God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape (review)

This comparative study of Pakistani, Irish, Hindu and Brazilian immigrants living in the Boston area reveals how these new immigrants are living their religion in transnational ways. When people cross nation-state borders to resettle in the United States they don’t usually leave their religion behind and adopt a new one. Rather, as Peggy Levitt’s research shows, they bring religion with them, and rely on it – in multiple ways – to craft new lives that span both their countries of origin and the United States. Along the way, they almost always adopt new identities and allegiances, but as Levitt argues, transnationally-lived religion becomes central to the organization and meaning of their lives.

There are many theoretical nuggets lurking in this book, and a key one that is sure to gain wide currency is “religious global citizenship.” With this metaphor, Levitt directs our attention to both the subjective aspects of religion as well as new institutional arrangements. People feel they belong to religions and that religions belongs to them (in the sense that faith becomes a crucial part of their identities and traditions). The lesson we learn is that neither religion nor religious immigrants remain neatly compartmentalized in nation-state boxes. Some immigrants continue to actively participate in homeland religious ceremonies – returning for sacred rites, worship and commemorations – while others relocate to their new destinations with their religious symbols, narratives and traditions, re-establishing those traditions in the new land. Another facet of migrant global religion includes the intricate institutional networks that develop, threading together clergy and churches and temples across national borders. Most compelling to Levitt are the strong feelings of belonging and shared responsibilities that emerge among global religious citizens.

The book is based on an extraordinarily ambitious research design, one that involved nearly 10 years of fieldwork in five countries. Peggy Levitt and her finely coordinated research team conducted interviews with 247 first-generation immigrants, and these interviews constitute the bulk of the data. Ethnographic observations, a short survey and U.S. Census data round out the picture. The religions and people chronicled here are diverse, including Hindus from Gujurat state of India, Muslims from Pakistan, mostly from Karachi, Protestant Brazilians from Valadares, and Irish Catholics who hail from the Inishowener Peninsula of Donegal. Because social network migration is a key mechanism of international migration, Levitt traveled to the locales from which the migrants she met in Boston originated. The migration, as well as the research strategy, is both global and local. The study participants exhibit geographical, linguistic, religious, social class and cultural diversity, but all seem to engage in a kind of religion that emphasizes tolerance and moderation.

A few observations on the style and presentation of the book: This is a very engagingly written book, one meant to reach a broad audience. One technique that Levitt uses to persuade her audience of the inherent compatibility between religious global citizenship and immigrant integration is that she anticipates the objections likely to be raised by nativist American readers who remain wary of anything other than total submission to religious-cultural assimilation. For example, Levitt will begin a paragraph with the phrase “Many Americans feel….”, and then she provides a compelling rejoinder based on research. She shows how it is possible, for example, to be simultaneously integrated into American public institutions and ancestral or global religious movements. Another organizational strategy designed to appeal to a wider audience is her focus on individual interviewees throughout the chapters, while all scholarly references are tucked in the endnotes. But the endnotes are not to be missed! They provide a rich mine, an erudite discussion of major debates and summaries of key texts, making these a good read for anyone, but especially anyone who wants to quickly get up to speed on the scholarly literature on globalization, immigration and religion.

This book, based on years of careful, rigorous field work in Boston and in...