Immigrant Faiths

In defiance of the perception that religion is not important to immigrants to the US, the contributors of these 11 articles describe how religious beliefs and practices are central to the lives of immigrants and shape their identity and civic behavior. Their topics include a comparison of the obvious, the emergent, and the still unknown in immigration and religion; race, religion, and evangelical nationalism in American Baptist home missions late in the nineteenth century; the influence of one particular immigrant, Charles "Sweet Daddy" Grace, and his very particular church; ritual transformations in Okinawan immigrant communities; a comparison of Indian Hindus and Korean Protestants in the US; changing religious practices amongst Cambodian immigrants; religion and transnational migration in the New Chinatown; Protestantism and Vodou; hybridization amongst Mexicans in the new South; and how studies of religion inform migration studies. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Karen I. Leonard is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. Alex Stepick is professor of anthropology and sociology and the director of the Immigration and Ethnicity Institute, Florida International University in Miami. Manuel A. Vasquez is associate professor of religion, University of Florida. Jennifer Holdaway is program officer for the International Migration Program at the Social Science Research Council.