Immigration and Religion in America

Comparative and Historical Perspectives

Bibliographic Data

ID5889169
AuthorsR Melkonian-Hoover, Ruth M Melkonian-Hoover (Gordon College, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume51
Issue3
Pages545-547
Publication date2009-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Church and State (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-969X • E-ISSN: 2040-4867
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jcs/csp073
OpenAlexW2150653748
LanguageEN
Citations received18

This text represents a helpful effort to a further understanding of how religion “shape(s) the incorporation of immigrants” in America via historical and comparative perspectives. The editors' introductory chapters throughout the text are excellent, providing cohesion and systematic comparative insights often missing in edited volumes. In the first section, chapters by Richard Alba and Robert Orsi, Roberto Sagarena, and David Lopez compare the Catholic Church's substantial support of the incorporation of Italian immigrants into American society, primarily via education, with its more limited support for Mexican immigrants until the civil rights era. Even today, parochial educational offerings for the latter remain limited. Lopez asserts that the Church (and the state) could significantly contribute to Latinos' upward mobility through investments therein. The second section offers a comparison of the experiences of Japanese and Korean immigrants. According to Sharon Suh, second-generation Korean adherents of Buddhism tend to fall away, in part due to the limited institutional support provided by Buddhist temples and social pressure to convert to Christianity. Yet, as Lori Pierce et al. find, among Japanese and Korean immigrants in the United States before 1945, Christianity served more to reinforce racial-ethnic ties than to increase assimilation. Jane Iwamura considers the WWII internment of Japanese Americans as a defining civil religious moment, contending that those involved in modern day remembrances more fully identify with others experiencing racism (p. 145); yet she omits substantive data to confirm increased tolerance.

Buddhism · Christianity · Ethnic group · Immigration · Political science · Racism · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies

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