ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Asian-Indian immigrants who cross transnational boundaries and settle in diasporic spaces. The chapter focuses on the latter of the two phases, examining aspects of the immigrants' socio-religious practices and the architecture of their sacred spaces. It also focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area in California, which has a high concentration of Asian-Indian immigrants. Recent scholarship on diaspora distinguishes clearly between contemporary diasporic formations and place-bound ethnic communities, with the former implying different forms of mediated linkages between homeland and hostland through networks, activities, patterns of living and, potentially, ideologies that span the two realms. The emergence of such a complex, transnational, socio-spatial networked migration is today obvious in the Bay Area, where the majority of Asian-Indian immigrants who arrived after the mid-1960s fit this category. The function of the sacred sites in California goes far beyond that of housing religious services; the temples also operate as cultural centers that bring broader communities together.
