They introduced American audiences to the Indic figure of the esoteric yogi, the practices of meditation and yoga, and translations and adaptations of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras through the writings of Blavatsky herself, N. C. Paul, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, and Ernest Wood, among others.13. She quotes Ajah Shah, the convener of American Hindus Against Defamation, as saying, “In seeking the honor of Hindus and demanding they not be ridiculed … we are being good Americans. Hinduism came to the United States first in the American imagination and only second with emissaries and immigrants from India. The VHP endeavored to create a modernized “spiritual Hinduism” that preached personal development, success, and social ethics. See Shreena Gandhi, “Translating, Practicing and Commodifying Yoga in the U.S.” (PhD diss., University of Florida, 2009), 59–68. 49. The Spirituality of the American Transcendentalists (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1988), 93. Instead, in efforts to attract non-Hindu followers, many have chosen to identify their movements as spiritual, or even as secular and scientific. They also became congregational centers for community networking and development. Trapped within frames of social isolation and unquestioning devotion, members experienced cycles of abuse that continued in prolonged and severe ways in many cases. The influx of temples in the United States provided expressions for the devotional and ritualistic aspects of Hinduism that had been largely ignored in the U.S. context in institutional arenas. There, the ornate Shree Raseshwari Radha Rani Temple is one of the largest Hindu temples in the United States. 53. The initial features of Hinduism that captivated North American audiences were those that were lauded for their compatibility with Protestant Christianity and those that were derided for their incompatibility with the same. Some gurus became mired in scandal in the 1970s and 1980s, but still they have survived and in some cases thrived. The 1910s and 1920 saw broad abuses against Indian Sikh workers (who were classified as “Hindoos”) as they were pushed from Canada to the United States and then subsequently forced to flee from violent mobs of anti-immigrant protestors southward from Washington to Oregon and into California’s Central Valley. This sentiment was also inextricable from racist North American policies of the time that were threatened by nonwhite immigrants and concerned to retain white, European, Christian dominance in both the United States and Canada. In our fight for Hindu dignity, we are championing American pluralism.”31 American multiculturalism demands that Hindu Americans represent their religion and cultural heritage in the public sphere in order to be considered fully American, to occupy legible, hyphenated identities. Hinduism in the United States contains both universal ecumenism and the particular veneration of personal deities. By the 1980s, there was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living Foundation, Mata Amritanandamayi, Swami Nithyananda, Karunamayi Ma, Mother Meera, and many others. Supercargo trading routes between North America and China and India required American employees to be stationed in both countries to manage trade operations.4 In addition to commerce, Christians from North America were some of the first missionaries to establish residence in India when the British began to open its borders to foreign religious interventions. Hinduism in South America is found in several countries, but is strongest in the Indo-Caribbean populations of Guyana and Suriname.There are about 550,000 Hindus in South America, chiefly the descendants of Indian indentured laborers in the Guianas.There are about 270,000 Hindus in Guyana, 120,000 in Suriname, and some others in French Guiana.In Guyana and Suriname, Hindus form the … In the 20th century, increasing populations of Indian Hindus immigrated to the United States and began to challenge this narrative. They espouse their distinct theologies and practices but flavor them with ecumenism, fostered by the ideal that all religions are ultimately one. 11. Evidence of Hinduism’s early antecedents is derived from archaeology, comparative philology, and comparative religion. Madhulika Khandelwal, Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 122. About Hinduism in America. 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