LITMIR.BIZ

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time to this project and responded to more than their fair share of frantic e-mails and last-minute requests. I also thank my students, who inspire me every day in the classroom, asking all the right “wrong” questions that take me to task and push my thinking.

      I am grateful for all the people in Fremont who opened their homes, businesses, hearts, and minds to this project and spoke frankly and reflectively about their experiences in ways that I never expected.

      My gratitude also goes to my friends in the many places that I call home, some of whom have read and commented on my work but perhaps more important interrupted me for study breaks, a glass of wine, or a warm cup of tea. They celebrated all of my milestones along the way and reminded me that writing a book takes a lot more than willpower.

      My family both near and far cheered me on from day one often without the faintest idea of what I was writing about unfailingly maintained that whatever it was, it was going to be brilliant simply because it was mine. The stories that my father told inspired my interest and connection in Fremont, and his simple truths about life and work kept me resolute during the hardest of times. My mother never forgot to tell me how proud she was and always helped me to keep things in perspective with stories about her latest gardening adventure and culinary experiments. She was a fighter in every way who taught me the unbending courage that it takes to speak your truth. This book is written in her memory.

      No one deserves more thanks than my husband, who suffered none of my doubts yet quietly listened as I recounted my own misgivings. He forced me to write in “plain English” and not sweat the small things. His calm and confidence made my writing better and bolder. This book took a tremendous amount of time and resources, and he shouldered the load without a question or complaint. I also thank Ashay and Temani, who never let me forget why I do what I do, for interrupting at all the right times, for their patience with my impatience, and for their endless curiosity that continues to inspire my own.

      MAP 1. Fremont is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is widely considered a Silicon Valley suburb because of the large number of high tech companies and residents employed in high tech industries that have located there. Image by author.

Introduction

      LANDSCAPES OF DIFFERENCE

      What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

       Or does it explode?

      LANGSTON HUGHES, 1951

      IT IS MIDDAY IN FREMONT, California, one of the many suburbs sandwiched along Interstate 880 in the 40-mile stretch between Oakland and San Jose. From the highway, Fremont appears no different than many other communities that line the eastern edge of Silicon Valley. Like San Leandro, Hayward, Union City, and Milpitas, the suburb sprawls over a vast terrain punctuated by strip malls, tract homes, office parks, and an endless sea of parking. But if one takes Exit 22 at Alvarado Boulevard and meanders through the neighborhoods, a different scene emerges.

      Just off of Fremont’s main artery stands the Islamic Society of the East Bay, a newly renovated mosque and school with gold and royal blue cupolas adorning traditional Islamic architecture. Less than a mile south 99 Ranch, the nation’s largest Asian American supermarket chain, anchors Northgate Shopping Center alongside an array of bakeries, banks, beauty salons, tea shops, and other mom-and-pop stores selling familiar products from many regions in Asia. Farther south, Sikh elders and multiethnic teens gather at Fremont Hub, a large shopping mall marking the heart of the city. Similar scenes can be found a few blocks away at Gateway Plaza, where Naz8 Cinema, the self-proclaimed first “multicultural entertainment megaplex in North America,” shows Bollywood films on eight screens daily.¹

      From the Central District, it is a straight shot along Paseo Padre Boulevard to Central Park, where Chinese American elders crowd the banks of Lake Elizabeth in the early morning to practice fan dancing, tai chi, and other martial arts (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1. Elders regularly gather beside Fremont’s Lake Elizabeth in the early morning to practice tai chi and other martial arts. A regular visitor claimed that the lake’s positive feng shui was a major reason for its popularity. Photo by author.

      Nearby in the historic neighborhood of Irvington, ethnic enterprises, an Indian wedding hall, and various Chinese and Korean Christian churches have revitalized aging storefronts and strip malls. Across from the local elementary school, cars spill out of Vedic Dharma Samaj, a Hindu temple carved from the remains of an old Methodist church.

      In the background, cows graze the steep sides of the canyon that overlooks the bucolic Niles neighborhood, the once well-known backdrop of Charlie Chaplin silent films. Today the scene includes the Gurdwara Sahib, said to be one of the most influential Sikh temples outside of India with over 9,000 members, as well as the Wat Buddhanusorn, a popular Thai Buddhist temple and monastery (Figure 2).²

FIGURE 2. Gurdwara Sahib, one of the largest and most influential Sikh temples in the world, was founded in Fremont in 1978. It serves as a symbol of the suburb’s rise as a major gateway for new immigrants from all over the world, especially Asia. Photo by author.

      Mirroring the Wat Buddhanusorn across Quarry Lake, the Purple Lotus Temple and Dharma Institute is under construction on a sweeping five-and-a-half-acre campus, soon to be marked by eight-foot prayer stupas and a perimeter wall decorated with the names of Buddha, Buddhist mantras, and auspicious signs to welcome its visitors.

      Abutting Irvington is the plush hillside community of Mission San Jose, where feng shui and Vishnu principles have been used to reorient and redesign high-end houses and even entire subdivisions. Ornate iron fencing, grand fountains, columns, ornamental gardens, and Buddha and Krishna statues adorn the lawns of the neighborhood’s many well-to-do homes. Chinese and Indian American elders push strollers along its twisted streets and gather at local parks to exercise, gamble, or simply pass the time while attending to their grandchildren.

      • • •

      Fremont may seem to be an anomaly in an otherwise staid and predictable suburban American landscape. Images of Ozzie and Harriet suburbs populated by White middle-class residents, postwar tract homes packed on postage-stamp lots, and sterile shopping malls dominate the scholarly literature, popular media, and public perceptions of suburbia to this day. These images remain part of the dominant American narrative about who and what are suburban.

      The reality, however, is much more diverse and complex than these stereotypes suggest. Over the past several decades while many urban downtowns have experienced a resurgence of energetic White millennials and affluent seniors, the suburbs of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas have quietly emerged as home to the majority of their racial and ethnic minority, immigrant, and poor residents.³ For the past several decades, predominantly non-White and diverse suburbs have exploded, experiencing far faster population gains than central cities and majority White suburbs.⁴

      The suburbs have, in fact, never really been the placid, homogeneous spaces that have so captivated the American imaginary. A growing body of scholarship shows that diversity has long defined the culture, landscape, and inhabitants of suburbia. Combating popular stereotypes

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