Apart from a few scattered articles, very little research has been published in
English about the history, development, and practice of Buddhism by Thai
immigrants and their (often native-born) children in America.13 Paul Numrich’s
(1996) important book Old Wisdom in the New World: Americanization in Two
Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples, presents preliminary information about
fifty-five Thai Buddhist temples in the United States and detailed information
about the history and development of one temple, Wat Dhammaram, in Chicago,
Illinois. We build on this research primarily by examining the (few) primary written
sources available about Thai Buddhism in America and by gathering detailed
information through telephone interviews, personal visits, and web pages of all of
the Thai Buddhist temples in the United States we could contact.
To gather information about the complete population of Thai