Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (review)

The Religion, Ethnicity and New Immigrants Research (RENIR) project in Houston (which provided the data for this book) was the first of the seven Gateway projects funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. As such, this book is a trailblazer in its attempt to systematically study religious congregations belonging to very different religions and groups. Using common protocols and interview schedules, team members conducted field-research-based studies of thirteen congregations: two Buddhist temples (one Vietnamese and the other Chinese), four "ethnic" Protestant churches (Chinese, Korean, Mexican, and Argentinian), one multi-ethnic Protestant church, one Mexican Catholic church, one multi-ethnic Catholic church, a predominantly Pakistani mosque, a South Indian Hindu temple, and a Zoroastrian Center.

After an introductory section, the dense, nearly 500-page book is divided into two parts, the first presenting case studies from each of the thirteen congregations, and the second comprising seven chapters discussing different thematic issues undergirding all the studies. Each of the case study chapters is written by the director of the team that conducted research in that particular congregation. Ebaugh and Chafetz indicate that in all but one case, this individual was an "insider," in terms of ethnicity, religion, or both, a factor that undoubtedly contributes to the mastery over the material and the nuanced understanding of the congregation that most chapters convey.

Each of the case study chapters follows the same eleven-section format, beginning with the history and membership characteristics of the congregation, its religious practices and organizational structure, then moving into a discussion of social issues such as its ethnic and religious identity, its social activities and transnational linkages, and finally turning to sections dealing with women and the second generation. In some cases the authors seemed to feel constrained by this format, but for the most part, the case study chapters manage to combine a discussion of the required issues with a focus on the unique or salient aspects of the congregation.

We learn for instance that the leaders of both of the Buddhist temples (the Vietnamese and the Chinese) were adapting to the U.S. context by focusing on explicating the "meaning" of Buddhist doctrines (instead of the traditional emphasis on chanting and rituals) in order to retain the allegiance of their congregants and to attract Anglos. In this context, Yang notes that the English version of the Buddhist "commitment" vow of the Chinese Buddhist temple was quite different from the Chinese in that the English version did not require the adherent to renounce allegiance to other religions in order to become a Buddhist.

Sullivan brings out the importance of domestic religion in the lives of Mexican Catholic immigrants from largely rural areas of Mexico and poignantly describes the alienation of the members from the formal structure and practices of the Catholic church in Houston and its Anglo clergy. Kwon pays a lot of attention to the second generation in her chapter on the Korean church, focusing in particular on how their experiences of racial marginality initially led them to reject their ethnic group and church, but eventually brought them back, with a renewed appreciation of their cultural heritage.

Both Sullivan and Dorsey provide us with sensitive descriptions of interracial and interethnic tensions at the two multi-ethnic churches included in the study — the St. Catherine's Catholic Church (which as a consequence had become a church "composed of a series of parallel congregations") and at the more integrated Southwest Assembly of God. Other chapters also elude to internal schisms: between the dominant Pakistanis and the minority Arabs in the mosque, between the newcomers from Greece and the second and third generations in the Greek Orthodox church, and between the "traditionalists" and the "progressives" at the Zoroastrian Center. Badr and Rustomji also make clear that both the Muslims and the Zoroastrians of Houston have to negotiate between the...