ABSTRACT
There are no official figures on how many Hindus there are in the United States. The US government does not collect data on religion, but surveys conducted by other organizations can provide us with good estimates. According to the Global Religious Landscape study (Pew Forum 2012a), there were 1,790,000 Hindus in the United States in 2010, mostly from India. While Hindus comprise over 80% of the population of India, due to large proportions of Indian Christians and Sikhs in the United States, Hindus make up only 51% of Indian Americans (Pew Forum 2012b). There are now over 1,500 Hindu American temples and centers (Briggs 2011) not to mention several thousands of local Hindu organizations scattered across the country. While it can be said that Hinduism has become established in the United States, it is best not to think of it as something transplanted wholesale from India to the United States. Rather, Hindu organizations, practices, and interpretations have been modified and reworked as the religion has been institutionalized in the American context.
