An American University journalism class explores race and culture in the Metro area

Featured

Many paths to God: Challenge and change for South Asian religions in northern Virginia

| By Jessamine Price |

Vibha Chawla of Ashburn, Va., wonders how to explain Hinduism to her teenage son and daughter.

“They have a hundred questions,” she says. Although she grew up in India, she isn’t sure how to answer them. Hinduism doesn’t have creeds or pillars to summarize the faith, in contrast to Christianity or Islam. Understanding Hindu ideas takes study, even for those born and raised with the religion. So Chawla researches her kids’ questions in ways familiar to Americans of all faiths: “I Google. I call my Mom.”

Pandit Moti Lal Sharma, a priest at Rajdhani Mandir in Chantilly, Va., answers a question from Vibha Chawla of Ashburn in the community hall after dinner. / Photo by Jessamine Price

Chawla wears an elegant blue dress in an Indian style as she stakes out a table for her parents in the empty community hall at Rajdhani Mandir, a temple in Chantilly, Va. It’s a cool Saturday evening in mid-April. The prayer hall upstairs is busy with music and blessings for Mata Jagrans, a celebration of the Goddess Durga, just one of the many forms God takes in Hinduism. Priests and worshippers gather around a creamy, polished, life-size icon of Durga, a serene, smiling Goddess with a thousand arms, each grasping a weapon, riding a lion into battle to save the world.

In a few minutes, temple volunteers will serve a spicy vegetarian dinner to hundreds of worshippers. The tables in the community hall fill up quickly. A few families end up sitting cross-legged on the stage used for occasional cultural performances. Chawla, who has lived in the United States for 22 years, knows it will get crowded and is wise to claim a spot early for the sake of her elderly mother’s knees and back.

(more…)

Anacostia arts revival: Caribbean community rallies around Baltimore carnival

Models dressed in “mas” costumes wait on the stairs to dance in their carnival garb.   / Photo by Leigh Giangreco

| By Leigh Giangreco |

The beat of the Caribbean is back in D.C., though this time it’s not on Georgia Avenue. At a small house party in historic Anacostia, neighbors, friends, local politicians and even Caribbean diplomats gathered for a fundraiser to benefit local artist, Earl Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, a Trinidadian native, is designing the costumes for the Baltimore Caribbean Carnival this July. His house on Pleasant Street is part of a small block near Martin Luther King Boulevard attracting artists to the area. He has already brought life to this corner of Anacostia. At the 2012 Lumen8 festival local, a summer arts festival now held in Anacostia, Rodriguez repurposed a dilapidated billboard over a local restaurant into a colorful ode to the Anacostia river for the 2012. What was once a crumbling metal sign is now a work of art: three giant rainbow fish swim below a grassy stream.

The neighborhood is getting a jolt of creativity after what many saw as blight on the District.

Violence and a $210,000 debt from last year’s D.C. Caribbean Carnival prompted a merge with Baltimore’s this summer. Despite the location change, area artists such as Rodriguez are bringing communities within D.C. together to rally around the Caribbean community. Local students at the SEED school will work with Smith, creating the elaborate costumes.

(more…)

In Petworth, change is slow, leafy and green

| By Nathan Strauss and Rhys Heyden |

Melanie Cooper, a longtime employee at Healthy Bites, prepares bags for delivery. / Photo by Nathan Strauss.

As the slow tide of gentrification creeps northward along Georgia Avenue, the appearance of an organic food service, Healthy Bites, is a harbinger of the changing face of D.C.’s Petworth community.

Healthy Bites, much like its surrounding community, exists in an “in-between” state. According to ownership and employees, the service can operate only because it relies heavily on delivering to people of a higher socioeconomic status in different parts of the city and local suburbs.

At the same time, Healthy Bites has long-term, philosophical aspirations to “educate” Petworth about healthy food. Despite this, the neighborhood is not yet fully gentrified and cannot currently support businesses like Healthy Bites. However, residents acknowledge that the service is a pioneering gentrifying force, and a symbol of what is to come—and stay.

(more…)


Anacostia

Anacostia arts revival: Caribbean community rallies around Baltimore carnival

Models dressed in “mas” costumes wait on the stairs to dance in their carnival garb.  

More in Anacostia

Brookland

Mentoring and manhood: Rec center program serves as a safe haven for boys in Brookland

The Turkey Thicket rec center is an important part of the Brookland community in D.C. Andre Route le

More in Brookland

LeDroit Park/ Shaw

The Howard town-gown divide: Opinions vary widely, split along racial and economic lines

| By Jewel Edwards | Howard University, the black research institution located in Northwest D.C., ha

More in LeDroit Park/ Shaw

Petworth

In Petworth, change is slow, leafy and green

| By Nathan Strauss and Rhys Heyden | As the slow tide of gentrification creeps northward along Geor

More in Petworth

Silver Spring, Md.

Americanizing Ethiopia: Two perspectives on a changing community

| By Kenya Downs | Traveling north on Georgia Avenue into downtown Silver Spring is a short trip aro

More in Silver Spring, Md.