Immigration and Religion in America Comparative and Historical Perspectives [Hardcover]

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.

"This book is particularly valuable for its comparative, historical perspective. It reminds us that today's developments have deep roots and that despite differences, there is much that unites the Asian American and Latino experience. An important contribution to the burgeoning literature on religion and immigration."
-—Peggy Levitt,author ofGod Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape