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New Roots in America's Sacred Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America Paperback – May 23, 2006
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In this compelling look at second-generation Indian Americans, Khyati Y. Joshi draws on case studies and interviews with forty-one second-generation Indian Americans, analyzing their experiences involving religion, race, and ethnicity from elementary school to adulthood. As she maps the crossroads they encounter as they navigate between their homes and the wider American milieu, Joshi shows how their identities have developed differently from their parents’ and their non-Indian peers’ and how religion often exerted a dramatic effect.
The experiences of Joshi’s research participants reveal how race and religion interact, intersect, and affect each other in a society where Christianity and whiteness are the norm. Joshi shows how religion is racialized for Indian Americans and offers important insights in the wake of 9/11 and the backlash against Americans who look Middle Eastern and South Asian.
Through her candid insights into the internal conflicts contemporary Indian Americans face and the religious and racial discrimination they encounter, Joshi provides a timely window into the ways that race, religion, and ethnicity interact in day-to-day life.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRutgers University Press
- Publication dateMay 23, 2006
- Dimensions6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100813538017
- ISBN-13978-0813538013
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Editorial Reviews
Review
New Roots in America's Sacred Ground provides both a detailed analysis of second-generation Indian Americans and identity, and a sophisticated and lucid argument about the integral role religion and religious oppression play in race and ethnicity in the United States. Joshi's insightful intervention about the role of religious identity has gained even more significance in light of discriminatory practices occurring since 9/11. -- Jigna Desai ― Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of Minnesota
For far too long, scholars have studied religions as if they were abstract collections of beliefs and practices that could get along just fine without living, breathing people. This beautifully crafted and admirably empathetic study of second-generation Indian Americans rightly fixes its gaze not on such abstractions as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam but on the actual lives of specific Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. Along the way, it teaches us much about race and religion in American life, not least the fact that discrimination-both racial and religious-is an ever-present reality in the lives of this so-called 'model minority,' and that religious affiliation stands shoulder-to-shoulder with race, ethnicity, and gender as a key identity marker in the twenty-first century. -- Stephen Prothero ― Chair, Department of Religion, Boston University.
This is a ground-breaking book in the contested territory of race, religion, and ethnicity in the United States. Despite being one of the of the fastest growing, most upwardly mobile groups in the country, second generation Indian Americans-Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Muslims-are conspicuous by their absence in scholarly studies. This book has invaluable data and case studies, which have been skillfully analyzed and thoughtfully presented. A "must-read" book for all those interested in immigration studies, transnational religion, Asian Americans, and American Religions. -- Vasudha Narayanan ― professor of religion and director of the Center for the study of Hindu Traditio
About the Author
KHYATI Y. JOSHI is an assistant professor at the School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Product details
- Publisher : Rutgers University Press; None edition (May 23, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0813538017
- ISBN-13 : 978-0813538013
- Item Weight : 12.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,238,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,000 in Asian American Studies (Books)
- #4,553 in Sociology & Religion
- #4,752 in Sociology of Religion
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Khyati Y. Joshi is a public intellectual whose social science research and community connections inform policy-makers, educators, and everyday people about race, religion, and immigration in 21st century America. Her most recent book is White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America (NYU Press, 2020). She is the author and co-editor of Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2016), one of the most widely-used books by diversity practitioners and social justice scholars alike. Her other works include New Roots in America’s Sacred Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America (Rutgers U. Press, 2006); Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) and Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South (U. of Illinois Press, 2013), both as co-editor; and numerous book chapters and articles. She has lectured around the world, including at the White House; to policy-makers at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); and for scholarly and popular audiences in Denmark, India, Lebanon, and across the United States. She consults on equity and inclusion for schools, colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, and businesses; she has provided professional development to educators across the U.S., and continuing education programs for lawyers and judges. As a Professor of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dr. Joshi received the 2014 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research and Scholarship. She was a consultant for the Pew Research Forum’s groundbreaking 2015 survey on Asian Americans and Religion, and is a founder and board member of Jersey Promise and co-author of its groundbreaking report on Asian Americans in New Jersey. Professor Joshi earned her doctorate in Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is a graduate of Emory University and the Candler School of Theology, and pursued post-graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Often contacted by journalists, Prof. Joshi has appeared on television and radio such as C-Span, Voice of America, and PRI’s The World, and has been quoted in numerous publications in the U.S. and abroad, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, The Times of India, and The Record.
Updated April 2020
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2006For her book "New Roots in America's Sacred Ground", Dr. Khyati Joshi interviewed over 40 second-generation Indian Americans, asking questions about their youth and adolescence in this country and about their experiences with religion throughout their lives. In the process, she elicits thoughtful, introspective answers that reveal much about the beliefs and perceptions of this population.
She explores how deeply intertwined religion is with race and ethnic identity for these second-generation immigrants, specifically in the context of a society that is largely defined by Christian normative values. Joshi looks at a broad array of topics through the eyes of her research participants, including their experiences of discrimination, the myth of the model minority, and the impact of their trips back to India; but the common thread is how Indian Americans experience and interpret religion in their lives and the impact this has on their identity.
What struck me about the book was how heart-wrenching and moving many of her participants stories were: stories that detail discrimination, feelings of isolation, and cultural confusion. As a second-generation Indian American myself, I couldn't put the book down, perhaps seeing a lot of my childhood and adolescence in these shared experiences. Joshi, whose academic background is in theology, social justice, and education, is adept at navigating these rich narratives, charting out their complex themes, and presenting them for her readers in a lucid and compelling manner. In the end, "New Roots" is a one-of-a-kind and commendable work that I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the Indian American experience.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2015Very dry prose. Repetitive. Stating the obvious. Did not include any participants who were from religiously non-observant families. Did not tell how the participants were doing as adults and as parents of the next generation.
