God in Chinatown : : Religion and Survival in New York's Evolving Immigrant Community / / Kenneth J. Guest.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Guest, Kenneth J.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2003]; ©2003
• Year of Publication: 2003
• Language: English
• Series: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity ; 11
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

God in Chinatown is a path breaking study of the largest contemporary wave of new immigrants to Chinatown. Since the 1980s, tens of thousands of mostly rural Chinese have migrated from Fuzhou, on China’s southeastern coast, to New York’s Chinatown. Like the Cantonese who comprised the previous wave of migrants, the Fuzhou have brought with them their religious beliefs, practices, and local deities. In recent years these immigrants have established numerous specifically Fuzhounese religious communities, ranging from Buddhist, Daoist, and Chinese popular religion to Protestant and Catholic Christianity.This ethnographic study examines the central role of these religious communities in the immigrant incorporation process in Chinatown’s highly stratified ethnic enclave, as well as the transnational networks established between religious communities in New York and China. The author’s knowledge of Chinese coupled with his extensive fieldwork in both China and New York enable him to illuminate how these networks transmit religious and social dynamics to the United States, as well as how these new American institutions influence religious and social relations in the religious revival sweeping southeastern China. God in Chinatown is the first study to bring to light religion's significant role in the Fuzhounese immigrants’ dramatic transformation of the face of New York’s Chinatown.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Walking on Water -- 1 Chinatown and the Fuzhounese -- 2 Fuzhou: Diasporic Traditions -- 3 Religion in Fuzhou: An Overview -- 4 Religion in Fuzhou: Spotlight on Christianity -- 5 Chinatown’s Religious Landscape: The Fuzhounese Presence -- 6 “Come unto Me All Ye That Labor and Are Heavy Laden” Building Fuzhounese Protestant Churches in New York’s Chinatown -- 7 Safe Harbor -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author