Southeast Asians flock to Fort Wayne temples, creating tensions with neighbors, community.
Christopher Maag / New York Times
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- The newest Buddhist temple here is a vinyl-sided house on the edge of the prairie. Worship services are so popular that people who arrive late must squeeze into the two-car garage, kneel on the concrete floor and pray between a golden statue of a smiling Buddha and a black Craftsman riding lawnmower.
"For a house, it's very big, but for a temple, it's very small," said Dr. Khin Oo, a physician and president of Dhammarekkhita, a Burmese temple and monastery here.
Fort Wayne, a city of 248,000 people and 606 Christian churches, is in the midst of a Buddhist temple boom. Southeast Asians have opened six temples here in the past seven years, including one for Laotians, two for Burmese and two for Mon, a Burmese ethnic group.
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