[Buddha-l] iNTERESTING US MAP GRAPHIC SHOWING %AGE OF THE VARIOUS RELIGIONS

[Franz Metcalf]

Dear Scott et al.,

Thanks for the persnickety post. You've prompted me to find and review my notes from Melton's AAR session. Here's the upshot:

1) Polling suggests roughly 1.5 million Buddhists in the USA, a fraction of the previous estimated 3.5-4 million. Census data (for reasons Scott mentions) may supplant the polling estimates with actual data supporting the higher figures.

2) Despite potentially higher numbers of cultural Buddhists, going through temple/center/group data from some 200 denominations, Melton et al. estimate 970,000 officially Buddhist-affiliated Americans. Of course those with Buddhist influences and no cards to carry (folks Scott may describe in a later rant) may be missed in this estimate.

3) If we find the estimate low, consider that many--for some cultures even most--Asian immigrants were not, or are no longer, Buddhist. At this point only 20% of Chinese Americans report as Buddhist. 20%!

4) 90% of Buddhists in the USA live with 50 miles of an international airport. Two-thirds of American counties have no Buddhists groups within them. Buddhist groups tend to be in suburbs (cities are too expensives, rural areas have no Buddhists). One interesting aspect of this lack of diaspora is that Vietnamese who immigrated after the war, were forced by law to reside in every state of the union, in numbers proportionate to the state's population. Many have rescued themselves from those backwaters (note: this is me talking, not Melton), but if you take the Vietnamese Buddhists out of the equation, the already vast blank areas of the US without Buddhists grow much larger.

I find this all quite depressing but shoulder on, recalling that Buddhism, itself, is subject to anicca. On the other hand, if American Buddhism leads to such products as Genpo Roshi, who needs it?

Franz