Understanding Asian Indian Americans’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Hospice Care

Background: Previous research has found racial differences in hospice knowledge and misconceptions about hospice care, which may hinder access to hospice care. Asian Indians are a rapidly growing population in the United States, yet limited research has focused on their beliefs toward end-of-life care. This project investigates Indian Americans’ knowledge of and attitudes toward hospice care and advance care planning. Procedures: A cross-sectional design was employed using surveys about participants’ knowledge of and attitudes toward hospice care and advance care planning. Surveys were conducted among Indian Americans, age 60 and over, recruited from Indian cultural centers in Northern California. The participants were first asked questions about hospice care. They were then given a summary explanation of hospice care and later asked about their attitudes toward hospice care. Data were analyzed using descriptive and bivariate analyses. Results: Surveys were completed by 82 participants. Findings revealed that 42.5% of respondents had an advance directive and 57.1% had named a health care proxy. Only 10% of respondents had known someone on hospice care and 10.4% correctly answered 4-5 of the knowledge questions. After being informed about hospice care, 69.6% of participants agreed that if a family member was extremely ill, they would consider enrolling him/her in hospice. Conclusions: This study’s results present a need for greater education about hospice services among older Asian Indians. Health practitioners should remain cognizant of potential misconceptions of hospice and cultural barriers that Asian Indians may have toward hospice care, so they can tailor conversations accordingly.

Entangling Immigration and Independence

This chapter charts how Indians and Indian Americans sought to use U.S. repeal legislation as an instrument to achieve their own national and anticolonial goals. During and immediately after World War II, they cultivated transpacific networks of support for repeal spanning Delhi, Whitehall, and Washington, DC. By pairing Indian and British sources with U.S. archives, the analysis upends conventional accounts of the 1946 Luce-Celler Act as a cause originated and spearheaded by elite white racial liberals and conservative internationalists. Instead, it reveals how white Americans and later, British officials, did not take concrete action until Indians prompted them. Ultimately the effort only succeeded because Britain decided to support the change in U.S. immigration law, and Indian colonial officials were the intermediaries who made it happen.

“May the Force Be With You”: Narendra Modi and the Celebritization of Indian Politics

“May the force be with you” were the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parting words as he ended his 2014 address to a rapturous crowd of Indian Americans in New York’s Madison square garden. Modi is the first PM to address the country through his own radio show, actively use social media, as well as technologies such as the 3D hologram. This article examines the ways in which Modi’s celebritized politics is strategically constructed and performed, honing in on Modi’s utilization of media, technology, and popular culture. It interrogates the processes such as the personalization of his political image through social media, the use of film stars to cultivate affect and allure by association, in constructing brand Modi.

Epilogue

The epilogue narrates the developments and impact of Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogananda’s writings since his death in 1952, assessing his influence in the United States and around the world. A century after Yogananda came to the U.S. with his message of Kriya Yoga, and three quarters of a century after the Autobiography of a Yogi was released, yoga has become ubiquitous, while Hindu beliefs have become an integral part of the spiritual landscape. Yogananda ultimately succeeded in converting thousands of Americans during his lifetime. When he died in 1952, he was revered and worshipped—overwhelmingly by non-Indian Americans—as the very incarnation of deity. Since his departure, he has influenced many others around the world through his successor organization, the Self-Realization Fellowship, and other independent organizations—such as Ananda, founded by Kriyananda—that trace their lineage to him, as well through Autobiography of a Yogi and his other teachings. The Father of Yoga in the West nurtured religious offspring. Yogananda’s story is thus an indispensable element of the emergence of both contemporary yoga and modern American Hinduism