New Roots in America's Sacred Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America

by Khyati Y. Joshi

In this compelling look at second-generation Indian Americans, Khyati Y. Joshi draws on case studies and interviews with forty-one second-generation Indian Americans, analyzing their experiences involving religion, race, and ethnicity from elementary school to adulthood.  As she maps the crossroads they encounter as they navigate between their homes and the wider American milieu, Joshi shows how their identities have developed differently from their parents’ and their non-Indian peers’ and how religion often exerted a dramatic effect.

The experiences of Joshi’s research participants reveal how race and religion interact, intersect, and affect each other in a society where Christianity and whiteness are the norm. Joshi shows how religion is racialized for Indian Americans and offers important insights in the wake of 9/11 and the backlash against Americans who look Middle Eastern and South Asian. Through her candid insights into the internal conflicts contemporary Indian Americans face and the religious and racial discrimination they encounter, Joshi provides a timely window into the ways that race, religion, and ethnicity interact in day-to-day life.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Khyati Y. Joshi is a public intellectual whose social science research and community
connections inform policy-makers, educators, and everyday people about race, religion,
and immigration in 21st century America. Her most recent book is White Christian
Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America (NYU Press, 2020). She is the
author and co-editor of Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 3rd edition
(Routledge, 2016), one of the most widely-used books by diversity practitioners and
social justice scholars alike. Her other works include New Roots in America’s Sacred
Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America (Rutgers U. Press,
2006); Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans (University of Hawaii Press,
2020) and Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South (U. of Illinois
Press, 2013), both as co-editor; and numerous book chapters and articles. Most
recently, she is Co-Pi for a $1,000,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation in support
of a 4-year project with the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative
(APARRI).

She has lectured around the world, including at the White House; to policy-makers at
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); and for scholarly and
popular audiences in Denmark, India, Lebanon, and across the United States. She is
also the co-founder of the Institute for Teaching Diversity and Social Justice, which
offers multi-day professional development programs for educators, since 2007. She
consults on equity, inclusion and justice for schools, colleges and universities, nonprofit
organizations, and businesses; she has provided professional development to
educators across the U.S., and continuing education programs for lawyers and judges.

Often contacted by journalists, Dr. Joshi has appeared on MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, BNC
(the Black News Channel), NDTV in India, CNA (Channel News Asia, Singapore), and
has been interviewed on the radio at Voice of America, PRI’s The World, and NPR’s
Morning Edition, and numerous other radio programs and podcasts across the United
States. Her words and insights appear in publications in the U.S. and abroad such as
the New York Times, NBC News Asian America, The Times of India, the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post, Deseret News, the Boston Globe, the Houston
Chronicle, India Abroad, among others.