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120 7 Marriage Patterns in Immigrant Congregations implications for social distance and group identity The concept of “distance” as applied to human, as distinguished from spacial relations, has come into use among sociologists, in an attempt to reduce to something like measurable terms the grades and degrees of understanding and intimacy which characterize personal and social relations generally. —Robert Ezra Park (1924) The renowned Chicago School of sociology, born out of the nation’s first sociology department at the University of Chicago, established its reputation during the classical period of American immigration history. Robert Park published the article excerpted above in the year classical immigration came to a close with the passage of restrictive federal legislation. Among many research interests, Chicago School sociologists attempted to measure social distances between groups, including that between immigrant groups and mainstream American society. Beginning in the 1920s, Emory S. Bogardus, a graduate of the University of Chicago’s sociology department, quantified Park’s notion into a social distance scale that continues to exercise sociologists and others today, even when regarded circumspectly (Bogardus 1925a, 1925b, 1968; Lee et al. 1998; Lieberson and Waters 1988; Pagnini and Morgan 1990; Spickard 1989; Yu 2001).1 Intermarriage is often regarded as indicative of minimal or no social distance between groups. In the Bogardus scale, willingness to interact socially with members of another population group is arranged along a continuum from greatest distance (as fellow citizen) to least (as kin by marriage), the assumption being that there is no social intimacy closer than marriage. Scholars today study intermarriage rates as a barometer of immigrant assimilation into mainstream American society and a harbinger of shifting ethnic and racial group identities (Bean and Stevens 2003; Fu 2003; Jacoby 2004; Kibria 2002; Lee and Bean 2004; Lee et al. 1998; Pagnini and Morgan 1990; Saenz et al. 1995; Sanjek 1994; Spickard 1989; Waters 2000). Marriage Patterns 121 Scholarly investigation of religious factors underlying intermarriage patterns typically focuses on macro-level religious identities like Protestants, Catholics, and Jews (Herberg 1955; Kennedy 1944, 1952; Lieberson and Waters 1988). But more microlevel subreligious identities also matter when it comes to marriage. Not surprisingly, given that our data came from religious associations (i.e., congregations), we encountered widespread disapproval of marrying outside of one’s religious group. Only rarely did we encounter significant sentiment that the religious identity of a prospective spouse matters little in marriage considerations . For the most part our interviewees recognized religious identity as vitally important and worthy of preserving through marriage and childrearing practices. But immigrant group identity is never one dimensional. Religious identity is always intertwined with ethnic or racial identity in complex ways. In this chapter we examine the evolving complexity of identities in immigrant congregations as seen in marriage preferences and patterns. We are aware of other important topics surrounding immigrant family life, such as generational dynamics, extended family relations, spousal gender roles, and divorce, yet we consider (inter-)marriage patterns crucial to both the long-term group identities of recent immigrants and the emerging demographic landscape of American society. We recognize the speculative aspects of our analysis in this chapter, especially given the fact that the second generation in most of our research sites is just now reaching marriageable age. We necessarily draw extensively upon respondents’ personal opinions and attitudes here since the number of actual intermarriages in our sites remains small. Still, opinions reflect powerful motivations and norms and suggest large implications about future behavior. Evolving Immigrant Group Identity We begin with several assertions about immigrant group identity. First, immigrant groups tend to prefer maintaining their specific complex of Old World religious and ethnic/racial identities in the new American context. Hence, the usual emphasis on a narrowly endogamous marriage—marrying outside the group is like abandoning the immigrant’s transnational village.2 Discussing Italian immigrants in the classical period of American immigration, Robert Park (1955, 162) noted that an immigrant man was considered lost if he never returned to his homeland village or if he married “an American girl” or “an Italian of another town” living in America. Contemporary Chicago interviewees also expressed concern about the potential for confused identities among the offspring of exogamous unions. Second, immigrant groups experience social pressures against maintaining their specific complex of Old World religious and ethnic/racial identities in the new American context. “First generation—they usually marry within their group,” explained a white congregational leader at Maternity BVM Catholic [18.117.196.184...

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