Religion and the New Immigrants

Abstract This book assesses the role of local worship communities — churches, mosques, temples, and others — in promoting civic engagement among recent immigrants to the United States. The product of a three-year study of immigrant worship communities in the Washington, D.C. area, the study looked at churches, mosques, temples, and other communities of immigrants from Korea, China, India, West Africa, the Muslim world, and El Salvador. The researchers surveyed 200 of these communities and studied twenty in depth. Communities vary widely in how much they build social capital, provide social services to immigrants, develop the civic skills of members, and shape immigrants' identities. Local leadership and group characteristics much more than ethnic origin or religious tradition shape the level and kind of civic engagement that the communities foster. Particularly, where leaders are civically engaged, they provide personal and organizational links to the wider American society and promote civic engagement by members. Homeland causes and a strong sense of religious and ethnic identity, far from alienating immigrants from American society, promote higher levels of civic engagement in immigrant communities.