Moving west, Desis diversify rural Jersey

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Nestled within the many Baptist churches of Flemington is one of New Jersey’s newest mosques, Masjid Ar-Rayyan, the only Muslim place of worship in Hunterdon County. 

The building, which opened to the public in October, shines light on the growing diversity of New Jersey's fourth least diverse county. Over the past two decades, the South Asian community in particular has grown in Hunterdon County, which is situated in western New Jersey and is a historically rural area that is becoming more suburbanized. Recent years have seen the opening of two Desi restaurants, an Indian grocery store, a halal meat shop and the Maha Swami Seva Temple, which opened in 2021.

The mosque took over 15 years to build. As more Muslims moved to the county, increased funding and leadership helped them break ground on construction in 2015. Now, the community has a fully operational mosque and school for Muslim youth in the area. Their religious programs include daily prayer, Friday special services, holiday services, grade-specific education and youth groups.

“When I first moved here in 2004, we started off with about 10 families coming to pray in an old barn. Now, we have a full running mosque with 600 to 700 people showing up for our Eid service,” said Kamran Ozair, a previous board member of the Islamic Center of Hunterdon County.

Muslims aren’t the only ones moving to the area. Drawn to the open land, new developments and good schools, more families of color — including people who identify as Black, Hispanic and Asian American — have moved to the region in the past decade. According to Census data from 2023, the Asian population in the county has grown to 5%, making Asians the second largest ethnic group in Hunterdon.

Jaya Thiyagarajan, who moved to Flemington, one of the larger towns in the county, five years ago, doesn’t mind that there are fewer Desis in the area than in more concentrated parts of the state.

“We actually liked that Flemington was less congested,” Thiyagarajan said. “It was nice to be in an area with better air quality and open space, away from all of the traffic, even if that meant we were farther away from an Indian grocery store.”

Situated west of more populated areas such as Middlesex County, Hunterdon County has seen a recent construction boom of houses on big lots. Flemington is being redeveloped with townhouses, apartments and new retail space.

Longtime residents are welcoming of the growing diversity. Lorraine Neville, who has lived in Flemington most of her life, said, “I went from growing up not having a single person of color in my classes to my daughter having a pretty diverse friend group.”

“Not everyone was as accepting about the growing diversity and development at first, but I think generally people are happy to see the town grow,” Neville added.

Annual Diwali and Eid parties

In 2018, a group of Indian families who noticed the growth in the community launched a WhatsApp group called Hunterdon Indian Family Association (HIFA). Today, there are more than 250 members of the group. Through the HIFA group chat, families host annual Diwali and Eid parties.

“It was people in the community that took the initiative and created these big gatherings for the rest of us,” said Nithya Nalluri, 22, who grew up in Flemington and whose family is from South India. “I grew up being the only person of color in most of my classes [in elementary school] to having a friend group in high school with only people of color…. There’s a real shift in the demographics of the town that just keeps going.”

The mosque is a sign of further expansion of the community. It was built across from a housing development by Toll Brothers, where many South Asian families have moved in recent years. 

“The building of the mosque was a big reason we moved into this community,” said Irfan Munshi, a Gujarati Muslim in the housing development. “The proximity to the mosque allows us to attend a mosque for most of the five prayers of the day, which was a big pull for us.”

Selena Patel is a reporting fellow for Central Desi.

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