Studies of 20th‐century ethnic immigrant groups to the United States profile religion as a key factor in their assimilation into U.S. culture. Religious institutions provided immigrants and families with a safe haven where they could hold on to their ethnic identity, even as they and their children were mainstreamed into the larger culture. Changes in immigration law since 1965 have complicated somewhat the relationship between religion and assimilation. The variety of religious forms now present in the United States and the diversity of immigrants create new options as they seek to adapt to U.S. life. We look at the absence of religion as one of those options. The nonreligious paths chosen by some Latinos in Richmond, Virginia have implications for the way they become part of the community, especially in comparison to those who remain members of their religion of origin or who convert to U.S. faiths.
Evidence fram nearly every facet of ourworld indicates that we live at a transitian time. The postmodem world implies fragmentatian and the lack of a grand narrative. As traditians -including religious ones -crumble, the effort amang believers to find a home for their implicit religion becomes more acute. Recent studies seems to indicate that the needfor the sacred isnot disappearing but rather gaining different forms ofexplicit expression. This article looks at a group ofconverts to the Orthodox Church in America to illustrate the effect of collective life ancreating and sustaining a meaningful beliefsystem that interacts with the implicit religion of its members. Their stories show that the product of a collective experience (the group's collective conscience) becomes greater than itscomponent parts (the individuals), andthat this may be the way for individuals to recover a grand narrative involving the sacred in postmodem times.In the post-traditional order of modernity, and against the backdrop of new forms of mediated experience, self-identity becomes a reflexively organised endeavour. The reflexive project of the self, which consists in the sustaining of coherent. yet continuously revised, biographical narratives, takes place in the context of multiple choice as filtered through abstract systems. In modem social life, the notion of lifestyle takes on a particular significance. The more tradition loses its hold. and the more daily life is reconstituted in terms of the dialectical interplay of the local and global, the more individuals are forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of options (Giddens I992a:5). Implicit religion is the set or core of personal beliefs and normative practices that sustain an individual and provide guidance. a sense of direction, and/or a sense of belonging in postmodern times (Bailey 1983(Bailey , 1990Chalfant 1992).* This article was originally presenred as a paper ar the annUllI meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Re/igion, Miami, August //-13, /993. Appreciation is expressed to Edward I. Bailey, D. Paul Johnson, and an anonymous ret'iewerfortheir helpful comments.
Hispanics are poised to become the nation’s largest minority. Their growth is well documented, as are persistent inequalities that prevent their full integration into American society. Studies of Latinos tend to focus on metropolitan regions with high Hispanic density, creating the impression of a uniform profile for the group. That leaves open the question of whether the Latino experience is similar in other parts of the country. A close look at data from 100 midsized American metropolitan regions indicates that, as education and employment opportunities become available to a small segment of Hispanics, their economic achievement follows a different pattern. In areas of low Hispanic density, Latinos fare much better on a number of economic predictors. The price for their success, however, may be one of low cultural visibility and partial success. Despite higher levels of educational attainment and employment, they are still unable to reach parity with the majority in economic rewards.
Research on work in Latin America has in many ways followed the region's struggles with economic development. As countries deal with globalization pressures, switching from import substitution state-driven development to export policies sustained by privatization, much has changed in the workplace of Latin Americans. Recently, that has translated into a growing body of literature on work in the region, with much of it reflecting the efforts of a new generation of Latin American scholars. Unfortunately, most of their work is yet to be circulated among scholarly circles in the United States. This article is an effort to provide U.S. researchers in the area with an overview of what is being done in sociology of work in Latin America, especially the research lines that have developed in the past 20 years.
The modern period of Protestant missions parallels 19th-century Western capitalist expansion, which aided northern hemisphere churches in extending their mission work to the south. In some regions, those missions followed a sponsored model, where the church was part of the larger transplanted colonial social order. In others, missions operated in an open religious market, where churches vied for their share of converts. This article compares the work of two American Protestant denominations in an open religious market , looking for the conditions that facilitated or hindered their propagation. It finds that differences in faith and timing of arrival help explain degree of success in the host society.Modern Protestant missions 1 were part of a Western capitalist expansion that took place in the second half of the 19th century, during a period of increased world trade. The expansion brought economic, political, and social consequences to southern hemisphere nations (Brook . In areas under 19th-century colonial rule, Protestant churches used colonial ties to launch a widespread missionary effort. In noncolonial areas, increased trade brought the presence of northern hemisphere immigrants and the rise of new middle-class groups. Both factors facilitated independent mission work.In 19th-century colonial areas Protestant missions tended to follow a sponsored model of religious propagation, operating as established "churches" (Troeltsch 1960). They were part of the larger social order being exported and seen as the religious expression of the colonizing power. 2 Missionaries took advantage of the colonial infrastructure (reliable transportation and communication systems, law enforcement, and land grants) to expand their work in more or less monopolistic ways, spreading churches, schools, and hospitals throughout each colonial nation (
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