“youKnow, Abraham Wm Really
the First Immigrant”: Religion and
TrunsnutiondMi‘ation
Peggy Levitt
Wellesley Collegeand Harvard University
The purpose of this article is to summarize what we know about the role
that religion plays in transnational migration and to outline a strategy
for further research in this area. While migration scholars now generally
acknowledge the salience of migrants’ economic, social, and political
transnational activities, we have largely overlooked the ways in which
religious identities and practices also enable migrants to sustain memberships
in multiple locations. My goals in this article are threefold. First,
I provide a brief overview of related bodies of work on global, diasporic
and immigrant religion and differentiate them from studies of migrants’
transnational religious practices. Second, I selectively summarize what
we have learned about the role of religion in transnational migration
from prior research. Finally, I propose an approach to future research on
these questions.’
GLOBAL,DIASPORICAND TRANSNATIONALRELIGION VS.
THE RELIGIOUS PRACTICES OF TRANSNATIONAL
MIGRANTS - WHATIS THE CONNECTION?
The study of world or global religions has a long history. Much of this work
grew out of the West’s attempt to make senseof non-Christian or Eastern religions.
With the exception of research on the Catholic Church, most of these
studies focus on specific religious traditions in a single setting rather than on
‘My thanks to Josh DeWind, John Eade, Sarah Mahler, Manuel Vhqua, and an anonymous
reviewer for their insightfulcommentson earlierdraftsof this paper. The names of respondents
are all pseudonyms. My focus is on the United Statesbecause, to the best of my knowledge, no
systematicattempt has been made to summarizethe scholarshipon the transnational religious
practicesof migrants to this region. In addition, much of the literatureon the religious lives of
North American and European migrants focuses primarily on the receiving country (ie.,Metcalf,
1996; Clarke,Peach, and Vertovec 1990;Vertovec and Peach, 1997; Ebaugh and Chafetz,
2002; Warner and Wittner, 1998; and Schiffiuer, 1988. Selective notable exceptions include
Gardner, 1995;Huwelmeier,2001; Eickelmanand Piscatori, 1990; and Sahin,2001). By purposely
narrowingmy focus, I do not wish to suggest that Europeanand U.S. scholarship should
be considered separately. In fact, one goal of the conference that produced this volume was to
explorethe continuitiesand discontinuitiesbetween the two.
0 2003 by the Center for MigrationStudies of New York. All rights reserved.
0198-9183/03/3703.0143
IMR Volume 37 Number 3 (Fall 2003):847-873 847
848 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION&VIEW
the cross-border connections that like communities share. Recent work on
global religions brings to light the ways in which they create international
connections that engender universal identities. Because, as Beyer (2001)
argues, religion is a global societal system as transnational in its operation as
the economy or the nation-state, it is no surprise that migrants use religious
institutions to live their transnational lives. Religion and, in particular, religious
movements operating in broad geographic contexts, engage in increasingly
homogenized forms of worship and organization creating global communities
that locals then join. Followers can choose from an array of rnembership
options which reach far beyond their communities and cultures and
transform local religious life (Van Dijk, 1997).
A second body of work concerns religion’s role in heightened globalization.
These researchers debate whether religion functions as a discrete,
homogenizing force in its own right or if it is an arena within which individuals
assert particularistic, localized identities in the face of globalization.
Neo-institutionalists, such as John Meyer and his colleagues (1997), describe
globally-diffused models of cultural, political and economic organization
which limit the construction of difference. In contrast, Robertson (1991)
argues that globalization allows for greater religious diversity because individuals
construct local religious identities in relation to the world as a whole
rather than in response to their small corner of it.
Studies of diasporic religion or religion in the diaspora grew out of
heightened scholarly interest in diasporas in general. This work responds to
the widespread recognition that social, economic and political life increasingly
transcend national borders and cultures and that individuals sustain multiple
identities and loyalties and create culture using elements from various
settings (Cohen, 1999). Notions of diaspora and diasporic religion have
played a more central role in European scholarship than they have in the
United States.2The distinct intellectual traditions these conversations build
upon partially explains this difference. The Birmingham School, for example,
explores identity construction and the role of consciousness and subcultures
in encouraging collective solidarity at the social margins. Postcolonial
studies, with its emphasis on the continuing legacy of empire, has also strongly
influenced diaspora studies. These explore how discursive practices and
identities are constructed and imagined during the colonial, national and
post-colonial periods. While this work generallytells us a lot about the transZExceptionsare
US.-based scholars of diaspora and postcolonialism such as Kachig Tololyan,
James Clifford, and Arjun Appadurai who are also important contributors to these debates.
RELIGIONAND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 849
formation of religious life in the immigrant context, it has less to say about
the ways in which migration continues to transform sending-country life. It
tends to treat migrant and nonmigrant religious life as discrete entities rather
than as occurring within the same transnational social field and influencing
each other.
In contrast, studies of transnational migration are largely an American
product that are, in part, intended to counterbalance race and ethnic and
immigration scholarship’s focus on immigrant incorporation. These
researchers seek to challenge conventional wisdom about immigrant political
and economic integration by demonstrating that individuals stay connected
to their host communities even as they put down roots in the United States.
The role that religion plays in enabling transnational membership has only
recently begun to be taken into account. For instance, Rudolph and Piscatori’s
TransnationalReligion and Fading States (1997), one of the few books
employing a vocabulary of transnational religion, has little to do with immigration.
Instead, “transnational” is used to capture the ways in which global
or world religions create a transnational civil society that challenges nationstates
and security interests as they have been traditionally understood (Eickelman,
1997; Levine and Stoll, 1997) Another set of articles documents the
macro-level connections between global religious actors that cross national
boundaries (Baker, 1997; Della Cava, 1997).
Research on the religious practices of transnational migrants are connected
to the literature on global and diasporic religion because transnational
migration households, congregationsand communities are siteswhere diasporic,
global and transnational religions are created. The hybridized or creolized
religious beliefs and practices that the migration experience gives rise
to emergewhere local and global religious influences converge. Global religious
institutions shape the transnational migration experience at the same
time that migrants chip away at and recreate global religions by making
them local and then starting the process anew. Transnational migrants bring
particular incarnations of global religion with them, create new forms by
combining what they bring with what they encounter, and then reintroduce
these ideas, practices, identities, and socialcapital - or what I call social remittances
- back to their sending communities (Levitt, 1999). Furthermore,
migrant religious institutions are also sites where globally-diffused models of
social organization and local responses come together to produce new mixes
of religious beliefs and practices. The study of transnational migration and
religion, therefore, provides an empiricalwindow onto one way in which religious
globalization actually gets done.
850 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONb W E W
One of the reasons the connections between these bodies of work have
been underdeveloped in much of the literature is that the levels, scope and
sites of transnational migration and their position within the global arena
have not been well specified. Let me suggest one mapping of this terrain.
My comments are summarized in Table 1.
TABLE 1
L m u AND COMPONENTSOF THE TRANSNATIONALRELIGIOUSFIELD
1. Individual transnational religious practices, including such things as formal and informal devotional
practices enacted alone or in groups and in popular and institutionalized settings, tithing
or periodic contributionsto home-country religious groups, fundraising, hosting visiting religious
leaders, consulting home-country religious leaders, and pilgrimages. Both the objective
and subjectivedimensions of the religious experiencemust be taken into account.
The organizational contexts in which transnational migrants enact their religious lives.
The ties benveen local transnational organizations and their host and home-country regional,
national, and international counterparts.
The role of global culture and institutions.
2.
3.
4. The role of states.
5.
Transnational migrants are individuals who live aspects of their social, economic
and political lives in at least two settings. They establish themselves in
their host countries while they continue to earn money, vote and pray in their
countries of origin. In certain settings, the impact of these activities is felt
primarily by those who actually move, while in others their strength and
scope is so powerful and widespread that aspects of nonmigrants’ lives are
enacted transnationally as well. Some migrants participate in transnational
activities on a regular basis while others do so only occasionally, in response
to a crisis or special event. Some migrants engage in a wide range of economic,
social and political transnational practices, while others confine their
activitiesto a single arena of transnational activism. They have business interests
in their sending communities but belong to religious organizations and
participate in political activities that firmly locate them in the countries where
they now reside (Levitt, 2OOIa).
Some migrants participate in
practices directed at local, bounded communities in their home and host
countries, while the transnational practices in which others engage reinforce
their membership in the sending country as a whole. For example, Dominican
migration to the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston from the sending
community of Miraflores created a transnational village to which nonmigrants
and migrants belonged. Many of the economic, social and political
transnational activities in which these individuals participated were
directed toward these local sites (Levitt, 2001b). In contrast, other migrants
The targets of these activities also vary.
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 851
engage in transnational practices which attest to their continued membership
in the broader sending nation. When Irish Catholic migrants from the
Inishowen Peninsula, who have settled in Boston, attend church and receive
services from the Irish-government-supported Irish Pastoral Center, these
activities do more to reinforce their ties to the broader nation of Ireland than
to specific local settings.
One way that migrants stay connected to their sending communities is
through transnational religious practices. These practices exhibit the same
variations in form, intensity, target and scope that I have described. They are
also reinforced by and give rise to religious organizations that may, in turn,
assume transnational properties of their own. For example, some migrants
sustain long-term, long-distance memberships in the religious organizations
to which they belonged prior to migration. They still make significantfinancial
contributions to these groups, raise funds to support their activities,host
visiting religious leaders, seek long-distance spiritual and practical guidance
from them, participate in worship and cultural events during return visits,
and are the subject of nonmigrants’ prayers in their absence. Other migrants
participate in religious pilgrimages, worship particular saints or deities, or
engage in informal, popular religious practices that affirm their continued
attachments to a particular sending-country group or place.
Transnational religious identities and practices have both objective and
subjective dimensions. The unobservable dimensions of religious life have
often been given short shrift because the analytical tools we have to study
them are undeveloped and undervalued. Religion plays a critical role in identity
construction, meaning making, and value formation. Migrants also use
religion to create alternative allegiancesand places of belonging. The ways in
which memory and imagination are used to create transnational identities
must be taken into account.
The transnational religious practices of individuals are often reinforced
by the organizational contexts within which they take place. For example,
migrants may belong to host-country religious institutions that have formal
ties to a home-country “sister congregation.” They may belong to a group
that functions as a franchiseor chapter of a sending-country group that is regularly
supervised and funded by home-country leaders. Or, the denomination
that they belong to may form part of a worldwide religious institution
that accepts them as members wherever they are.
To understand the role of religion in transnational migration, then, we
must build from the ground up. We need to start by examining the ways in
852 INTERNATIONALMIGRATIONREVIEW
which ordinary individuals live their everyday religious lives across borders,
explore the ways in which these activities influence their continued sending
and receiving-country membership, and analyze the relationship between
cross-border religious membership and other kinds of transnational belonging.
We need to understand what difference it makes for sending and receiving-country
communities when migrants express their continued allegiances
through religious rather than ethnic or political arenas. We need to explore
these changes in both the home and host-country contexts and observe the
ways in which they iterativelytransform one another over time.
Research on the religious lives of transnational migrants must also be
concerned with how local sending and receiving-country religious organizations
respond to migration and with what changes, if any, these trigger at
the regional, national and international organizational levels. For example,
localized connections emerging between members and leaders of Brazilian
Baptist churches in Governador Valadares in Brazil and in Framingham,
Massachusetts must be analyzed within the context of the broader national
and international denominational connections within which they emerge.
This context-specific approach is particularly important when studying religious
traditions not characterized by a unitary set of beliefs and practices, and
with no central authority, because these vary considerably across settings.
Transnational migrants clearly live in multilayered global worlds. So
while research on religion and transnational migration focuses on individuals
and the local, regional and national organizations in which they participate,
it must nest these processeswithin the multilayered social fields in which they
take place. Of singular importance is the role of states, which regulate movement
and religious expression and thereby strongly influence the magnitude
and character of migrants’ transnational religious practices.3 The religious
institutions created by Turkish migrants in Belgium, for example, are fostered
by the almost wholesale transplantation of the Turkish religious infrastructure
via official Belgian-Turkish channels. In his comparison of Moroccan (primarily
Berber) and Turkish migrants in Belgium, Lesthaeghe (2002) found
that Turkish migrants and their children were much more likely to engage
in transnational practices, such as home ownership in Turkey or returning to
Turkey to find a marriage partner, than their Moroccan counterparts. He
partially attributes this difference to the Turkish government’s ongoing
involvement in the religious lives of its emigrants.
3Faist (2000), Menjivar (2002),and Smith (1995), among others, also stress the role of the
state in shaping transnational activities.
RELIGIONAND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 853
Moroccans, in contrast, encountered a religious vacuum that was initially
filled by Saudi-sponsored Islamic cultural activities and later by a range
of cross-cutting fundamentalist influences. The net outcome for second generation
Moroccans is that they form few religious or political linkages to their
ancestral home and that the immigrant community is characterized by a high
degree of secularism and religious fragmentation.
A second example of state influence becomes evident when we think
about migrants from countries with little separation between church and state
and contrast them with those who come from countries with greater religious
pluralism. In countries such as Ireland or Pakistan, migrants are often hardpressed
to separate what is Pakistani or Muslim or Irish or Catholic about
them. Religion and nationality reinforce one another. Such individuals are
more likely to be transnational activists because two allegiancesmotivate their
continuing identification.
Finally, global culture and institutions clearly shape migrants’transnational
religious practices. Widely available and accepted models of religious
institutionalization strongly influence the ways in which migrants combine
host and homeland traditions. Because the “model” for praying and for
administering Pentecostal churches is recognizable around the world,
migrants can locate themselves in almost any church, no matter ofwhere they
are. They also have access to a familiar and agreed upon set of tools with
which to organize their collective religious lives. That the tradition of pilgrimages
or establishing holy sites is also readily recognizable and replicable
is another way in which global religious institutions provide migrants with
the tools and language they need to assert transnational belonging.
Again, this mapping of the transnational religious field that I have proposed
tries to make explicit the link between studies of global and diasporic
religion and studies of the religious practices of transnational migrants. Having
said this, relatively little work has been done that directly examines the
relationship between transnational migration and religion. In the following
section, I selectively review research on three aspects of the religious lives of
transnational migrants: their organizational dimensions, the relationship
between transnational religious space and other forms of belonging, and the
relationship between transnational religion and politics.
VARIATIONSIN TRANSNATIONALMIGRANTS’ RELIGIOUS
ORGNIZATIONS
Many transnational religious activities take place in individualized, infor-
854 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONREViEW
ma1settings. They combine formal religious elements with popular folk practices.
But an important part of transnational religious life occurs within
organizational contexts. When migrants turn to religious arenas to assert
their memberships, religious organizations change in response. The more
these groups are structured, led and financed transnationally, the more they
facilitate transnational practices. Researchers have suggested several
approaches to categorizing transnational religious groups.
Ebaugh and Chafetz (2002) propose using network analysis to understand
religious connections across boundaries. They argue for studies that
examine variations in the density of network nodes and ties, the direction of
material and social flows, and the intensity of these flows. Their research
examined the relationship between network ties between individuals, locallevel
corporate bodies, and international religious bodies and found that ties
frequently crossed between various types of nodes. For example, at one end
of their proposed spectrum, ties between a Mexican Catholic Church in
Houston and its sending community of Monterrey were almost completely
interpersonal, although they formed within the context of a vast international
organization. At the other extreme, Vietnamese Catholics and Buddhists
in Houston formed transnational connections to their homelands based solely
on institutional, as opposed to, interpersonal connections. These authors
conclude that socioeconomic status, legality, distance from the homeland,
the geographic dispersion of the immigrant community and English language
fluency influence network types.
Yang (2001) also uses a network approach to analyze transnational Chinese
Christian communities. He finds three-layered trans-pacific networks
formed by contacts between individuals, single churches and parachurch
international organizations. These connect migrants in Taiwan, Hong Kong
and Mainland China to their counterparts located primarily in the United
States and Canada. Political and economic instability in Asia propels individuals
and institutions to create transnational ties. These networks also arise
because the absence of a strong denominational infrastructure in China
encourages the emergence of loose associations between local congregations.
My own work reveals at least three types of transnational religious organizational
patterns4 The first, exemplified by the Catholic Church, is an
*My research is an ongoing study of transnational migration among Dominicans, Irish, Indians,
Brazilians, and Pakistanis to the greater Boston Metropolitan area. Findings from my
work on Dominicans from the village of Miraflores who live in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood
of Boston, Irish from the Inishowen Peninsula who live in Dorchester, Indians from
the Baroda District of Gujarat State who have settled around the city of Lowell, and Brazil-
RELIGIONAND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 855
extended transnational religious organization.5 From the mid 1800s to the
present, the Catholic church has sent out religious orders, mounted missionary
campaigns, operated schools, built pilgrimage shrines, and organized
international encounters that produced a vast, interconnected network of
transnational activities (Casanova, 1994). When transnational migrants circulate
in and out of parishes or religious movement groups in the United
States, Ireland, the Dominican Republic or Brazil, they extend and tailor this
already global religious system into a site where membership in both the
sending and receiving communities is expressed.
These intensified connections are evident in the Brazilian, Dominican
and Irish communities in the Boston Metropolitan area that I study and in
the work of other scholars of immigrant religion. They grow out of interpersonal
ties between individuals and clergy in the home and host countries.
They also arise because migrants and nonmigrants sometimes participate in
parallel social and religious activities, and use the same worship materials,
all within the context of an institution that espouses universal Catholicism.
For example, several priests in Governador Valadares (where many of the
Brazilians in the Boston area come from) said they received frequent requests
to say prayers or dedicate masses to their emigrant parishioners. Brazilian
immigrant Apostolate churches in Massachusetts read from the same handout
of weekly prayers and hymns used in Brazil (printed in Brasilia, the
Brazilian capital) and organized mission campaigns that corresponded to
those taking place in Brazil. When the National Conference of Brazilian
Bishops launched a year-long campaign against homelessness, Brazilian
immigrant churches undertook a campaign for better housing and stronger
neighborhoods. Religious leaders chose these activities because they resonated
with those undertaken in Brazil, while more directly addressing the problems
facing immigrants in Boston. Brazilian and U.S. Church leaders have
also explored ways to coordinate staffing and training with one another,
ians from Governador Valadareswho live in Framingham are discussed in this paper. The project
research team includes myself, colleagues in each sending country, and a group of graduate
and undergraduate researchers. In the United States, we collect data by interviewing first
and second-generation individuals and organizational leaders, observing meetings and special
events, and reviewing pertinent documents. After each interview in Boston, we ask for the
names of nonmigrant family members to contact. We then travel to each sending country and
work with colleagues there to conduct a parallel set of interviews with individuals and organizational
leaders at the local, regional, and national level.
51 propose these types as heuristic tools. They are not static, impermeable categories. In fact,
religious institutions may pass from one form to another over time.
856 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONREVIEW
including a 1999 Brazilian Bishops‘ plan to expand their Pastoral for Immigrants
to Brazilians around the world.
In the case of Dominicans from Miraflores who migrated to Massachusetts,
the parish-to-parish connections which developed between the
United States and the Dominican Republic mutually transformed sending
and receiving-country religious life. New immigrants were incorporated
into multi-ethnic congregations which used a generic “Latino” worship style
that included many familiar elements while excluding those that were
uniquely Dominican. They told those at home about these changes in their
religious practices and beliefs. Subsequent migrants arrived already presocialized
into many elements of U.S. Latino Catholicism. They continued
to infuse fresh “Dominicanness” into the church, though it was a “Dominicanness”
that was each time more pan-Latino in tone. Continuous, cyclical
transfers ensued which consolidated these pan-ethnic practices while blanching
out their nation-specific elements. In this way, transnational ties both
reinforced religious pluralism and abbreviated its scope (Levitt, 2001b).
McAlistar‘s (2002) work also highlights how Catholic and voodoo
practices make transnational lifestyles possible and how the Haitian community
uses these to make a space for themselves in the United States. Many
of the Haitian migrants in New York that she studied live transnational lives.
They work to support households in Haiti, send their children to school in
Haiti, or return to Haiti for extended periods to rest. Religious pilgrimages,
processions and rituals are just some of the ways that these migrants
express their enduring attachments to Haiti. The Feast of our Lady of Miracles,
for example, is commemorated in the United States at the same time
that it is commemorated in Haiti. It signifies migrants’ continued attachment
to Haiti and serves to differentiate them from the African-American
community in the United States.
Not all migrants take part in transnational religious practices, even
when the organizations they belong to redefine their constituencies as those
living within and outside of national borders. Menjivar (1999) found that
Catholic church membership was far less conducive to transnational activism
than membership in Evangelical churches. Because the Catholic Church in
Washington, D.C. wanted to develop a sense of pan-ethnic identity among
its new immigrant members, it emphasized common projects and discouraged
activities directed at particular home communities. Religious leaders
also feared that homeland-oriented activities would politicize and divide the
Salvadoran community.
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 857
The Charismatic, Neucatecumenal, and Cursillo movements that are
associatedwith the Catholic Church also expand the radius of Catholic activities
across borders. These groups articulate a life view that is disseminated
globally through international conferences,fellowship meetings, prayer links,
and the media (Peterson and Visquez, 2001). Research on these groups provides
mixed evidence about their role in promoting transnational belonging.
Charismatic groups formed by migrants and nonmigrants in Boston and the
Dominican Republic worked in partnership with one another. Migrants visiting
Miraflores, and nonmigrants visiting Boston, were warmly welcomed at
meetings. This access to “a membership card that works everywhere”encouraged
participants’ sense of transnational membership and constantly reminded
nonmigrants that they too belonged to a social and religious cross-border
community (Levitt, 2001b).
Peterson and VAsquez’s (2001) work on the Charismatic Catholic
Renewal Movement (CCR) in El Salvador and among Central American
migrants in Washington revealed different effects. Many of the leaders of the
immigrant community in Washington were active in the Charismatic movement
in El Salvador. They brought this experience to bear on their lives in
Washington, and when they visited El Salvador they also participated in CCR
activities. Some members became transnational activists in response to the
personal transformations they experienced by joining the CCR. Because of
their new religious outlook, they began to send remittances to their families
and money for community development projects. But these changes produced
few organized transnational activities. Peterson and Visquez found no
connections between religious groups in El Salvador and Washington and no
transnational missions. They conclude that the individual transnational allegiances
prompted by religion do not necessarily translate into collective
efforts.
Protestant churches with affiliates in the United States and in Latin
America typifr a second type of negotiated transnational religious organization.
These groups also extend and deepen organizational ties already in
place but within the context of less-hierarchical, decentralized institutional
structures. Instead, flexible partnerships that are not already pre-established
need to be worked out. I focus on Brazilian immigration to the Boston Metropolitan
area as a case in point.
Protestantism has grown tremendously in Latin America, and particularly
in Brazil, in the last four decades. In 1997, Governador Valadares, a city
of approximately 300,000, had an estimated 430 Protestant churches (Levitt,
858 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONREVIEW
2003). These congregations ranged from Mainline Protestant denominations
to start-up Pentecostal groups. They prayed in modest private homes
and storefronts as well as in large, elegant churches that seat hundreds. Even
some of the smallest, most incipient groups, however, had plaques outside
their doors indicating that they belonged to larger organizations with chapters
in the United States.
organizational ties produce this negotiated
transnational religious space. As in the Catholic Church, individual migrant
and nonmigrant church members and religious leaders often kept up relations
with one another. Organizational connections ranged from narrowly-focused
ties between the sending-country congregations that migrants used to belong
to and the churches where they currently worship to newly-mediated arrangements
between sending and receiving-country denominational branches with
long histories of missionary work in Brazil.
Like the Catholic Church, relations between Protestant individuals and
churches also broaden and thicken what, in some cases, are already global
institutions or, in other cases, create new global connections. In contrast to
the Catholic case, however, these are negotiated with respect to authority,
organization and ritual. There is no leader or administrative hierarchy to set
policy and dictate how things are done. When transnational migrants deepen
these cross-border connections, issues like power sharing, financing, and
administrative practice must be worked out. These negotiations produce a
diverse, diluted set of partnerships that are unstable and shift over time. They
function like what Manuel Castells (2000) has called a network society decentralized,
flexible yet connected networks providing customized services
and goods. Just as decentralized, adaptive modes of production are better suited
to compete within the global economy, so flexible production and dissemination
of religious goods may be better suited to serve contemporary
religious consumers.
Several studies support this view. Wellmeier (1998) argued that
because Guatemalan Mayans belonged to independent storefront ministries
that were ethnically homogeneous, it was easier for them to devote their energies
toward improvements in their hometowns. Because the evangelical
church that Le6n (1998) studied formed part of a network of more than
twenty-five churches in the United States, Spain, and Mexico, members felt
like they belonged to a broad, powerful supranational movement that could
sustain their interest and support. Menjivar’s (1999) work also lends credence
to this view. In contrast to their Salvadoran Catholic counterparts,
Both interpersonal and
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 859
the Protestant churches she studied were not restrained by an extensive and
demanding formal institutional network. They did not have to create new,
more inclusive identities to encourage newcomers to feel like they belonged
to the U.S. church. Instead, because leaders and members often came from
the same regions of El Salvador and because they were all Christians, engaging
in home-country oriented activities produced little conflict. In fact, one
migrant church in Washington had sister churches in Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina and eastern El Salvador. They broadcast a two-hour radio
program in El Salvador at least three times a week, including a call-in component
so listeners could hear friends and relatives from back home. According
to one member, “We are related to the church there in El Salvador spiritually
and in practice. We are oriented to them and they are to us. It’s like one
church in two places” (Menjivar, 1999~505).
The experiences of Gujarati Hindus from the Baroda district in India,
suggest a third type of recreated transnational religious organization.6
Migrants had to start their own religious groups when they came to the United
Statesbecause there were few Hindu organizations when they first arrived.
Some migrants initiated this process on their own and then sought direction
from homeland religious leaders. In other cases, Indian religious leaders
came to areas where there were large numbers of migrants and identified
individuals who could help them establish themselves in the United States.
Most of these groups now function like franchises or chapters of their counterpart
organizations in India. Franchises are run primarily by migrants who
receive periodic support, resources and guidance from sending-country leadership
while chapters receive regular support and supervision from sendingcountry
leadership.
The Devotional Associates of Yogeshwar, or the Swadhyaya movement,
is an example of a group that was recreated in the United States. Swadhyaya
groups in Baroda are organized informally. According to Didiji, the group’s
leader in Bombay, leadership emerges consensually; those who are most
knowledgeable or experienced become the motobhais or elder brothers of
each chapter. In the United States,however, such groups need to look and act
like formal congregations to be able to raise funds, obtain tax exempt status,
or rent meeting halls (Warner and Wittner, 1998). In response, the organiGWilliams
(1988:230) calls these Hindu Organizations of Indian Americans “made in the
U.S.A. ... assembled in the U.S. from imported components by relatively unskilled labor (at
least unskilled by traditional standards) and adapted to fit new designs to reach a new and
growing market.”
860 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONb V I E W
zation in America is divided into nine geographic regions, each with its own
coordinator. Although these leaders are allowed to make decisions on their
own, they say that they consult with officials in Bombay on a regular basis.
Gibb (1998) described Harari Muslims in Ethiopia and Canada whose
experience of diaspora prompted them to construct an identity that could be
meaninghl transnationally. To reinforce group cohesion over time and
space, they felt that they needed to articulate values that were relevant in both
the home and host country. Although Harari ethnicity was constructed within
the context of a transnational movement, and in response to pressures from
the Ethiopian and Canadian states, the meaning of “Muslimness”is no longer
local and culturally-specificbut instead reflects a more homogenized, globalized
tradition that is similar to that of other Muslims in Canada. As a result,
Hararis are more oriented toward other Canadian Muslims than to other
Ethiopian groups. By developing a pan-Muslim identity, they can communicate
with a wider community based on their shared religious traditions.
Because few of the studies I describe here are longitudinal, they tell us
little about how transnational religious organizations change over time. Work
on the Soka Gakkai International (SGI-USA), a Japanese Buddhist group, is
one exception. At first, most members were Japanese immigrants married to
American military personnel. They relied heavily on the organization in
Japan for practical and financial support. Initially, SGI-USA maintained
much of its Japanese character - it was organized hierarchically, leaders
achieved their posts based on personal mentor-disciple relations, and women
were excluded from holding office. Taking part in religious pilgrimages to
the principal Nichiren Shoshu temple reinforced members’ attachments to
Japan. Until temples were constructed in the United States, new converts
either had to travel to Japan or wait until priests came to the United States to
become official members of the group. The subsequent influx of U.S. converts,
who quickly predominated, transformed the SGI-USA. The group
began holding its meetings in English, and Japanese customs, such as kneeling
and taking one’s shoes off during worship, were abandoned in favor of
more American worship styles. When the Japanese organization became
embroiled in scandal, the U.S. chapter, which until then relied heavily on the
mother temple, formally separated itself from its Japanese leaders. Becoming
more American was also a way to avoid fallingvictim to the anti-cult fever
spreading through the United States (Machacek, 2000).
The research I have summarized highlights variations in migrants’
transnational religious organizations. But migrants’ transnational religious
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 861
practices are also frequently enacted outside of organized settings. We must
therefore examine the ways in which believers use symbols and ideas to imagine
and locate themselves within religious landscapes and analyze how religious
and political geographies overlap with one another. The following section
lays out these issues in greater detail.
TRANSNATIONAL RELIGIOUS SPACEAS ANALTERNATIVE
LANDSclAPE
Ancient pilgrims traveling from one sacred landmark to another, and their
contemporary counterparts, create imaginary religious topographies whose
boundaries are delineated by these holy places (Eickelman and Piscatori,
1990). Transnational migrants also use religion to delineate an alternative
cartography of belonging. Religious icons and sacred shrines, rather than
national flags, mark these spaces. The imagined moral and physical geographies
that result may fall within national boundaries, transcend but coexist
with them, or create new, alternative spaces that, for some individuals, have
greater salience and inspire stronger loyalties than politically-defined terrain.
For example, Haitian migrants in New York simply added Harlem to
the roster of places where they carry out their spiritual work. By doing so,
they extended the boundaries of their spiritual practices and superinscribed
them onto the actual physical landscape where they had settled (McAlister,
2002). By building and conducting rituals at a shrine to their national
patron saint, created what Tweed (1999) calls
transtemporal and translocative space. These rituals allowed migrants to
recover a past when they were still in Cuba and to imagine a future when they
would return. Through these enactments, migrants also asserted their enduring
membership in their community of origin. Families brought their newborns
to the shrine to formallytransform those born in America into citizens
of the imagined Cuban nation. In this way, the community used religion to
extend the boundaries of Cuba to incorporate those living outside it.
Haitian migrants from Ri Rivyt who settled in Palm Beach County
not only use religion to locate themselves within an alternative sacred landscape,
but to extricate themselves from it as well (Richman, 2002).
Although most of the members of this community are Catholic, many also
beliwe in Iwas or “saints”who can afflict and protect members of the descent
groups to which they belong. Iwas must be fed, entertained, and lavished
with copious offerings because when they feel neglected or ignored by their
heirs, they often retaliate by afflicting illness, hardship, or property loss.
Cuban exiles in Miami
862 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONREVIEW
According to Richman (2002:14)
Although they are characterized as ancient, immutable symbols of “African” tradition,
the Iwa have shown that they can be most adaptable to changing conditions of
global reproduction. With so many of their “children”now livingand working “over
there” the Iwa is busier than ever. I once had the opportunity to interview a spirit
about her protection of migrants. The female spirit was possessing a male ritual
leader, who was conducting a healing rite for an absent migrant in the presence of
the migrants’ parents and myself. The spirit, whose name is Ezili Dant61 Our lady
of Lourdes, said to us, “Everythree days I am in Miami,. .I have to keep watch over
everything that goes on. Miami is where the core is...like all of the spirits whose
movements are said to be like the wind, Ezili Dant6 can instantly traverse these
international boundaries.
Those who believe in these saints situate themselves in a ritual space transcending
political boundaries where spirits easily move back and forth to take
care of them. In return, they must continue to take care of their Iwa, ofien
at tremendous expense and effort. While some see their success in Miami as
proof of the Iwai intervention on their behalc others feel that too many of
their remittances are wasted on the Iwa? care. They convert to Protestantism
as a way to extricate themselves from this system of kinship and ritual oblig-
ation.
Suh‘s (2002) work brings to light the complex relationship between
ethnic and religious transnational landscapes. The Korean American Buddhists
in her study use religion to locate themselves more centrally with
respect to both Korea and the United States and, in particular, in relation to
their Korean-American Christian counterparts. Many of the Buddhists in
her study associate Buddhism with a nationalistic sense of belonging to
Korea. They see Buddhism as an authentic marker of Korean identity and use
it to construct a barrier against the undesired Westernization and Americanization
that, from their perspective, characterizes the Korean-American
Christian experience. At the same time, they claim that Buddhism makes
them better Americans because Buddhist doctrines of self-enlightenment are
more in line with American democracy than the Christian doctrines they
associatewith a lack of free will.
Suh argues that Chogye temple membership reinforces homeland ties,
even if members never return to Korea. The group hosts numerous Korean
monks who give lectures and train members. Because religious leaders travel
frequently to Korea, there is always news from the Order back home. The
main order of the Chogye established a Los Angeles Branch of Seoul-based
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 863
Eastern Mountain Buddhist College, which offers a two-year certificate
course in Buddhist Studies to lay members. Although the Sa Chal Temple is
run independently, unlike many other U.S.-based groups which are still
officiallyadministered by leaders in Seoul,Abbot Lee, the group’sleader, still
feels that his ties to Korea are crucial to the development of Buddhism in the
West.
Many of the Salvadoran youth that Gomez and Vdsquez (2001) studied
felt they belonged neither in the United States nor in El Salvador. They
joined transnational gangs which provided them with a close, tight-knit
community and helped counteract their feelings of marginality in the society
at large. Gang members shared many of the characteristics of transnational
migrants because they acted, made decisions, and developed identities
shaped by relationships and resources that crossed borders. In fact, when the
Salvadoran peace accords were signed in 1992, they were approved in El Salvador
as well as Los Angeles.
The appeal of gang life gradually wore thin when some members
became involved in drug trafficking and gangs became a less effective safe
haven for adolescents trying to fit in. Pentecostal churches stepped in to fill
this gap. They functioned much like gangs, “saving souls transnationally”
by using contacts in El Salvador and the United States to reach potential converts.
These efforts worked because they “combined deterritorialization (the
operation of transnational webs) with reterritorialization (re-centering of self
and community)” (Vdsquez et al., 2001:34).Religion engendered an alternative,
ultimately more satisfying space, because it successfullysynthesizedself
and community,
Some of the Brazilians and Pakistanis I am studying in Massachusetts
also use religion to create alternatives places of belonging. Some imagine
themselves within global Muslim or Christian denominational communities
which are grounded in particular national contexts by their ties to particular
sending and receiving churches. Others locate themselveswithin global religious
communities that supercede national boundaries. Pastora Eliana, a
leader of a renewed Brazilian Baptist church in Watertown, Massachusetts,
said she felt invisible when she first came to the United States because the
state offered her no official category to express her Brazilianness. She began
to feel she belonged in the United States only when her church formed a partnership
with the American Baptist Convention (ABC). It is through her
identity as a Baptist, rather than as a Brazilian American, that she began the
864 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONREVIEW
process of integration into the United States. But her Baptist identity also
firmly grounds her in a global religious community that welcomes and
empowers her as well.
Q.:Why wouldn’t one be a Baptist? Could you imagine a world where the salient
identity would be a Baptist rather than Brazilian or American?
I think that this identity already exists. I mean being a Brazilian person and being
a Baptist is synonymous with being smart. It is synonymous with wisdom because
among us we know that Baptists are capable of thinking or being in a relationship
with one another, of having disagreements but at the same time finding solutions
and agreement among ourselves. Calling ourselves Baptists is something that we as
a community are proud of. When the denomination (the American Baptist Convention)
showed that it was open to establish this relationship with us, giving recognition
to us, it was something that we celebrated because it means that we are no
longer invisible. So far, we have been an invisible culture without any connection
with the new system that we are in. But now, this kind of feeling is so strongbecause
we really feel that we are becoming family in a very constructive way.
Being a Baptist enabled Pastora Eliana to find a place for herself in the
United States. But because her religious life takes placewithin an ethnic Brazilian
context, being a Baptist also reinforces her ties to Brazil. The religious
landscapeshe creates fits within and grounds her within the Brazilian-herican
transnational landscape. Her religious identity inscribesher in a global religious
community that is strongly rooted in the United States and in Brazil.
In contrast, Pastor Luis of the Brazilian International Church of the Four
SquareGospel categorically tells his followers that they live in the Kingdom of
God. One becomes a good citizen, he says, by becoming a good Christian.
The main point, Pastor Luis says, is that
...when they are good Christians, they are good citizens. So when we teach them
to be consistent in their faith, they will be, at the same time, good people, good husbands,
good people in the sense that they will try to help others, to try to make a
difference in their neighborhoods. They will be concerned about other’s well-being.
So it‘s not necessary to become legal and become naturalized and so forth. But in
the Bible itself, in the way that Christians should be, would be enough for them to
be good citizens ....There are a set of ways of being in the world that have nothing
to do with whether you are Brazilian or whether you are from the U.S. but that have
more to do with faith in Christ. I teach my followers that they have a responsibility
to all mankind but especiallyto their fellow Christians. We live in a world where
Christ is the king, not George Bush or Fernando Colar.
For Pastor Luis’ followers, religious membership takes precedence over dual
political membership. Believers inhabit a Christian world where God and
Christ come before elected officials. This is not to say that national bound-
RELIGIONAND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 865
aries disappear- political as well as religious landmarks populate this religious
space and the rules of national citizenship still apply. But Christian rather
than civic values form the basis for membership-in-good-standing in local,
national, and transnational political communities. Unlike Pastora Eliana,
whose membership in a global religious community reinforces her dual
national identity, the religious landscape for Pastor Luis and his followers
forms the basis for national and ethnic membership.
RELIGIONAS A GUIDE TO TMSNATIONAL CWIC
ENGAGEMENT
Just as religion furnishes the elements from which an alternative geography
is created, so it guides believers about their collective rights and responsibilities.
Religious institutions differ from other immigrant institutions in that
they see themselves as embodying universal and timeless truths. They provide
members with moral compasses and orient them to act upon these values
in particular settings in particular ways. As global interconnectedness
expands, to what extent do religious traditions articulate globally-oriented
theologies? What lessons do transnational religious groups disseminate to
members about the rights and duties of transnational, if not global, citizens?
Many assume, for instance, that Pentecostals are apolitical with respect
to both transnational and national concerns. But despite what may be the
apolitical or anti-political nature of their message, several researchers suggest
that Pentecostal communities influence the secular settings in which they are
located. The Salvadoran Pentecostal churches in Washington that Menjivar
(1999) studied kept in close touch with their sister congregations in El Salvador.
They supported community development projects in their home communities,
sponsored speaking exchanges between sending and receivingcountry
pastors, shared a monthly newspaper, held conventions that
brought congregations together, and participated in international Evangelical
church councils. Evangelization rather than community development motivated
these efforts. Members’ primary goal was to strengthen and extend the
community of God and any political or civic achievementswere of secondary
importance.
Peterson et al. (2001) lend support to this view. Pentecostal communities
can erect clear boundaries between the safe, sanctified world of faith and
its dangerous, violent secular counterpart with only partial success. Because
members fulfill multiple roles and participate in multiple settings they influ-
866 INTERNATIONALMIGRATIONREVIEW
ence the secular world and it continues to influence them. Pentecostal
churches also reproduce patterns of domination and exclusion. Their rhetoric
of spiritual warfare creates a “terrain of control” that is difficult to challenge.
Since this closed social terrain is ultimately grounded in the radical deterritorialization
demanded by the reign of God, it mirrors the erasureof borders and identities
that is central to globalization.In other words, for all its emphasis on the self, Pentecostalism,like
global capitalism, homogenizes, making particularity only a strategy
or stepping stone toward the production of globality/universality (Peterson et
a/., 2001:40).
Peruvian migrants in the United States, Spain, Argentina, and Japan
brought images of their patron saint with them to their new homes, raised
funds for ritual celebrations, and conquered host-country public spaces by
organizing annual processions (Paerregaard, 2001) Although some of these
activities involved initial communication with the Mother Church in Lima,
homeland ties graduallyweakened. There was little evidence of coordination
between Brotherhoods in the same receiving country or between different
host country contexts. Instead, Paerregaard argues, members used religious
engagement to pursue host-country-oriented goals such as carving out a place
for themselves in the public sphere and differentiating themselves from other
minorities. Transnational religious activities, to the extent that they took
shape, promoted host-country political integration.
My work suggests a number of variations in the forms and consequences
of religiously-motivated transnational politics. When new Irish,
Dominican, and Brazilian migrants extend the global Catholic church
through their homeland ties, they become part of powerful, resource-rich
networks that are potential venues for protection and representation in their
home and host communities. When Irish migrants attend church, for example,
they learn about social and legal services that are availableto them. Their
native-born priests give them indirect classes in local community problem
solving and mobilization. At the national level, the Irish Apostolate U.S., an
umbrella organization which brings together Irish pastoral workers around
the country, has joined forces with a coalition of Irish Immigration Centers
and created an informal political action committee to advocate for immigrant
rights and amnesty. The Irish Apostolate also functions as the Irish government’s
window onto the emigrant community in the United States.
The Minister of ForeignAffairs came here three years ago and the Minister for Social
Welfare came last year. Any time a President comes, like Mary Robinson or Mary
McCalese, they come and talk to us. Mary Robinson came and talked to us at lunch
RELIGIONAND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 867
and asked us about the different issues we confront. We also visit Irish prisoners here
and we keep the government informed about whether they are being treated properly,
what their sentences are, whether they can be sent back home. We are the voice
of the immigrant community for the Irish government (Father Mike, Boston, 2001).
The clergy working for the Irish Apostolate in the United States and
their counterparts in Ireland also represent Irish emigrants to the Irish public.
They receive a yearly grant from the Irish government and must report
back to their legislators about their activities. Father Ronald of the Irish
Episcopal Commission for Emigrants in Dublin, who supervises the priests
working outside of Ireland, sees himself as an advocate for the diaspora. The
commission is one of the few institutions, he says, that fights to keep emigrants
on the public’s radar screen.
The Irish Catholic experiencerepresents one way in which the relationship
between transnational religion and politics plays out. Churchgoing
introduces migrants to U.S. political culture and practices. It is a potential
springboard to civic engagement because it exposes migrants to political
issues and teaches them tools to address them. At the same time, the Irish
government and church officials still see themselves as responsible for their
emigrant flock. The personal and organizational ties connecting the United
States and Ireland are designed to reinforce migrants’ continued sense of
attachment to the Irish national and religious community.
The Protestant churches in my study also deliver services to, advocate
for, and politically socialize their members but, within the context of weaker
organizational networks. Most of these pastors work individually with
their members to get jobs, find housing, or regularize their immigration status.
The message of living “in Gods Kingdom,” though, produces different
views on appropriate civic engagement,
Some churchgoers believe that their faith teaches them to go outside
religious arenas and make a difference. They get involved because they take
religious teachings as a call to exercise substantive citizenship and as a guide
for how to do so.
I know there are some people who think of themselves as living in the Kingdom of
Christ. Pastor Manuel talks about that a lot. But I see myself as firmly planted on
the ground. My life is here and in Brazil. I feel very strongly about my church and
about the lessons it teaches. But I see these lessons as telling me to get involved in
the world around me. So when the police want to meet with the Brazilian community
to understand us better or there are meetings to try to get people driver’s
licenses (which is illegal without a social security card), I go. My God tells me to be
there and to help out (Umberto, 52-year-old migrant, Framingham).
868 INTERNATIONALMIGRATIONREVIEW
For others, who locate themselves within a Christian geography, civic
engagement is motivated by religious identities and beliefs more than a sense
of ethnic pride or patriotism. Like the evangelical churchgoers studied by
Menjivar (1999) and Peterson et al. (2001), these migrants worked with
civic groups because this was what was available although they would rather
have worked for religious groups. They are doing the work of God because
they identify as Christians, although their actions may also happen to be
political.
When I volunteer at the soup kitchen or at my child’s school, it is because this is
what God would want me to do. I am not guided by what the Worker’s Party has
to say about Brazil or the Democratic Party has to say about here. I live in a Christian
world that just happens to have national borders criss-crossingit. If what I do
helps bring about political change, that’s okay with me, but that’s not my primary
goal (Lourdes, 47-year-old migrant, Framingham).
CONCLUSIONAND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This paper proposesan approach to the study of one aspect of global religious
life - migrants’ transnational religious practices. I suggest that studies of
transnational migration and religion focus on the everyday, lived practice of
migrant religion in at least two locations. I propose that they examine the
ways in which host country incorporation changes religious ideas and practice,
how these changes affect sending-country religious life, and how these
changes mutually reinforce one another over time. Research on migrants’
transnational religious practices are not only about organizational manifestations
of faith. They are also about the alternative places of belonging that
religious ideas and symbols make possible and about the ways in which these
sacred landscapes interact with the boundaries of political and civic life.
Clearly, there is much work to be done. This article offers only a brief,
selective sketch of what is known about migrants’ transnational religious
practices based on the U.S. experience. This article is intentionally short
on conclusions and long on calls for more empirical, grounded work. Many
more studies are needed to flesh out how migrants’ transnational religious
practices are actually enacted, what their impacts are, what explains the variations
between them, how transnational religious life differs from transnational
life in other social arenas, and what these dynamics means for homeand
host-country life.
These tasks pose methodological and epistemological challenges. How
do we make concrete the landscapes and communities that people imagine?
How can we move from the in-depth, grounded case studies we need to
RELIGION AND TRANSNATIONALMIGRATION 869
understand the complexity of experience to be able to make comparisons
across groups? How would our questions change if we shifted the central
organizing principle from nation to faith community - if we took seriously,
as many respondents do, a world that is primarily organized around Islamic,
Hindu, or Baptist identities rather than ethnic or national affinities, and that
is built upon religious principles rather than civic ones?
The study of religious and cultural life across borders raises particular
challenges not posed by the study of economics or politics. Religion is not a
fured set of elements but a dynamic web of shared meanings used in different
ways in different contexts (Gardner, 1995). It is as much, it not more, about
individualized, interior, informal practices and beliefs as it is about formal,
collective manifestations of faith carried out in institutional settings. Since so
many featuresof religious life are imagined, it is difficult to hold them constant
or to determine where they begin and end. They are deeply felt but often difficult
to express. Many of the studiescited in this article speak to the complex
relationship between religion and ethnicity. A very interesting, potentiallypromising
set of research questions would untangle this relationship and
explore the unique properties of ethnic and religious identities in enabling
transnational belonging and the possible synergisticrelationship between them.
On the other hand, several studies indicate parallels between transnational
religious, economic and political practices. Like economic and political
transnational practices, religion plays a role in transnational community
creation and perpetuation (Espinosa, 1999; R.C. Smith, 1995). Religious
festivals, and particularly Patron Saint Day celebrations, have always been
important sites of contact, maintenance, and renewal of relations between
migrants and nonmigrants. Immigrants churches often contribute significant
sums of money to community development in their sending communities.
Furthermore, migrants’ transnational religious practices also generate
the same kinds of conflicts over legitimate membership and status between
migrants and nonmigrants that others have described (Goldring, 1998;
Levitt, 2001b; Espinosa 1999). We need to sort out what is unique about
transnational life in the religious sphere and to systematically compare religious
transnational practices to transnational activities in other arenas.
What also becomes clear from this overview is how the local “fights
back” and continues to challenge global religious homogenization. The same
global religious institution is organized very differently in local contexts,
making different kinds of demands on its immigrant members, with very different
consequences for the relationship between religion, immigrant incor-
870 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONb V I E W
poration, and enduring transnational belonging. Again, additional work on
how migrants actually globalize religion can shed light on these broader
debates in the field.
As the title of this article implies, the relationship between religion and
migration has a long history. Abraham began a journey, guided by his faith,
that millions have followed. The intensification of life across borders will
only increase the numbers for whom social, political, and religious membership
is decoupled from residence. It is time we put religion front and center
in our attempts to understand how identity and belonging are redefined in
this increasingly global world.
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