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First Buddhists arrive with Chinese immigrants moving to California during the gold rush.
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The Sze Yap Company established the first Buddhist temple in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
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Commodore Perry forces Japan to open its ports to U.S. trade, expanding contact between Japan and America.
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Japanese begin migrating to the Kingdom of Hawaii to work on plantations.
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Eight Buddhist temples existed in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
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Crowds attacked Chinese laundries in San Francisco.
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Japanese immigrant workers began replacing Chinese workers and initially settled in Hawaii.
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Chinese Exclusion Act passed to prevent Chinese laborers from competing for mining jobs with American workers.
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25 Chinese are lynched in Rock Creek, Wyoming
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The first Japanese Buddhist temple was established in Hawaii.
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The U.S. added Hawaii. So Japanese Buddhists begin migrating to the U.S.
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A world Buddhist conference was convened in San Francisco by the Jodo Shinshu Mission of North America.
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Asian Exclusion Act passed that stopped Asian immigration and denied citizenship to Asians in the U.S.
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Some American soldiers received Zen Buddhism training and there was interest in Zen.
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The Buddhist Churches of America established the Buddhist Studies Center in Berkeley to train clergy for BCA.
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Small numbers of Tibetan Buddhists arrived following the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the exile of the Dalai Lama.
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The first Theravada temple in the U.S., Washington Buddhist Vihara was established in Washington, D.C.
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Chogyam Trungpa established the Tibetan Buddhist temple, Tail of the Tiger, in Vermont.
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130,000 Vietnamese refugees arrive in the U.S.
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1,000 Tibetan Buddhists resettled in the U.S.
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American celebrities become Buddhist. Richard Gere and Steven Segal join.
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Increase in the number of Buddhist groups by both Asian and American practitioners
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Current estimates of the Buddhist population in the U.S. range from 1-4 million