to American culture in these two
communities. He introduces the temples in Chapter 1 and then
considers the history of schisms (Chapter 2) and the role of the
monks (Chapter 3). (Chapters 2 and 3 might be a bit dry for
students, but most readers of this journal will welcome the
background they provide.)
Numrich gets to the heart of his intriguing argument in Chapter 4.
He suggests that a relatively new pattern has made the process of
Americanization more complex for these immigrants: "parallel
congregations" have emerged at both temples. By that he means that
"ethnic-Asians and non-Asian converts follow separate forms of
Theravada Buddhism under a single temple roof and at the direction
of a shared monastic leadership" (63). In the two chapters that
follow, Numrich supports his claim by noting, for example, that the
American converts at the two temples are more inclined toward
Vipassana meditation and Buddhist philosophy whereas Asian followers
continue to focus on the more traditional ritual practices they
brought with them from their homelands - venerating the Buddha
(Buddha puja), donating necessities to the monks (sanghika dana),
and attending annual festivals. In the brief concluding chapter,
Numrich returns to the Americanization theme, suggesting that the
immigrants' stories in Chicago and Los Angeles repeat familiar
motifs in American immigrant history, while the emergence of
parallel congregations complicates that narrative in important ways.
The book might have been improved in minor respects. While Numrich
provides helpful biographical profiles of ten American converts in
Chapter 6, similar accounts are missing from the chapter on
immigrants. Although there are some brief quotations from Thai and
Sri Lankan lay Buddhists, it might have added vividness and depth to
the analysis if Numrich had included even more of the voices of the
immigrants themselves. The author also seems to assume an
Americanization model as he analyzes the immigrants' practices; some
participants in the recent conversations about ethnic studies and
immigrant history might wish there was some acknowledgment of other
ways to frame the study. Readers who incline toward postmodern
ethnography might wonder why the author did not refer even more
often to his own relation to the topic and the participants. The
authorial voice here is, for the most part, that of the distanced
observer. Those who are unfamiliar with Buddhism might have
benefited from a glossary, much as readers of varying backgrounds
will welcome the author's additions of photographs, charts, and a
list of Theravada Buddhist Temples in the United States (149-153).
Although some minor revisions might have improved the book, there is
much to celebrate here. Even though the author was trained primarily
in Buddhist Studies, not North American religions, the book
contributes to the study of U.S. religion, and not only because it
adds new information on another group. Numrich makes efforts to link
their story with that of others, emphasizing how the new immigrants
are continuous and discontinuous with those who preceded them. The
book also contributes to our understanding of new religious
movements by interpreting the religious lives of the American
converts in the context of the complex immigrant temples they
attend. Perhaps most important, Numrich enriches the emerging
scholarship on the post-1965 "new immigrants" from Latin America and
Asia by providing an in-depth study of two immigrant temples.
Finally, Numrich's thesis about "parallel congregations" might help
researchers theorize about immigrant religious communities,
sensitizing them to similar patterns in other contexts.
This, then, is an important book. It is indispensable for those who
study the religious life of the new immigrants and is highly
recommended for others who specialize in U.S. religion.
THOMAS A. TWEED University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North
Carolina