On a Saturday morning in Kendall Park, the line at the Patel Brothers stretches past the okra and the curry leaves, and the conversations in the aisles run in Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. This is the everyday texture of the Indians in South Brunswick, a central New Jersey township where nearly half the residents are now of Asian descent and where, two decades ago, the census already ranked the place among the most Indian American communities in the country.
The Place
South Brunswick is a township of roughly 49,000 people in Middlesex County, stitched together from a handful of older hamlets: Monmouth Junction, Kendall Park, Dayton, Kingston and Deans. It sits in the seam of central New Jersey, with U.S. Route 1 along one edge, Route 27 cutting through the middle, and the New Jersey Turnpike’s Exit 8A just outside its borders.
That location is the whole story. The township is within easy reach of the pharmaceutical and finance corridors around Princeton, the warehouses of the 8A logistics belt, and the established Indian commercial districts of Edison and Iselin to the north.
It was farmland for most of its history. The transformation into one of New Jersey’s most Asian suburbs happened, in demographic terms, almost overnight.
What makes South Brunswick distinctive is that it is not a single downtown but a scattering of hamlets that grew into one township. There is no Oak Tree Road here, no obvious commercial spine to point a visitor toward. The Indian presence is instead diffused through subdivisions, strip plazas and school catchments, which is exactly why it reads as a place to live rather than a place to visit.
How It Became Indian
South Brunswick Township was incorporated in 1798, carved out of the older township of New Brunswick. For most of the next two centuries it was a quiet agricultural place of grain fields and mill streams, its growth slow and its character rural.
The change began when the New Jersey Turnpike opened Interchange 8A and turned the southeastern corner of the township into an industrial and distribution zone. Roads, jobs and new housing followed, and the farmland started giving way to subdivisions.
The 1965 door and the central Jersey draw
The deeper cause was federal. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the national-origin quotas that had effectively closed America to Indian migrants. In its place came a system favouring skilled professionals and family reunification, and a generation of Indian engineers, doctors and scientists began arriving.
New Jersey was a natural landing point. The state’s pharmaceutical industry, its proximity to New York, and its strong public schools pulled Indian families toward the central counties. By the 1980s and 1990s, the established South Asian shopping district on Oak Tree Road in nearby Edison had become the commercial heart of the region, and the surrounding towns absorbed the families who shopped there.
The first arrivals to central Jersey often settled in Edison and Iselin themselves, near the shops and the temples. South Brunswick came a step later in the family arc: the town you moved to once the down payment was saved, the children were school age, and the priority shifted from convenience to a good district and a bigger house. The township’s housing stock, much of it built in the suburban boom around Interchange 8A, was ready for exactly that demand.
The professional pipeline
South Brunswick’s particular appeal was a combination of new, affordable family housing and a school district with a serious reputation. The township filled with pharmaceutical scientists, IT consultants and finance professionals, many of them working at Princeton-area research campuses or commuting up the Turnpike.
The work was close at hand. The Princeton Forrestal Center and the office parks of nearby Plainsboro held pharmaceutical, biotechnology and finance employers, while the 8A logistics belt grew into one of the busiest warehouse markets in the country. A South Brunswick household might pair a research scientist at a Princeton-area lab with an IT consultant rotating through contracts in Manhattan, the Turnpike and Route 1 making both commutes possible from the same driveway.
The numbers tell the speed of it. As of the 2000 census, 10.48 percent of South Brunswick’s residents identified as being of Indian American ancestry, a figure that ranked the township seventh among all municipalities in the United States.
From a share to a majority culture
What began as a notable minority became, over the following twenty years, the dominant thread of township life. By the 2020 census, Asian residents made up roughly 48 percent of South Brunswick, the single largest group, ahead of white residents at about 35 percent.
The shift was visible everywhere: in the grocery anchors along Route 27, in the temples that opened on quiet residential roads, in the demographics of the schools. South Brunswick had become one of the towns that families on Oak Tree Road moved to once they could afford a house and a good district.
It was also part of a wider central Jersey constellation. South Brunswick sits among a cluster of heavily Indian suburbs, each with its own character, that together form one of the densest concentrations of Indian Americans anywhere in the country. The township is the residential counterpart to the commercial intensity of the Indian community in Edison just up Route 1.
The Landmarks
Shree Swaminarayan Hindu Temple (Vadtal Dham), 329 Culver Road, Monmouth Junction. A Swaminarayan mandir tucked into a residential corner of the township, it anchors the daily religious life of one of South Brunswick’s Gujarati communities. Its darshan schedule and festival calendar mark the rhythm of the year for the families nearby.
Patel Brothers, Route 27, Kendall Park. The Indian grocery chain’s South Brunswick store is the kind of place where a week’s cooking gets planned in the aisles. Curry leaves, fresh paneer, sacks of basmati and the full wall of spice tins make it a regional draw, not just a neighbourhood shop.
Delight Big Bazaar, 2058 U.S. Route 130, Monmouth Junction. A sprawling Indian grocer stocking fresh vegetables, ready-mix spices, snacks and ready-to-eat meals, it is one of several South Asian supermarkets that have made Route 130 and Route 27 a corridor of familiar food.
Rasoi, 3793 U.S. Highway 1, Monmouth Junction. Known for its banquet halls as much as its kitchen, Rasoi is where engagement parties, sangeets and wedding receptions happen, the place a South Brunswick family books when the guest list runs into the hundreds.
South Brunswick High School, Monmouth Junction. A National Blue Ribbon School whose student body is now roughly 63 percent Asian, it is the institution that draws many Indian families to the township in the first place. Its science fairs, spelling teams and music programmes reflect the families who fill its halls.
BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, 112 North Main Street, Robbinsville. A short drive south in Mercer County, the largest Hindu temple in the United States opened its marble mandir in 2023. For South Brunswick’s Hindu families it is the grand pilgrimage temple, the place for the big festivals and the visiting relatives.
Oak Tree Road, Edison and Iselin. Not in the township, but inseparable from it. The 1.5-mile strip of sari shops, sweet stalls and restaurants is the largest Indian business district in the country, and its Diwali switch-on and August India Day Parade are the calendar’s great public moments for the whole region.
Where They Came From
The Indians of South Brunswick are not from one place in India, and that variety is the point. The grocery aisles and temple notice boards carry Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Punjabi and Malayalam, a cross-section of the post-1965 skilled migration.
Gujarati families, many of them tied to the Swaminarayan tradition, form one large strand, visible in the mandirs and the sweet shops. South Indian families, drawn heavily into IT and pharmaceutical work, form another, with their own restaurants and temple traditions.
What they share is the professional route in. These were overwhelmingly arrivals on skilled-worker and student visas, or the families who followed them, people who came for the laboratories around Princeton, the IT consultancies, and the finance jobs within commuting distance. The wealth of the township, with a median household income above 150,000 dollars, reflects that origin.
It is a migration of degrees and references rather than of villages moving wholesale, which gives South Brunswick a different texture from an older immigrant enclave. Neighbours may have grown up a thousand miles apart in India and met for the first time on a cul-de-sac in Kendall Park, brought together less by a shared hometown than by a shared profession and a shared ambition for their children. The common language of the place is often the workplace and the school, as much as any single mother tongue.
South Brunswick Today
Today South Brunswick is a town where being Indian is unremarkable, woven into the ordinary. The ShopRite carries an Indian aisle that runs deep, the school calendar quietly works around Diwali, and the township’s commercial corridors are lined with grocers, sweet shops and restaurants that serve the community directly.
It is also a comfortable, affluent suburb by any measure, with a low poverty rate and a school district that families across central Jersey compete to get into. The second generation, raised here, moves easily between the mandir on Culver Road and the AP classrooms at the high school.
The township is best understood as part of a larger map. It sits in close conversation with the Indian community in East Brunswick next door, with the Indians of Plainsboro toward Princeton, and with the older suburban Indian enclaves around Bridgewater and Princeton. Together they form a belt of central Jersey towns that, for a great many Indian American families, simply means home.
Frequently Asked Questions
How large is the Indian community in South Brunswick, New Jersey?
Asian residents make up roughly 48 percent of South Brunswick’s population of about 49,000, the largest single group in the township. Indian Americans are a major part of that, and as far back as the 2000 census the township ranked seventh in the nation for its share of Indian American residents.
Why did so many Indian families settle in South Brunswick?
The combination of new family housing, strong public schools, and proximity to the pharmaceutical and IT jobs of central New Jersey drew skilled Indian professionals after the 1965 immigration reforms. Its closeness to the established Indian district on Oak Tree Road in Edison made it a natural place to put down roots.
Where do Indians in South Brunswick shop and eat?
Indian grocers cluster along Route 27 and Route 130, including a Patel Brothers in Kendall Park and Delight Big Bazaar in Monmouth Junction. For restaurants and large celebrations, venues such as Rasoi on Route 1 serve the community, and Edison’s Oak Tree Road is a short drive away.
Are there Hindu temples near South Brunswick?
Yes. The Shree Swaminarayan Hindu Temple on Culver Road in Monmouth Junction serves the local community, and the enormous BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in nearby Robbinsville, the largest Hindu temple in the United States, opened its marble mandir in 2023.
How good are the schools in South Brunswick?
South Brunswick High School is a National Blue Ribbon School and consistently ranks among New Jersey’s stronger public high schools. Its student body is now roughly 63 percent Asian, a reflection of the Indian and broader Asian families the district has drawn.
How does South Brunswick relate to Edison’s Little India?
South Brunswick is the residential complement to the commercial hub on Oak Tree Road. Many Indian families shop, dine and celebrate festivals like Diwali in Edison and Iselin, then drive home to the quieter, family-oriented streets of South Brunswick.
If your family’s story passed through South Brunswick, or any of the places Indians have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From a village in Gujarat or a city in Andhra Pradesh, to a house off Route 27 and a seat in a Blue Ribbon classroom, to wherever you are now.