Jindal has few ties to ancestral homeland
by The Times-Picayune
Wednesday January 02, 2008, 7:47 PM
By Robert Travis Scott
BATON ROUGE – On Nov. 17, local residents and college students of Indian heritage put on a show at Louisiana State University that filled a theater with several hundred Indian-Americans celebrating Dewali, one of India’s biggest annual festivals.
The performance of their homeland’s traditional and modern music and dance, followed by a catered meal of spicy Indian cuisine, was one of several popular gathering points last year for a minority community trying to maintain its rich cultural traditions in Louisiana while also integrating into American society.
As demonstrated by Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal’s diminished participation in his ancestral religion and customs, Indian-American families face a challenge passing on to their children an appreciation for their heritage and traditions.
While Jindal’s parents have integrated into their adopted country since coming to the United States in 1971, they have maintained their Hindu religion and interest in some Indian traditions. By contrast, Jindal has assimilated more deeply into a U.S. lifestyle and Christian religion with few remaining ties to his parents’ nation of origin.
Indian-Americans are a small but economically strong minority group in the United States, numbering 1.7 million in the latest national census, a figure that more than doubled between 1990 and 2000. They are more highly educated than the average American and have a higher median income than any other ethnic or ancestral group tracked by the U.S. government, including Caucasians.
The median household income of Indian-Americans in 2000 was $63,669, about 50 percent higher than the national average, according to the census.
There is a heavy concentration of doctors, engineers, computer specialists and college and university professors among the Indian-American population, according to Satya Pattnayak, a Villanova University professor of sociology.
“Therefore, it is not a surprise that the group earns such a high median income,” Pattnayak stated in a research paper. “In fact, very few other groups in U.S. history have seen so many of their first generationers accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars, thanks to the computer, medical, telecommunication, and the Internet industries.”
Louisiana’s Indian-American population, concentrated in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas, was 8,280 in the 2000 census. It did not include Indian students.
The capital area has a Hindu Vedic Society, of which Jindal’s father is a board member, and three active Hindu temples, which also serve as community centers for youth education and holiday observances. The New Orleans area has an Indian-American association that is nearly 50 years old and a few Hindu temples, with much of the activity concentrated in Jefferson Parish.
Daria Woodside, who has researched the assimilation of Indian-Americans in Louisiana as part of a state cultural grant, said India is such a diverse country that members of its transplanted community in Louisiana do not necessarily share the same customs. For example, Indian immigrants include Muslims and Sikhs.
Even among Hindus, religious practices can vary widely among the various sects and different geographic regions of India. So there are not always common ties between the subgroups of Indian-Americans in Louisiana.
But her research has shown that many parents are keeping alive their traditions by celebrating certain Indian holidays and engaging their children in the activities.
This wasn’t always the case. In the 1970s, when Jindal was growing up, there were no Hindu temples in Baton Rouge and little in the way of an organized community education effort for children.
Still, much of the practice of Hindu, in India as well as Louisiana, takes place in the home. Small shrines, sometimes in a converted closet or on a tabletop, can be found in most Hindu homes, local residents say.
This worship at home is a private affair.
“When we get up in the morning, we pray to God,” said Amit Ghosh, a Hindu and the president of the India Association of New Orleans.
But the private nature of the practice has made it more difficult to nourish the religion through shared faith.
Raju Hingorani, a past president of the Hindu Vedic Society and its center in Baton Rouge, said his group has a youth program modeled after one started in Houston. Starting with children in kindergarten, it teaches about the social and cultural aspects of Hinduism, as well as the fundamentals of the religion.
Celebrating Indian festivals is one way to keep the traditions alive, he said. But passing on the Hindu religion is a greater challenge.
The program tries to reduce the concepts to a simple statement: “Being Hindu is doing the right thing all the time.”
First generation Indian immigrants, like Jindal’s parents, found it hard to leave everything behind in India, Ghosh said.
Their children, the so-called second generation born mostly in the United States, entered American schools and had more American friends than their parents, and so became more Americanized, he said.
That second generation was also naturally more rebellious toward their parents, Hingorani said.
“The second generation attempted to adopt all things American: 'I’m not going to be like my mom or dad,'¤” he said.
But Hingorani said he is seeing a resurgence of interest in Indian and Hindu culture by the third generation of Indian-American children.
“The third generation is moving more toward learning about their Indian religion,” he said.
Robert Travis Scott can be reached at [email protected] or (225) 342-4197.