Religion, immigration, and home making in diaspora: Hindu space in Southern California

How does religion affect the ways in which immigrants create suitable and meaningful homes in their new places? Based on ethnographic naturalistic field study of Hindu immigrants in Southern California, this paper provides a detailed description of how religion influences and is inscribed into home spaces through décor, artifacts, and gardens. The processes of ritually appropriating a home, sacralizing it with religious artifacts, and landscaping it with significant trees and plants help an immigrant renew connections with past experiences, environments, and people. Offering the concepts of “home as religious space” and “ecology of religion” we propose that home can be a site for religion, and suggest that religion can affect homes in tangible/physical ways, helping create a sacred ambiance and ethos, which in turn facilitates a multi-layered experience of both religion and place.