Assimilation in the U.S.

Abstract

There is a large stretch of coastal land in Sonoma County, California, that belonged to the Kashaya Indians long before Russian traders came in the early nineteenth century to establish the settlement which is now called Fort Ross. Only about a dozen Kashaya families are left on a forty acre reservation approximately a half hour’s drive from the coast. On my way to it in April 1985, driving through magnificent hills in the thick, cool northern California fog along Tin Bard Road, I passed the enormous, resplendent temple of the Nyingma Buddhists, called Odiyan. The Nyingmas, under the leadership of a Tibetan monk, had obtained 650 acres on which to build their nearly completed temple of gold leaf, copper and beautiful California woods. Behind the high, locked fence which prevents visitors from entering without special permission, Odiyan would soon receive Buddhist disciplines from all over the world.