The new immigrants coming to the United States and establishing ethnic congregations do not abandon religious ties in their home countries. Rather, as they communicate with family and friends left behind in their homelands, they influence religious structures and practices there. Religion Across Borders examines both personal and organizational networks that exist between members in U.S. immigrant religious communities and individuals and religious institutions left behind. Building upon Religion and the New Immigrants (2000)their previous study of immigrant religious communities in Houstonsociologists Ebaugh and Chafetz ask how religious remittances flow between home and host communities, how these interchanges affect religious practices in both settings, and how influences change over time as new immigrants become settled. The study's unique comparative perspective looks at differing faith groups (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist) from Argentina, Mexico, Guatamala, Vietnam and China. Data on ways in which historic, geographic, economic and religious factors influence transnational religious ties makes necessary reading for students of immigration, religion and anyone interested in the increasingly global aspects of American religion.
Chapter 1 Prologue: Lessons from American Immigrant Congregations
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 A Mexican Evangelical Church: The Santa Cena of The Luz Del Mundo Church
Chapter 4 An Argentinian Evangelical Church: Twilight of a Transnational Field?
Chapter 5 Maya Evangelical Congregations: Religion and the Process of Migration
6 Mexican Catholic Congregational Network: Catholicism and Transnational Networks
7 Vietnamese Buddhists and Catholics: Evolution of Remittances from Family to Faith
8 A Chinese Christian Church: Diverse Transnational Networks of a Houston Church
9 New York Chinese Protestants: Transnational Religious Networks among Fuzhou Immigrants
10 The Variety of Transnational Religious Networks
Helen Rose Ebaugh, Sociology Professor, University of Houston, received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975 with specialties in organizational sociology and the sociology of religion. In addition to four books, she has published numerous articles in scholarly journals. She has been a faculty member at the University of Houston since 1973 and routinely teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in sociological theory, the sociology of religion and world religions. Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Professor of Sociology, has been at the University of Houston since 1971. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1969. Her most recent publications include an edited Handbook on the Sociology of Gender (1999), a review of feminist theories in Annual Review of Sociology (1997), and a paper on feminist theory and social change in Current Perspectives in Social Theory (1999). A life-long interest in immigrants occasioned by the fact that all of her grandparents immigrated to the U.S., has finally found professional expression through joining Professor Ebaugh on this project.
