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What does becoming American have to do with becoming religious? Many immigrants become more religious after coming to the United States. Taiwanese are no different. Like many Asian immigrants to the United States, Taiwanese frequently convert to Christianity after immigrating. But Americanization is more than simply a process of Christianization. Most Taiwanese American Buddhists also say they converted only after arriving in the United States even though Buddhism is a part of Taiwan's dominant religion. By examining the experiences of Christian and Buddhist Taiwanese Americans, Getting Saved in America tells "a story of how people become religious by becoming American, and how people become American by becoming religious." Carolyn Chen argues that many Taiwanese immigrants deal with the challenges of becoming American by becoming religious. Based on in-depth interviews with Taiwanese American Christians and Buddhists, and extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a Taiwanese Buddhist temple and a Taiwanese Christian church in Southern California, Getting Saved in America is the first book to compare how two religions influence the experiences of one immigrant group. By showing how religion transforms many immigrants into Americans, it sheds new light on the question of how immigrants become American.
Religion has played a crucial role in American immigration history as an institutional resource for migrants' social adaptation, as a map of meaning for interpreting immigration experiences, and as a continuous force for expanding the national ideal of pluralism. To explain these processes the editors of this volume brought together the perspectives of leading scholars of migration and religion. The resulting essays present salient patterns in American immigrants' religious lives, past and present. In comparing the religious experiences of Mexicans and Italians, Japanese and Koreans, Eastern European Jews and Arab Muslims, and African Americans and Haitians, the book clarifies how such processes as incorporation into existing religions, introduction of new faiths, conversion, and diversification have contributed to America's extraordinary religious diversity and add a comprehensive religious dimension to our understanding of America as a nation of immigrants.
Since its inception, the United States has defined itself as a nation of immigrants and a land of religious freedom. But following September 11, 2001 American openness to immigrants and openness to other beliefs have come into question. In a timely manner, Religion and Immigration provides comparative perspectives on Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Jews entering the American scene. Will Muslims seek and receive inclusion in ways similar to Catholics and Jews generations before? How will new immigrant populations influence and be influenced by current religious communities? How do overlapping identities of home country, language, class, and ethnicity affect immigrants' sense of their religion? How do the faithful retain their values in a new country of individualism and pluralism? How do religious institutions help immigrants with their physical needs as they are entering a new country? The contributors to Religion and Immigration approach these questions from the perspectives of theology, history, sociology, international studies, political science, and religious studies. A concluding chapter provides results from a pioneering study of immigrants and their religious affiliation. Leading scholars Haddad, Smith, and Esposito have created a valuable text for classes in history, religion or the social sciences or for anyone interested in questions of American religion and immigration.
Typically, scholars approach migrants' religions as a safeguard of cultural identity, something that connects migrants to their communities of origin. This ethnographic anthology challenges that position by reframing the religious experiences of migrants as a transformative force capable of refashioning narratives of displacement into journeys of spiritual awakening and missionary calling. These essays explore migrants' motivations in support of an argument that to travel inspires a search for new meaning in religion.
The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida’s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists’ sketches of the area in prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.
Gatherings in Diaspora brings together the latest chapters in the long-running chronicle of religion and immigration in the American experience. Today, as in the past, people migrating to the United States bring their religions with them, and their religious identities often mean more to them away from home, in their diaspora, than they did before. This book explores and analyzes the diverse religious communities of post-1965 diasporas: Christians, Hews, Muslims, Hindus, Rastafarians, and practitioners of Vodou, from countries such as China, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Iran, Jamaica, Korea, and Mexico. The contributors explore how, to a greater or lesser extent, immigrants and their offspring adapt their religious institutions to American conditions, often interacting with religious communities already established. The religious institutions they build, adapt, remodel, and adopt become worlds unto themselves, congregations, where new relations are forged within the community -- between men and women, parents and children, recent arrival and those longer settled.
African immigration to North America has been rapidly increasing. Yet, little has been written about this significant group of immigrants and the particular religious traditions that they are transplanting on our shores, as scholars continue largely to focus instead on immigrants from Europe and Asia. African Immigrant Religions in America focuses on new understandings and insights concerning the presence and relevance of African immigrant religious communities in the United States. It explores the profound significance of religion in the lives of immigrants and the relevance of these growing communities for U.S. social life. It describes key social and historical aspects of African immigrant religion in the U.S. and builds a conceptual framework for theory and analysis. The volume broadens our understandings of the ways in which new immigration is changing the face of Christianity in the U.S. and adds needed breadth to the study of the black church, incorporating the experiences of African immigrant religious communities in America.
Immigration and Faith is a comprehensive textbook for theology and religious studies courses that addresses migration to and within the United States and beyond.
New immigrants_those arriving since the Immigration Reform Act of 1965_have forever altered American culture and have been profoundly altered in turn. Although the religious congregations they form are often a nexus of their negotiation between the old and new, they have received little scholarly attention. Religion and the New Immigrants fills this gap. Growing out of the carefully designed Religion, Ethnicity and the New Immigration Research project, Religion and the New Immigrants combines in-depth studies of thirteen congregations in the Houston area with seven thematic essays looking across their diversity. The congregations range from Vietnamese Buddhist to Greek Orthodox, a Zoroastrian center to a multi-ethnic Assembly of God, presenting an astonishing array of ethnicity and religious practice. Common research questions and the common location of the congregations give the volume a unique comparative focus. Religion and the New Immigrants is an essential reference for scholars of immigration, ethnicity, and American religion.
Offering a theology of migration, Cruz reflects on the Christian vision of 'one bread, one body, one people' in view of the gifts and challenges of contemporary migration to Christian spirituality, mission, and inculturation and the need for reform of migration policies based on the experience of refugees, migrant women, and others.