Mapping Buddhism in the San Gabriel Valley
Buddhism in the San Gabriel Valley Mapping Project
The ISHB Buddhism in the San Gabriel Valley Mapping Project is funded by the Luce Foundation through APARRI (Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative). The project aims to collect spatial data on the impressive diversity of Buddhist sites in Southern California. The findings suggest that there are over 100 Buddhist temples in the San Gabriel Valley.
Principal researchers: Jens Reinke, Jane Iwamura
Researcher: Song Wang
Phase I
1. Introduction
The Los Angeles metropolitan area constitutes one of the world’s most important “global cities” (Saskia Sassen). At its heart – right east of the City of Los Angeles – lies the San Gabriel Valley, a suburban cluster of cities and unincorporated communities. The San Gabriel Valley hosts the biggest Chinese American community in the US. This new suburban pattern of settlement, or “ethnoburb” (Wei Li), has replaced earlier spaces of overseas Chinese settlement in inner cities, the so-called Chinatowns.
Mostly ignored by studies on Buddhism in the US, the San Gabriel Valley ethnoburb is home to a huge variety of temples, centers, and other Buddhist sites, a majority of which have their roots in different Asian countries. Based on a digital mapping project conducted since the fall of 2022, this project assesses the number, diversity, and patterns of dispersion of Buddhist spaces in the San Gabriel Valley.
2. Research Background (Why & Where)
Asian Buddhism is one of the main streams of Buddhism globally. Today, the tradition has expanded far beyond its historical spaces of origin in Asia. We can find Asian temples all over the world. The state of California in the United States of America represents one of the main centers of Asian Buddhism globally. However, academic literature on the topic is still sparse. Research on Buddhism in the US has focused on Buddhist forms that are practiced by Americans of European origin. Asian American Buddhists, on the other hand, are often reduced to the Other of the European American Buddhist experience.
Furthermore, big quantitative studies on Buddhism in the US significantly underestimated the number of Asian American Buddhists in the past. The Pew study in 2007, for example, claims that only a third of Buddhists in the US are of Asian origin, while two-thirds are Euro-Americans. Newer numbers claim that up to 49 percent of US Buddhists are Asian Americans. However, even the corrected numbers seem too low. Taking a first inventory of the remarkable abundance of Buddhist life in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, this paper, and the Mapping Buddhism in the San Gabriel Valley Research Project the paper is based on, aims to address the issue.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area constitutes one of the world’s most important “global cities” (Saskia Sassen). Forming strategic transnational networks, global cities function as important nods in the world economy. They are marked by a high degree of social stratification, and constitute important sites of transnational migration. Just east of the City of Los Angeles lies the San Gabriel Valley, a suburban cluster of cities and unincorporated communities. The San Gabriel Valley hosts the biggest Chinese American community in the US. Not surprisingly, there are many Buddhist temples of Asian traditions in the San Gabriel Valley.
The roots of the San Gabriel Valley as an ethnic Asian American space go back to changes US migration laws underwent in the mid of the last century. From the 1960s on, due to international geopolitical and global economic changes, the demographics of global Asian migration changed significantly. New migration laws in the US targeted highly skilled professionals as well as wealthy populations. In addition, the new laws also allowed family-sponsored migrants and low-skill professionals in areas with labor shortages to move to the US. As a result, the ethnic Asian American community became more socially stratified.
Taking the ethnic Chinese migrants as example, they arrived at different times from different spaces of origin. The first wave originated from Taiwan and Hong Kong, followed by ethnic Chinese from Southeast Asia, and, more recently, from the different provinces of the PRC. As a result, the cultural, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds of the ethnic Chinese American community became notably more diverse. These changes were accompanied by new modes of dwelling. While the 19th-century Chinese from the southern coastal provinces settled in inner-city Chinatowns, the new ethnic Chinese migrants moved directly to the suburbs in big metropolitan areas in the US. The biggest of the new ethnic Chinese suburban residential and business clusters in the US is the San Gabriel Valley. US geographer Wei Li has dubbed this development, the “ethnoburb”. Religion plays an important yet understudied role within this new suburban spatial formation.
3. Methodology (Sources)
The project is organized through the Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism (ISHB) at the University of the West. It is funded by the Asian Pacific American Research Initiative (APARRI) through the Berkeley Luce-Foundation. As the previous director of ISHB, Prof. Jens Reinke served as the principal investigator. The principal PhD student researcher is Song Wang, a Ph.D student at the UWest Religious Studies Department.
We mainly utilized three data sources for the project.
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Data easily available on the internet, including Google Maps;
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The Chinese Consumer Yellow Pages (Huaren gongshang dianhua bu 華人工商電話簿), a comprehensive local Chinese language business directory; and
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Local monastic informants.
Source (1) was very straightforward. We developed a set of key terms in English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Japanese, that were fed into the usual search engines. Source (2) was not very complicated either, since the yellow pages contain addresses and contact information of temples in the region. The most valuable source was (3) local monastic informants. The University of the West is at the heart of the Buddhist San Gabriel Valley. As a nondenominational Buddhist-founded university with a Religious Studies and a Chaplaincy Department, UWest has a very international student body. The vast majority of the international students are from Asian countries with significant Buddhist populations. In addition, a large number of the students of the above-mentioned departments are Buddhist monastics, many of whom reside at local Buddhist temples. These contacts were very helpful not only in providing further data, but also for fact-checking the data from sources (1) and (2).
The San Gabriel Valley is not only a municipal concept, but also a geographic one in terms of its historical development. The San Gabriel Valley derives its name from the San Gabriel River that flows southward through the center of the valley, which itself was named for the Spanish Mission San Gabriel Arcángel originally built in the Whittier Narrows in 1771. The scope of the area has also evolved over time as a result of municipal planning. Therefore, in our actual survey, we did not rigidly delineate the boundaries of this area, but also included some nearby sites that were not within the boundaries of this area.
Over the second half of the academic year 22/23, we drove around the San Gabriel Valley to confirm our data was up-to-date. In this preliminary phase, we were mainly interested in assessing geographic dispersion, basic identifiers (regarding national origin, or lineage, and school), and the different architectural styles. The data was transferred into a preliminary custom map on Google Maps. At a recent stage, we are developing an ArcGIS platform to integrate the data.
• Temple Dispersion
We examined the address and dispersion of the temples through sources such as search engines, yellow pages, official websites, Google Maps, and conducted on-site visits to verify the accuracy of the information.
• Temple national origin, or lineage and school
Based on the signage, language(s) present, national flags, official websites, further online sources, and informants, we found Buddhist temples from the following countries or traditions.
• Architecture
Due to the establishment of many temples following later waves of immigration, a significant number of them have been built by purchasing real estate, resulting in temple structures that deviate from traditional appearances. Through on-site investigations, we have documented and classified several distinctive shapes and structures of temple architecture.
In the fall semester of 2023, our focus is shifting towards ethnic Chinese American Buddhist temples, conducting in-depth investigations into specific details such as the resident monk population, primary languages used, spiritual leaders or their lineages, the founding year of the temples, and other pertinent information.
4. Results
4.1 Temple Dispersion
In total, we identified 91 valid temple sites out of the preliminary list after the field survey. In terms of municipal geography, our scope also includes part of Los Angeles County, but not all of it. Some of the temples in eastern Los Angeles County will overlap with the SGV's scope. There are more temples in Los Angeles City and Orange County, but at this point we focused on the scope of San Gabriel Valley. The temples are dispersed over the whole valley, with the biggest concentrations being in El Monte, Rosemead, Pomona and La Puente. The next are West Covina and Alhambra, which each host five temples, followed by Monterey Park, Azusa, and Pasadena with each four. Since we have appropriately expanded the geographic scope of the SGV to Los Angeles County, and Los Angeles County is a fairly large geographic area, as many as 13 temples have entered our list. Additionally, it's still not very objective and complete to differentiate the number by city boundaries alone, as the boundaries of many of the smaller cities tend to be super irregular and embedded in each other's shapes. At this point, we can analyze the map from a bird's eye view on a macro level, and find that overall, there is a pattern of low numbers in the east and high numbers in the west. In addition to the downtown area, the Rosemead and El Monte areas serve as the "post-Chinatown" after the downtown Chinatown, and thus radiate outward to gather the largest number of temples.
(Click the "Pop-out" button and open with Google My Maps for more details)
4.2 Temple national origin, or lineage and school
Based on the signage, language(s) present, national flags, official websites, further online sources, and informants, we found Buddhist temples from the following countries or traditions: There were 16 from mainland China, 17 from Taiwan, and 16 from Vietnam, these three categories being the most numerous. They are followed by 11 from Tibetan Buddhism, 9 from Japan, 8 from Myanmar and 5 from Thailand respectively. Finally, there are small numbers from Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia and Australia.
However, there are limitations in distinguishing the lineage and origins of these temples by their countries alone, so we need to mix in elements of their traditions. In the case of Tibetan Buddhism, for example, some temples in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition are from India, some are from Vietnam, and most of them can be traced back to mainland China. Therefore, the classification of Tibetan Buddhism is more comprehensive to define, while more detailed factors may need to be investigated further to complete a full picture. In another case, for example, temples from some other countries, such as Australia, Vietnam, etc., actually came originally from the Chinese Mahayana tradition, such as the Amida Society (Jingzong xuehui 淨宗學會) of Ven. Jing Kong 淨空, whose nationality was later changed to Australia. There are also temples founded by a monastic born in China before 1949. Later the monastic moved to Southeast Asia where they founded a Buddhist organization. But if we adopt the categorization of the Chinese Mahayana tradition, we will merge too many temples and lose too much information. There are also great differences within a single country. For example, Vietnamese temples might be identified as northern Vietnamese, southern Vietnamese, or Sino-Vietnamese. So, this part requires further refinement in our follow-up work.
What's more, there are more difficulties and ambiguities with the data when tracing the identity of legal persons or founders of the temples. It may happen that a temple has two or more founders, or that a spiritual leader exists above the founders. In addition, many temples in North America have a system that mimics modern enterprises and also have their own board of directors, in which case they have a plurality of identities and countries of board members.
Another important phenomenon is the shifting of ownership. As mentioned above, the earliest ethnic Chinese inhabitants in the San Gabriel Valley after 1965 were Taiwanese. Many of the earlier Taiwanese migrants, including those who are monastics, have reached retirement age. This development is contrasted by the more recent rise of migration from the PRC. If it is a residential-sized vihara with one person living in it, it is likely to happen that the venerable will sell the temple property when he or she reaches retirement age, and so on. As a result, we can see a drastic change in the demographics of temple visitors and even temple ownership. Further research is needed to deal with these questions.
4.3 Architecture
In terms of architecture, we assessed five main styles:
(1) Buildings built in a “traditional” Asian Buddhist temple style;
(2) residential homes turned into temples that possessed recognizable visible markers such as signs, lanterns, and statures;
(3) churches turned into temples that possessed recognizable visible markers such as signs, lanterns, and statures;
(4) commercial buildings turned into temples that possessed recognizable visible markers such as signs, lanterns, and statures; and
(5) residential buildings without any such markers. In the future, it could be assessed how architectural style relates to local zoning residential (e.g., residential or commercial) in the different cities.
Buddhist Temple
Ming Ya Buddhist Association 佛学明月居士林
Commercial Building
Bliss Wisdom Los Angeles（BWLA）洛杉磯福智基金会
Renovated from Residential House
草堂寺
Residential House
American Avatamsaka Association
Renovated from Church
Mindfulness Meditation Center (Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara) and Tian Ann Temple （天恩圣道院）
5. Future Outlook
At this point, the research project is still in its preliminary state, and there are several possible future directions: The first is to get more quantitative data on the temples. For example, when were the temples founded? Are their resident monastics present? If so, how many are the venerables, or what kind of languages they can speak? How big are the temples? How many activities take place? Another important step would be to extend the geographical scope of the project to Los Angeles City, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, and the Bay Area. Besides temples, what other Buddhist spaces are there (vegetarian restaurants, schools, shops, medical spaces, etc.)
In addition, several qualitative questions arise from our preliminary fieldwork visits. How do the changing dynamics between Taiwanese and PRC Chinese Buddhists play out within the temple spaces? What kind of collaborations take place? Are there tensions? Are there different levels of adhering to monastic discipline? Maybe even more importantly, how do these spaces relate to the flourishing lay Buddhist life in the San Gabriel Valley? What is the role of age and gender? These are just some of many more possible research questions. We anticipate future studies that delve into the exploration of the vibrant Buddhist life in the San Gabriel Valley.
Bibliography
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Li, Wei. Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in Urban America. University of Hawaii Press, 2008.
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Sassen, Saskia. "The Global City: Strategic Site, New Frontier." In Managing Urban Futures, pp. 89-104. Routledge, 2016.
Phase II
1. Introduction
Based on the initial survey of all Buddhist temples in the San Gabriel Valley during the first phase, there is a preliminary understanding of the number, diversity, and dispersion patterns of Buddhist spaces in the area. The second phase will focus specifically on Chinese American temples for a deeper investigation.
This phase of work will require a more in-depth approach involving interviews and research into the Chinese American temples, including the lineage or spiritual leaders, the establishment year and phase, the number of resident venerables, and the primary languages used. These data points will help analyze the components, processes, and current status of Chinese American Buddhism in the United States. Furthermore, contextualizing the data will involve exploring how the San Gabriel Valley forms a layered and complex Buddhist social space, linking Buddhism in the US with global China as a transnational spatial order.
2. Methodology
In the second phase, some detailed information had to be obtained through face-to-face interviews, phone calls, or informant information. Therefore, the research scope was narrowed to focus on the development of Buddhist temples among Chinese Americans.
In terms of research methods, besides visits of outside buildings, to understand specific information about the temple's lineage, founders, founding years, resident numbers, and languages used, I needed to delve into the temples and interview relevant responsible persons to gather information.
Some information could be directly obtained from the official websites, but many details, especially about the number of resident monks and languages used, were often incomplete.
It is worth noting that during this more in-depth investigation, some sensitive information might involve venerables or persons in charge unwilling to be interviewed or disclose specific details.
Additionally, some temples are closed or have no public contact information, resulting in incomplete data.
Therefore, data analysis needs to filter out invalid samples, and we ended up with about 40 valid samples.
Buddha Temple 佛祖寺 was closed
It is worth mentioning that during the investigation, new findings were made on some results from the first phase, so further corrections were made.
For example, some temples' national regions or lineage affiliations, or some temples were found to be unmanaged or temporarily closed.
Lien Guo Temple 莲果寺 was previously considered as the Chinese Han Mahayana Buddhism system, but actual investigation found it belongs to the Tibetan system, following Yundan Trinley Dorje Rinpoche 元丹欽列多吉仁波切.
Also, for example, Yanshou Temple was temporarily closed due to the aging of the venerables.
Yanshou Temple
3. Results
3.1 Distribution of Chinese American Buddhist Temples
First, regarding the urban distribution of Chinese American Buddhist Temples, similar to the distribution of all Buddhist temples, Chinese temples are mainly located in cities like El Monte, Los Angeles, and Rosemead. These areas are also the main Chinese residential areas, aligning with the historical narrative of Chinatown's migration from downtown to the suburbs. Additionally, the further east you go, the sparser the temples become.
3.2 Lineage Source
Regarding the statistics of the lineages, Taiwan accounts for the majority, followed by Vietnam and mainland China. This statistic mainly depends on the background of the founders. As the second and third generations develop, the composition of new members or the background of board members becomes more complex, making actual data analysis more complicated.
Interestingly, the Vietnamese background in Chinese Americans also has a certain hybridity because many who immigrated from Vietnam are Vietnamese Chinese, who still maintain the main characteristics of traditional Chinese in terms of cultural traditions, religious practices, etc. In Buddhist temples, unlike pure Vietnamese temples, they show Chinese traits in temple signs, architectural styles, venerables' ethnicity, languages used, etc.
It is worth noting that among the Chinese Vietnamese, a strong force comes from the Guangdong Chaozhou region, similar to Ming Ya Buddhist Association 明月居士林 and Buddha Monastery Support Association 观音精舍, all closely linked to the clan culture of Guangdong.
Chaozhou 潮州 Guangdong
The Vietnamese Ming Ya Buddhist Association (also known as Ming Yue Benevolent Society) is a religious sect of the Chaozhou Chinese community, integrating Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, folk beliefs, Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, and Pure Vietnamese Pure Land Buddhism. The Ming Ya Buddhist Association was introduced and developed in a multicultural context and was registered as part of Buddhism in 1954.
As an extension of Chinese culture, the Ming Yue Benevolent Society emerged, developed, and spread during times of turmoil and war, introduced to Vietnam with Chinese immigrants. In later stages, the Vietnamese Ming Ya Buddhist Association maintained its Buddhist nature to be recognized and developed while retaining its religious form. Additionally, with immigration, the Vietnamese Ming Ya Buddhist Association spread to Canada, the United States, and Australia in the 1980s, forming a transnational network.
— 阮玉诗 (Nguyen Ngoc Tho)
Ming Ya Buddhist Association 佛学明月居士林
Its Chinese Website
Another case is Lu Mountain Temple 庐山寺 and Wei Mountain Temple 沩山寺, which were included in the sample because their abbot, Ven. Yonghua, once took refuge under Ven. Hsuan Hua 宣化上人 at City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in San Francisco. Their Buddhist system mainly follows the lineage of Ven. Hsuan Hua's Chinese Han Mahayana.
Another temple, Bodhi Temple (Los Angeles Buddhist Union), is run by a monk of Sri Lankan background, but he studied in China, so his main practice system also conforms to the characteristics of Chinese Han Mahayana.
Ven. Yonghua
Ven. Zhaochu
An interesting phenomenon is that the two largest temples founded by Taiwanese monks—Hsi Lai Temple 西来寺 and B.O.C.A Dharma Seal Temple 法印寺—have male monks from mainland China as their current abbots after several transitions.
Abbot of Hsi Lai Temple
Abbot of Dharma Seal Temple
3.3 Development and Relocation Trends
Since the 1960s and 70s, some temples have grown from nothing, from small to large, gradually expanding or relocating due to funding limitation and space needs. Analysis of valid data shows that nearly 45% of the temples have relocated or have two or more addresses in Los Angeles. Most temples sold their previous smaller sites to raise funds to establish larger ones, while some manage two sites simultaneously.
In 2006, the city of Walnut rejected a permit application for the construction of Chung Tai Monastery 中台寺, citing concerns about traffic congestion and noise pollution. However, the city later approved the construction of a larger Catholic church and shopping complex. The temple filed a lawsuit with the Department of Justice and won.
Middle Land Chan Monastery 中洲禅寺, Pomona
Both Hsi Lai Temple and Yuan Yung Temple faced significant opposition from the public and religious communities. After numerous public hearings and resident coordination meetings, it took 8 years for the temples to be approved.
3.4 Historical Process of Temple Establishment
Historically, Chinese Buddhist temples in the SGV area gradually came to the United States since Ven. Hsuan Hua's preaching, peaking in the 1990s before gradually declining. Taiwanese temples entered earlier, followed by Chinese Vietnamese. Mainland Chinese temples entered in large numbers after the 21st century.
3.5 Organizational Structures and Member Composition
3.5.1 Headquarters
As one of the most important cities in the United States, Los Angeles has a large Chinese population, often becoming a bridgehead for major Buddhist organizations to propagate in North America. Organizationally, more than 40% of the temples have a headquarters-branch relationship.
Hsi Lai Temple serves as the North American headquarters of Fo Guang Shan and is affiliated with the headquarters in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Of course, there are also some unique affiliations. For example, the Yiguandao temples do not necessarily belong to the same sect, with different headquarters in Taiwan.
The Amida Society 净宗学会, though it has branches worldwide, is relatively independent and not under a unified hierarchy.
Additionally, the International Lingqi Buddhist Association灵祇精舍, though affiliated with Ven. Juelin 觉林 from mainland China, functions more like a lay organization devoted to Ven. Juelin, who visits regularly without resident venerables inside.
3.5.2 Lay Practitioner Leadership
According to statistics, more than 30% of the organizations are led, founded, or have main board members who are lay practitioners.
Examples include the Amida Society and Guanyin Citta LA 观音堂. The Bliss Wisdom Los Angeles（BWLA）洛杉磯福智基金会 was founded by Ven. Richang 日常法师 and later transferred to a female layperson.
Miaojue Temple was founded by Chinese Vietnamese nun Ven. Chuanjue 传觉. Although it is now managed by three mainland Chinese monks, the main shares of the temple were inherited by a lay relative of the nun. Therefore, the current monks do not own the property or shares but more like have an "employment relationship."
3.5.3 Gender Distribution of Resident Venerables
Overall, the statistics on residential venerables show that only over 20% are male monks. This indicates a general shortage of male monks, which helps explain why the two largest temples replaced their abbots with male monks from mainland China.
Regionally, Chinese temples related to Taiwan and Vietnam have far more female than male monks. In contrast, mainland Chinese temples have more monks than nuns (balanced). According to the details, the three mainland monks in Miaojue Temple, classified under Vietnam, are included in the mainland category for analysis.
If the organization is lay-related, excluding the special example Yiguandao, most of all lay organizations do not have resident members in their buildings. Lay practitioners usually have family lives and separate their activities from the organization's schedule.
3.5.4 Small “Residential House Temple” (or Vihara 精舍) Model
Excluding lay organizations, over 60% of temples have only one or two resident members, usually small in scale and often renovated from residential houses, resembling a “family temple” model.
3.6 Language Proficiency
Although nearly half of the staff in Chinese American Buddhist Temples can use English, about 37% of the temples or organizations have staff or venerables who are not proficient in English. Due to its large scale, Hsi Lai Temple has monks and volunteers from various regions and backgrounds who can speak multiple languages to receive visitors.
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