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Asian and Pacific Islander Americans constitute the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are also one of the most religiously diverse. Through them Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Buddhism have been introduced into every major American city and across a wide swath of Middle America. The contributors to this volume provide an essential inter-disciplinary resource for the study of Asian and Pacific Islander American religion.
Asian and Pacific Islander Americans constitute the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are also one of the most religiously diverse. Through them Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Buddhism have been introduced into every major American city and across a wide swath of Middle America. The contributors to this volume provide an essential inter-disciplinary resource for the study of Asian and Pacific Islander American religion.
Saffron-robed monks and long-haired gurus have become familiar
characters on the American popular culture scene. Jane Iwamura
examines the contemporary fascination with Eastern spirituality and
provides a cultural history of the representation of Asian
religions in American mass media. Encounters with monks, gurus,
bhikkhus, sages, sifus, healers, and masters from a wide variety of
ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions provided initial
engagements with Asian spiritual traditions. Virtual Orientalism
shows the evolution of these interactions, from direct engagements
with specific individuals to mediated relations with a
conventionalized icon: the Oriental Monk. Visually and psychically
compelling, the Oriental Monk becomes for Americans a ''figure of
translation''--a convenient symbol for alternative spiritualities
and modes of being. Through the figure of the solitary Monk, who
generously and purposefully shares his wisdom with the West, Asian
religiosity is made manageable-psychologically, socially, and
politically--for popular culture consumption. Iwamura's insightful
study shows that though popular engagement with Asian religions in
the United States has increased, the fact that much of this has
taken virtual form makes stereotypical constructions of "the
spiritual East" obdurate and especially difficult to challenge.
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