New Jersey’s Hindu Problem

Whaddaya mean, you haven’t heard of New Jersey’s Hindu problem? Don’t you keep up with the news?

OK, well, actually – there is no Hindu problem. Not in New Jersey, and not too terribly much anywhere else, though Tamils and Pakistanis may have different opinions.

I’m drawn to this topic by Reihan Salam’s recent post, The Browning of America, at thedaily.com, where he describes being among a group of mostly brown bus riders in L.A.

Well, Reihan would also not feel out of place on the Northeast Corridor line between Trenton and New York. Sure, we have lots of white traders and hedge-fund types – but, at a guess, 10–40% of the riders between Hamilton and Metropark are from the Asian subcontinent.

It would seem, based on my coworkers and friends and other random observations, that most of Central Jersey’s subcontinental immigrants are Hindu, with small admixtures of Christians, Muslims, and irreligious (but that last category is not exclusive).

Yet we never hear about our Hindu problem. Children whose parents speak with funny accents at home still perform quite well in our English-mostly (some Spanish) school system.

And Hinduism is quite radically different from Christianity; in fact, compared to Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are practically identical. Yet there are no difficulties based on religious differences with our Hindu immigrants.

So far as I know, no one – not even Pat Buchanan or Lew Rockwell – has raised the alarm against the Hindu menace.

Perhaps there's something here worth exploring … what could be the difference be between Hispanic and Muslim immigrants on the one hand and Hindu immigrants on the other?