God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape

A major new examination of the American immigrant experience, revealing how recent immigrants are transforming religion in America and around the globe. "People who know how to live in more than one cultural world have mastered the art of living in this global age, which is good for this country and for their homelands."-fromGod Needs No Passport Thousands of Hindus fill the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City to worship with their guru from Gujarat, India. The Boston Garden plays host to a packed house of Brazilian Protestants, with ministers beamed in via satellite. Similar scenes are played out across middle America, where millions of new immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America have settled over the past decade. While many Americans expect that immigrants will trade in one membership card for another, sociologist Peggy Levitt's pathbreaking new account argues instead that many keep one foot in their countries of origin by participating in religious institutions-made possible by communications technology and the ease of international travel-that are a powerful but little-known force in today's world. Immigrants are changing the face of religious diversity in the United States, Levitt argues, helping to make American religion just as global as U.S. corporations. In a book with stunning implications for today's immigration debates-where commentators routinely refer to a "clash of civilizations"-Levitt shows that the new realities of religion and migration are subtly challenging the very definition of what it means to be an American.God Needs No Passportreveals that American values are no longer just made in the U.S.A. but around the globe.