{"id":1166,"date":"2011-10-26T12:07:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T16:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2011-10-26T17:04:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T21:04:13","slug":"shubh-diwali-hindu-americans-celebrate-festival-of-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/10\/shubh-diwali-hindu-americans-celebrate-festival-of-lights.html","title":{"rendered":"Shubh Diwali! Indian Americans Celebrate Festival of Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Edited because Diwali is also celebrated by Sikhs, Jains and some South Asian Buddhists and Muslims,\u00a0though for different reasons.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Diwali, Hinduism&#8217;s festival of lights.<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/10\/diwali-lights.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1173\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/2011\/10\/diwali-lights-216x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a> This is the biggest holiday of the year in India,\u00a0and Hinduism is the world&#8217;s third largest religion, but most Americans probably haven&#8217;t heard of it unless they live somewhere with a significant Indian diaspora population. For a U.S. cultural reference, it&#8217;s sort of like Christmas\/Hanukkah (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/2011\/10\/25\/smog-dims-shine-of-indias-diwali-festival-of-lights-reuters\/\" target=\"_blank\">lighting lamps<\/a>, decorations, giving gifts)\u00a0&amp; Thanksgiving (gratitude, <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/2011\/10\/12\/hindu-festival-cheer-rings-diabetes-alarm-for-indians\/\" target=\"_blank\">overeating<\/a>) had a baby, coinciding with Halloween for good measure. Check out these photos, provided by my husband&#8217;s cousin in Mumbai, showing some homemade Rangoli sand art and other household decorations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/2011\/10\/Diwali-sand-art2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1176\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/2011\/10\/Diwali-sand-art2-300x287.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" \/><\/a>Here&#8217;s a gist of how America&#8217;s 2+ million Hindus, Sikhs and Jains\u00a0are celebrating Diwali:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2011\/10\/21\/FDFH1LHUJ6.DTL\" target=\"_blank\">Diwali stirs up sweet memories for Indian chef <\/a>(San Francisco Chronicle)\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>&#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/guest-voices\/post\/in-diwali-celebrations-hindus-assimilate-in-america\/2011\/10\/26\/gIQA5gdwIM_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\">In Diwali celebrations, Hindus assimilate in America<\/a> (Washington Post&#8217;s On Faith)&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/10\/25\/diwali-hindu-festival-of-lights-america_n_1031492.html\" target=\"_blank\">Diwali, Hindu\u00a0festival of lights, goes mainstream in America <\/a>(Religion News Service)<\/li>\n<li>&#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/nikhil-bumb\/jain-perspective-diwali_b_1032617.html\" target=\"_blank\">A Jain Perspective on Diwali<\/a> (Huffington Post)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/world\/us\/Barack-Obama-wishes-Happy-Diwali-and-Saal-Mubarak\/articleshow\/10501773.cms\" target=\"_blank\">&#8211;Barack Obama wishes Happy Diwali and Saal Mubarak<\/a> (Times of India)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edited because Diwali is also celebrated by Sikhs, Jains and some South Asian Buddhists and Muslims,\u00a0though for different reasons. It&#8217;s Diwali, Hinduism&#8217;s festival of lights. This is the biggest holiday of the year in India,\u00a0and Hinduism is the world&#8217;s third largest religion, but most Americans probably haven&#8217;t heard of it unless they live somewhere with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[502,501,500,233,476,503],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-deepvali","tag-deepvali-2011","tag-diwali-2011","tag-hinduism","tag-hindus","tag-indian-americans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shubh Diwali! 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