HINDU AT HEART
Education, Faith, and What it Means to Belong in America
Hindu at Heart explores what it means to grow up Hindu in America—and how public education has shaped the story of belonging for generations of Hindu American families.
From the first premium trade print run. Signed by the author (first 100 copies only).
Paperback and ebook available on Amazon in May 2026.
Who should read this book?
Hindu Americans navigating belonging, especially when their traditions are misunderstood or misrepresented in American public schools
Parents, students, educators, public servants, and community members who want to better understand how religion, immigration, and schooling intersect in everyday public life
Readers interested in how public education has formed citizens and how that has changed across history
Anyone who believes listening is essential to living together in a pluralistic democracy
About the Book
What does it mean to grow up Hindu in America and how have schools shaped that story for generations of Hindu American families?
Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What it Means to Belong in America reimagines the story of American public education through an unexpected lens: how Hinduism and Hindus have figured in its long project of shaping its citizens and negotiating American identity. From early missionary-influenced textbooks that cast Hinduism as antithetical to civilization and democracy to the contemporary classrooms where Hindu American children encounter modern expressions of those inherited ideas, Indu Viswanathan traces the overlooked entanglement between faith, belonging, and schooling.
Drawing on archival research, personal narrative, and in-depth interviews with Hindu American families, Viswanathan uncovers how the public school has long been a stage for America’s encounters with the “other,” and how Hindu Americans are participating in and strengthening its democratic promise. Moving between historical analysis and glimpses of homes and classrooms, the book listens deeply to those who have rarely been heard, showing that the story of Hindus in American education is one of striving, dialogue, and contribution.
At once scholarly and accessible, Hindu at Heart offers a new way of understanding the Hindu American experience and beyond: the moral purpose of education itself—to listen to each other, act with integrity, and co-create a more pluralist and brave democracy.