Based on ethnographic research by an interdisciplinary team of
scholars and activists, "Religion at the Corner of Bliss and
Nirvana" illuminates the role that religion plays in the civic and
political experiences of new migrants in the United States. By
bringing innovative questions and theoretical frameworks to bear on
the experiences of Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, Salvadoran, and
Vietnamese migrants, the contributors demonstrate how groups and
individuals negotiate multiple religious, cultural, and national
identities, and how religious faiths are transformed through
migration. Taken together, their essays show that migrants'
religious lives are much more than replications of home in a new
land. They reflect a process of adaptation to new physical and
cultural environments, and an ongoing synthesis of cultural
elements from the migrants' countries of origin and the United
States.
As they conducted research, the contributors not only visited
churches and temples but also single-room-occupancy hotels,
brothels, tattoo-removal clinics, and the streets of San Francisco,
El Salvador, Mexico, and Vietnam. Their essays include an
exploration of how faith-based organizations can help LGBT migrants
surmount legal and social complexities, an examination of
transgendered sex workers' relationship with the unofficial saint
Santisima Muerte, a comparison of how a Presbyterian mission and a
Buddhist temple in San Francisco help Chinese immigrants to
acculturate, and an analysis of the transformation of baptismal
rites performed by Mayan migrants. The voices of gang members,
Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhist nuns, members of Pentecostal
churches, and many others animate this collection. In the process
of giving voice to these communities, the contributors interrogate
theories about acculturation, class, political and social capital,
gender and sexuality, the sociology of religion, transnationalism,
and globalization. The collection includes twenty-one photographs
by Jerry Berndt.
"Contributors." Luis Enrique Bazan, Kevin M. Chun, Hien Duc Do,
Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola, Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Sarah
Horton, Cymene Howe, Mimi Khuc, Jonathan H. X. Lee, Lois Ann
Lorentzen, Andrea Maison, Dennis Marzan, Rosalina Mira, Claudine
del Rosario, Susanna Zaraysky
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