Bringing Buddha to the City: Metropolitan New Orleans and Vietnamese Buddhist Communities

Abstract

AbstractIn contrast to claims of the secular city, the cityscape of New Orleans has long been shaped by the power and visibility of its Catholic institutions. These institutions played an early role in resettling Vietnamese refugees after 1975, and even today, the most prominent Vietnamese institutions are Catholic churches. Not all Vietnamese in the metropolitan area, however, identify as Catholic. I focus on the efforts of one Buddhist association to build a worship hall in greater metropolitan New Orleans in order to understand how a minority group inscribes its place within the cityscape. Because the construction project requires more financial support than the congregants alone can provide, fundraising efforts must appeal to larger audiences. Through these appeals, I show how the construction of the worship hall involves not just Buddhist placemaking practices but Vietnamese diasporic ones, underscoring the transnational dynamics of religion in the global city. [Diaspora; Buddhism; Placemaking]