MILPITAS, CA - Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri, captivated a standing-room only audience of more than 600 people at the Hindu American Foundation annual Northern California gala dinner on Sept 21 at the India Community Center here. The dinner was attended by several local and state elected officials, and community and interfaith leaders, and marked the Foundation’s largest event in its 11 year history.
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Davuluri, who gave the evening’s keynote address, discussed her journey as the first ever Hindu and Indian American to win the Miss America contest, while describing her experiences growing up as a religious and ethnic minority.
“I remember the first time I even realized I was different in terms of my religion was when I was in elementary school,” said Davuluri. “A classmate of mine came up to me and said, ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’ and I said, ‘Well, no but I believe in God.’ And he said, ‘Well you’re going to hell.’ I went home and told this to my mother...And we had this conversation about religion and spirituality and how people believe in different things, but at the core of it, at the heart of it, all of us are one.”
The program also featured California State Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore, Nora Campos, and California State Senate Majority Leader, Ellen Corbett, both of whom spoke about the importance of education and the need for textbooks to accurately reflect the stories of diverse communities across the state.
The event celebrated many of HAF’s other achievements at the local and national level, and marked the first time the Foundation’s Northern California Chapter honored interfaith leaders with the 2014 HAF Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism.
The four awardees included Dr. Barbara McGraw, Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism and Professor of Social Ethics, Law and Public Life at Saint Mary’s College of California; Iftekhar Hai, President of the United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance; Girish Shah, Treasurer and Director of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council and Director of Carry the Vision; and Mervyn Danker, Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee San Francisco.
“I remember the first time I even realized I was different in terms of my religion was when I was in elementary school,” said Davuluri. “A classmate of mine came up to me and said, ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’ and I said, ‘Well, no but I believe in God.’ And he said, ‘Well you’re going to hell.’ I went home and told this to my mother...And we had this conversation about religion and spirituality and how people believe in different things, but at the core of it, at the heart of it, all of us are one.”
The program also featured California State Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore, Nora Campos, and California State Senate Majority Leader, Ellen Corbett, both of whom spoke about the importance of education and the need for textbooks to accurately reflect the stories of diverse communities across the state.
The event celebrated many of HAF’s other achievements at the local and national level, and marked the first time the Foundation’s Northern California Chapter honored interfaith leaders with the 2014 HAF Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism.
The four awardees included Dr. Barbara McGraw, Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism and Professor of Social Ethics, Law and Public Life at Saint Mary’s College of California; Iftekhar Hai, President of the United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance; Girish Shah, Treasurer and Director of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council and Director of Carry the Vision; and Mervyn Danker, Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee San Francisco.
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