diversity and volunteerism

The Sociological Quarterly

48

(2007) 93–118 © 2007 Midwest Sociological Society

93

The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USATSQThe Sociological Quarterly0038-02532007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.200748193118RELIGION: AGENCY AND NEGOTIATION

Family and Religious Socialization for Asian AmericansJerry

Z. Park and Elaine Howard Ecklund

*Direct all correspondence to Jerry Z. Park, One Bear Place #97326, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798;telephone: 254-710-3150; e-mail: [email protected]

NEGOTIATING CONTINUITY: Family and Religious Socialization for Second-Generation Asian Americans

Jerry Z. Park*

Baylor University

Elaine Howard Ecklund

University at Buffalo, SUNY

This article examines second-generation Asian Americans’ explanations of the significant influ-

ences on their own religious identities. Data include interviews (N

=

73) with college-aged Asian

Americans from different religious traditions and ethnic backgrounds. Respondents viewed fami-

lies as the most significant influence on current religiosity. Mothers and fathers were mentioned

most often, followed by extended kin, siblings, and relatives, who acted as what we call “reinforcers,”

“substitutes,” or “contrasts” to the roles that parents played in religious socialization. These roles

occurred along two religious configurations within families: heterogeneous or homogeneous

degrees of religious commitment and religious affiliation. Directions for future research and con-

tributions to the religious transmission literature follow.

INTRODUCTION

Scholars view the family as the central site of religious transmission (Acock and Bengtson1978; Thomas and Henry 1985; Bao, Whitebeck, Hoyt, and Conger 1999; Edgell 2005).America’s changing racial, ethnic, and religious demographics, however, may challengewhat we know about the place of families in transmitting religious identities and prac-tices. Post-1960s immigration is broadening the American racial and ethnic landscapesby bringing large numbers of immigrants from non-European parts of the world such asAsia, Latin America, and the Caribbean Basin. These new nonwhite immigrants are bothincreasing religious diversity and radically changing the ethnic and racial composition ofAmerican Christianity (Warner and Wittner 1998). This new immigration pattern alsosignals a change in American family demography. According to recent census reports,those under the age of 18 that are either foreign born or born to at least one nonnativeparent now constitute nearly 20 percent of all U.S. children (Fields 2003). Yet, littleresearch specifically examines the ways in which family and religion connect within thisnew ethnic and religious landscape, particularly for members of non-Christian religioustraditions or for nonwhite members of Christian religions (Boyatzis 2003). Here, werespond to this gap by asking what Asian Americans from different religious and ethnic

94


48


Family and Religious Socialization for Asian Americans

Jerry Z. Park and Elaine Howard Ecklund

groups view as the significant forces in their own religiosity. We are particularly interestedin what role they see their families playing in this process. We also examine whether theexplanations that Asian-American respondents provide are similar or different fromwhat sociologists already know about the role that families play in religious transmissionfor other groups.

We organize our argument into two parts. First, we show that, similar to non-Asianfamilies, parents are often the first source of religious influence. Similar to previousresearch Asian-American respondents mentioned mothers more often than fathers asbeing strong influences on their own religiosity. The significance of parental influence,however, includes an assortment of different practices not established in the broader reli-gion and family literature. Findings complicate the role of the ethnic congregation in theAsian-American community by emphasizing the overlapping influences of the familyboth at home and in the religious organization.

Second, different from existing research on religious transmission, and possiblyunique to the Asian-American experience, in addition to parents, these respondents seeother family members as key agents in religious socialization. The distinctive ways inwhich nonparental family members were described as influences followed three particu-lar paths, which we conceptualize as “reinforcement, substitution, and contrast” roles.This article expands knowledge of religious heterogeneity within families by focusing onthe impact of religious diversity on the children (rather than spouses, as in the existing lit-erature) in a family. These findings also allow us to propose a theoretical model for thespecific role of families in religious transmission among Asian Americans.

FAMILY, IMMIGRATION, AND RELIGIOUS TRANSMISSION

Family and Religious Transmission Research

Although other factors influence individual religiosity,

1

researchers find that families arethe primary determiner of religious beliefs. Such findings repeatedly show that the religi-osity of an individual’s parents has a direct and positive influence on their own religios-ity.

2

When researchers discuss “family,” however, they generally refer exclusively toparents rather than including other significant figures in a household (such as siblings,relatives, or in-laws) (Acock and Bengtson 1978; Nelsen and Rizvi 1984; Wilson andSandomirsky 1991; Myers 1996; Wuthnow 1999a,b). A large number of studies revealthat mothers and fathers have a different influence on the religiosity of children. Withfew exceptions (Gunnoe and Moore 2002; Weilhouwer 2004), researchers find that themother’s role has the strongest effect both in sustaining and in transmitting religion to thechildren (Acock and Bengtson 1978; Nelsen 1980; Dudley and Dudley 1986; Davidsonet al. 1997; Bao, Whitebeck, Hoyt, and Conger 1999; Boyatzis 2003).

3

Fathers, too, play aspecific role in religious transmission (Bartkowski and Xu 2000; Wilcox 2002), but theirrole either differs from that of mothers or seems to have less of an impact on children(Kieren and Munro 1987; Hayes and Pittelkow 1993). For example, one study examinesthe likelihood that parents will transmit religious beliefs to adolescent first-born sons andfinds that mothers and fathers influence different aspects of religiosity for children.




48


95

Mothers mainly influence the practical application of religion for sons whereas fathersinfluence participation in a religious community, in this case church attendance (Clark,Worthington, and Danser 1988).

Two important commonalities appear in these studies. One is the use of whiteAmerican Protestant or Catholic samples (Keeley 1976; D’Antonio 1985; Heaton andGoodman 1985; Thornton 1985, 1989; Ellison and Sherkat 1993; Mahoney et al. 2003).With few exceptions (Herzbrun 1993; Bacon 1996; Boyatzis 2003), little work considerswhether or how the different family factors that influence religious transmission for whiteChristians will also be an important influence for nonwhite Christians and membersof non-Christian religions. Asian-American religion includes Christianity, bothProtestantism and Catholicism, as well as an array of other religions, includingBuddhism, Hinduism, and Islam (Jasso, Massey, Rosenzweig, and Smith 2003; Lien andCarnes 2004). Given the expanding presence of Asian Americans in our society, examin-ing the family dynamics of both Asian-American Christians and non-Christians is animportant step toward understanding how religious transmission among AsianAmericans is similar to or different from that among white American Christians.

Second, given that Asian America contains more religious diversity when comparedto the U.S. population as a whole, research on religious heterogeneity within the family ispertinent. In our review of the religious transmission literature, we noted that there aremany studies examining the role of religion in families when the mother and father havedifferent religious affiliations. Such studies, however, have typically centered on conse-quences for marital quality (Chinitz and Brown 2001), with much less attention paid tothe impact that religious heterogeneity within a family has on children.

4

Further, religiousheterogeneity in the family typically refers to a handful of religious affiliation combina-tions, namely Catholic-Protestant, and Christian-Jewish households (Sherkat 2003),rather than to the diverse array of religiously heterogeneous combinations that are possi-ble within the Asian-American community.

Questions such as “To what extent is religious diversity occurring within Asian-American households?” and “What effect might such diversity have on children?” are leftunanswered. We have no reliable data that tells us whether Asian-American householdsare more homogeneous or heterogeneous in terms of religion, but some studies havestressed the significance of conversions to Christianity among Asian immigrants in theUnited States, most notably among the Chinese (Yang 1998, 1999b; Ng 2002). Adult con-versions can have a significant impact on the religious dimension of family life for chil-dren, since some may experience a religiously mixed or heterogeneous household as aresult of a family members’ switch to Christianity. Furthermore, since Asian Americanscomprise the most religiously diverse racial group, household religious heterogeneity forAsian Americans could refer to additional combinations not visible within many whiteU.S. households, such as Protestant-Buddhist or Christian-Hindu.

Asian-American Immigration and Religion Research

Knowledge about Asian-American religions has dealt primarily with the role of congre-gations in immigrant communities rather than family life (Warner and Wittner 1998;

96


48




Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Kwon, Kim, and Warner 2001; Ebaugh and Chafetz 2002; Minand Kim 2002; Carnes and Yang 2004). In particular, most of these studies emphasize theways in which ethnic congregations maintain ethnic identity through religion for the firstgeneration and, in some cases, the second generation (Min 1992; Bankston and Zhou1995; Chong 1998; Zhou and Bankston 1998; Yang 1999b; Kim and Kim 2001). The roleof families in the religious transmission process is not centrally examined in these studies.Without any alternative perspectives that center directly on the family, such research cancreate the impression that the key force in determining religion for the children of immi-grants is the ethnic congregation, despite research that shows immigrant families are cen-tral in promoting positive outcomes for their children (Zhou 1997).

5

In the growing number of studies that explore Asian-American second-generationreligion, the central site where religion is examined is not the family, but the congregationor equivalent religious organization (Abusharaf 1998; George 1998; Kurien 1999; Yang1999; Cha 2001; Chai 2001; Kim and Kim 2001; Chen 2002; Kurien 2002; Dhingra 2003;Kim and Pyle 2004; Jeung 2005). Studies about family in the lives of second-generationimmigrants generally center on discussions of ethnic identity (Hong and Min 1999; Minand Kim 1999; Thai 1999; Kibria 2002; Killian and Hegtvedt 2003; Lee and Zhou 2004).For example, Karen Pyke’s work on second-generation Korean and Vietnamese Ameri-cans shows us that the “normal American family” is often cited by these respondents as away to articulate their experiences growing up with their presumably “nonnormal”immigrant parents (Pyke 2000).

Our research fills several significant gaps in the existing literature. Universal argu-ments concerning “religious transmission” typically use white Protestant or Catholicexperiences as reported in surveys. As the presence of Asian Americans grows in theUnited States, American religion is becoming less Euro-Protestant, with many Asiancommunities consisting of non-Western variations of Christianity (e.g., Syrian Chris-tianity among Indian Christians, and Confucian-influenced Protestantism among Prot-estant Chinese and Korean Americans), and non-Christian religions (e.g., Buddhism,Hinduism, and Islam) (Smith and Kim 2005). To fill this gap, our study examines AsianAmericans from different religious traditions.

Timothy Fong (2002) and more recently Yu Xie and Kimberly Goyette (2004) haveshown that, based on census data from 1990 and 2000, Asian-American families on aver-age are larger than most white and black families. In addition, they note that in 1990, 17.4percent of Asian-American households contained extended kin (i.e., anyone who is not aparent, in-law, spouse, or child) compared to 7.4 percent in the national average (Fong2002). Using the standard of “multigenerational” family (i.e., a minimum of three gener-ations in a household) 15 percent of Asian-American households fall under this defini-tion compared to 5 percent of white households (Fong 2002; Xie and Goyette 2004).These compositional differences could result in sibling and extended kin (such as grand-parents) exhibiting greater influences on religious socialization within the family whencompared to non-Asian groups of Americans. Our research expands the conception of“family” in the study of religious transmission, which typically means the influence ofparents, by including the possible importance of extended kin.




48


97

While some studies have addressed the significance of Asian immigrant conversionsto Protestant Christianity (Yang 1998), we do not know what effect religious diversitywithin families has on the children of these immigrants. What is religious socializationlike for those who are raised in families where some members are Buddhist and others areProtestant? Again, consideration of the variety of household compositions that constitute“family” for Asian Americans applies not only to parents, but to siblings and extended kinas well. Our study also uncovers a variety of interreligious combinations within house-holds and how Asian-American respondents perceive these diverse combinations toinfluence their own religiosity. Finally, the study of Asian-American religion has rarelyplaced the family in the foreground. Research on Asian-American religions typicallyexamines the lives of first-generation immigrants, their activity within the ethnic congre-gation, and how they sustain their ethnic identity. Among the increasing number of stud-ies of religion among second-generation Asian Americans, the focus shifts to how thechildren of immigrants negotiate the differences between religion and ethnicity. But evenin this growing literature, the emphasis is still primarily on the religious organization,whether a church or college religious organization, rather than other factors that mightshape the religious experience of Asian Americans.

DATA AND METHODS

Data for this article is part of a larger study of ethnic and religious identities among sec-ond-generation Asian Americans. From the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001, Jerry Z. Parkconducted 88 face-to-face semistructured interviews with second-generation AsianAmericans. Interviews consisted of 20 questions and lasted between 30 and 90 minutes.By “second-generation” we refer to those individuals who were either born in the UnitedStates (N

=

56) or grew up in the United States prior to the age of 13 (sometimesdescribed as the “1.5” generation, N

=

32). These individuals were located through vari-ous student organizations based on a typology that stratified groups along religious andethnic interests: strictly ethnic (e.g., Filipino Students Association), strictly religious (e.g.,Hindu Students Association), ethnic-religious (e.g., Asian American Intervarsity Chris-tian Fellowship), and a residual other category (e.g., College Democrats). This strategywas intended to produce a more balanced number of respondents with different culturalidentities (e.g., those who emphasize ethnicity over religion, religion over ethnicity, nei-ther, or both). These organizations were selected from among four public universities,one in each of the census regions carrying the largest percentage of undergraduate AsianAmericans. The universities included the University of Houston (19 percent), Universityof Illinois at Chicago (22 percent), University of California at Irvine (55 percent), and TheState University of New York at Stony Brook (21 percent).

Fifty percent of the respondents were women and 50 percent were men. Respondentsranged in age from 18 to 26 years with a mean of 20.8. They were also from a variety of dif-ferent Asian ethnic groups, including Chinese (n

=

16), Indian (n

=

19), Korean (n

=

17),Japanese (n

=

2), Filipino (n

=

10), and Vietnamese (n

=

9). Several respondents were ofother Asian ethnic groups (n

=

6) or identified as having a mixed Asian ethnic heritage

98


48




(n

=

9). Religion-wise, the respondents were diverse and included Catholics (n

=

20),Protestants (n

=

25), Buddhists (n

=

6), Hindus (n

=

15), Muslims (n

=

3), and membersof other minority religions (n

=

4). The remaining respondents were not part of any reli-gion (n

=

15). Our analysis here focuses on the 73 respondents who reported a religiousaffiliation.

In the interviews, we asked respondents about their own religious identities and theinfluences that may have shaped the significance of their current religious tradition.

6

Bothof the authors reanalyzed each interview to determine main themes related to influenceson personal religiosity. Then, we recoded the responses according to these themes, com-paring the members of each religious tradition to one another. In this way, our data anal-ysis strategy followed a modified inductive method of analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1990).This analysis strategy was appropriate because we were proceeding with a research ques-tion about which there is very little previous research. We see these findings as developedgrounded assertions about the place of families in accounts of religious adherence forsecond-generation Asian Americans. Such grounded assertions could be further testedin other studies.

There were limitations and benefits to using a college sample. A young adult sample isan appropriate group among which to examine issues related to religious transmissionsince college-aged individuals are in the process of making decisions about their own reli-giosity (Oyserman and Sakamoto 1997). While stratification by organization typeallowed us to control for certain kinds of organizational effects, such as oversamplinghighly salient ethnic or religious responses, the sample itself was not strictly random.Rather, respondents consisted of student leaders who cooperated upon contact througheither phone or e-mail. Further, because these respondents attended four-year universi-ties, they do not represent the class heterogeneity present in the general Asian-Americanpopulation. Despite these limitations, the spread and depth of the sample across ethnicityand religion greatly expand the other available data on this topic, allowing us to developbounded findings about the religious transmission process from which to generate andtest future hypotheses and theories.

ASIAN-AMERICAN FAMILIES AND RELIGIOUS TRANSMISSION

A dominant theme through these interviews was the significant role that families of ori-gin played in religious transmission. Although some talked about other forces, such asschools, families were more important than any other influence in determining religiousidentities. We found that the role of the family and the role of the congregation over-lapped in our respondents’ narratives of religious socialization, where parents providedthe means by which children receive religious training in the congregation and providemodels of participation and leadership for children.

Unlike previous research, which has equated family with “mother and father,” wefound that when these Asian Americans mentioned “family,” they referred to a more com-plex system of influential people that included but was not limited to their parents. Moth-ers were specifically mentioned more often than anyone else as a central influence; as with




48


99

previous research, their contribution to religious socialization far outweighed other fam-ily members and was evident both at home and in the religious congregation. Fatherswere mentioned less often and their influence was more mixed; in some cases, fatherswere seen as being a part of a respondent’s religiosity, but in other cases, were noticeablydistant or absent altogether. In addition, extended kin (whether stateside or abroad), suchas aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, as well as nearer kin like brothersand sisters were also significant influences for respondents of all religious traditions. Thevariety of family influences as well as the links between the domestic household and theethnic congregation together is represented in Figure 1.

As we listened to the descriptions that Asian Americans gave for how different familymembers played a role in their own religious socialization, we found several combina-tions of dynamics at work. Although parents were often the primary socializing agents,other family members acted as

substitutes

in the absence of parental influence,

reinforcers

in concert with them, or

contrasts

in comparison with them. Substitute family influencestypically replaced a primary socialization agent, usually parents, and sometimes the con-gregation. Reinforcers acted as additional exemplars that shore up the significance andplausibility of religion, and contrasting agents provided examples of a religious traditionthat is an alternative to the family members’. These dynamics mapped together with thesubstantive differences that respondents saw in their families’ own religious histories.Religious affiliation was taken for granted by some, but the degree of religiosity was seenas the true measure of authentic faith. For others, diverse religious affiliations were thenormal experience. These distinctions produced a variety of environments in which reli-gious socialization experience took place, which we explore in more detail below.

FIGURE 1.

Asian-American Family Influences on Religious Socialization.

Religious self-

identity

Father

Siblings

Mother

Extended kin

Nuclear family

International family visits

Local household

Congregation

100


48




“Ever Since I Was Born . . .”: Parents as Links to Religious Organizations and Activities

In a number of instances when we asked interviewees what influences played a role intheir religious socialization, they described their family influence as embedded within achurch setting. This sentiment is exemplified by the oft-repeated statement:

“Ever since Iwas born, I was in the church.”

The consistency of this explanation, heard not only fromProtestants and Catholics but from Hindu and Muslim students as well, suggests not onlythe importance of the ethnic church in the cultural script of adaptation for Asian Ameri-cans, but also the link between the ethnic religious organization and the family, possiblyconfirming the important role of congregations in the United States (Warner 2000). Wefound at least two ways in which this link was expressed: access to the institution and lead-ership in the institution.

Access to a religious institution was understood both literally and symbolically. Par-ents provided children and young adults opportunities to participate in the life of a reli-gious organization by the act of bringing them to a religious gathering. Such activitiesmight include worship services, religious education classes, and youth group participa-tion. At a symbolic level, however, some also recognized their parents’ involvement interms of leadership and service. Catherine, a Korean-American Protestant in Chicago,described the totalizing experience of her family’s religious influence as seen in her homelife and her parents’ participation in church.

Ever since I was little . . . I grew up in a Christian home and every Sunday my parentshave taken me and my brother to church. My parents have always been very active inchurch too. Just coming from that background and that family background intro-duced me to it and then aside from that, at my old church, as I got older, we gotinvolved in the youth group. And every summer and every winter, there would be ayouth retreat for churches all over the area, . . . So there would be guest speakers thatwould come and speak and you would be able to meet other Korean Christians. That’spretty much how that has had an effect on my life. (Interview, September 2000)

To be sure, Catherine highlighted all the ways that the local Korean Protestant churchhelped her develop her faith, which included youth group involvement and areawideyouth retreats with noted Korean Christian speakers. But none of this would have beenpossible without the initial link her parents provided as active members of the church.While not explicit, her parents’ religious participation provides some evidence thatmothers and fathers play an important role in religious socialization by modeling partic-ipation within the context of the religious organization.

In another example, Angela, a Filipina Catholic from New York, explained that herreligious participation was often compulsory as a member of a household whose parentswere highly devout:

My parents . . . would always force me to go to church. I mean, yeah, there were timeswhen I didn’t want [to go] and during those times I know I should go. Like especiallymy birthday. (Interview, December 2000)

Despite the frustration on special occasions like her birthday, the cumulative effect of herparents’ influence through church attendance left Angela with a deep impression of herfaith tradition’s importance in her life.




48


101

We found similar responses among the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim Asian-American respondents. Helen, a Korean Buddhist in Chicago, told the interviewer thatafter trying the Korean Catholic and Presbyterian churches with her Korean friends, shethought she would “give my parents’ religion a chance.” In another part of the interview,Helen went on to say, “So I went with my mom, [and] I actually started to listen to the ser-mons and felt, not ‘belonged’ per se, but in touch with Buddhism” (Interview, September2000). In another example, Ritwik, an Indian Hindu from Chicago, said that his parentsintroduced him to Hinduism by attending cultural events, talking about it, and visitingthe temple. And Maryam, a Pakistani Muslim, described her parents as having a stronginfluence on her faith development: “We go to a lot of conventions that are religiousconventions; . . . going to the mosque had made me closer too” (Interview, October2000). These examples show the importance of the parents’ role as both actual and sym-bolic links to religious organizations.

“Because, You Know, God Watches . . .”: Parents as Domestic Practitioners of Religion

Most previous research on Asian-American religion has focused primarily on religiousorganizations, often ignoring the significance of the domestic experience of religion. Butsimilar to studies on immigrant Indian Hindu and Christian communities (Bacon 1996;George 1998; Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Kurien 2002), we found a number of respon-dents reporting the home-based influence of their parents through domestic religiouspractices. Some made mention of their parents reading the Qu’ran or the Bible to them,while others recall reciting family prayers or receiving moral instruction. Based on theseprevious studies, we expected that home-based rituals might be

less

important to mem-bers of religious traditions that have significant institutional and organizational resourcesin the United States, such as Protestants and Catholics, when compared to those religionswith fewer such resources, for example, Buddhism or Islam. We found, however, that theimportance of family-based religious rituals and practices was important for members ofboth Christian and non-Christian religions. Denise, a Filipina Catholic from New York,mentioned that her parents would help interpret the television news through religion:

When we would watch the news and when something bad happened, sometimes myparents would relate that to religion. (Interview, December 2000)

Prema, an Indian Hindu from Houston, explained that her parents’ influence wasthrough moral training and discipline in the everyday aspects of living:

I would definitely say parents [were influential]. ’Cause they’re always teaching likenot to do bad, bad things, because you know, God watches. I think parents on likeday-to-day activities you know, giving me lectures here and there . . . stuff like that.(Interview, October 2000)

The parental influence on the domestic front was apparent in many of these responses.Parents acted as models of ritual practice, moral instructors, and religious teachers in thechildhood experiences of these Asian Americans. While the content of the practices andbeliefs may vary across religions, we noticed that the respondents, regardless of religion,tended to describe these experiences with their parents in much the same way. Because ofthe numerous instances where a specific parent was mentioned with respect to religious

102


48




socialization, we explored some of the ways that mothers and fathers specifically had aninfluence on second-generation Asian Americans.

“I Look Up to My Mom a Lot in That Way”: Mothers as Religious Exemplars

When we examined the responses that mentioned mothers, we found that mothers wereoften mentioned in relationship to their service in a local religious organization. Mothersserved in various capacities as pastors, temple leaders, and active congregant members.Generally, mothers were more often mentioned as a salient influence in the respondent’sreligious socialization. Typical of these responses was Mi-gyung, a Korean-AmericanProtestant from Chicago:

My mom most especially has given me a lot of guidance as far as religion. My momand I have had some deep talks. I look up to my mom a lot in that way. (Interview,December 2000)

Responses concerning mothers were often stated in this matter-of-fact manner; a respon-dent’s mother was and is very religious, period. This tendency suggests the foundationalrole that mothers play in passing down religious traditions and is similar to previousresearch among white American Christians.

7

“Sometimes but Not as Much as My Mom:” Fathers as Supportive but Distant Influences

Fathers in general were mentioned less often. In several cases, the interviewer needed tospecifically ask about the role of the father in personal religiosity before he was men-tioned. When we reviewed the examples of the influence of fathers, we noticed some casesin which the role of the mother was positioned in contrast to the father. For example,David, a Chinese-American Protestant, began his explanation by stating that his parentsstressed religion a lot:

Parents stressed it a lot, especially my mom. She always gets on me, “Oh are you read-ing the Bible every day?” “Are you praying?”

I take it they’re both Christian?

Yes, they are. So my mom stressed it a lot. Every time I talk to her, she always brings itup. . . . I think my parents played the biggest part in forming my religion. (Interview,November 2000)

David made no mention of his father at this point so the interviewer asked himspecifically:

Did your father by any chance play any particular role? You mentioned that your motheroften asked you questions . . . ?

My dad does sometimes, but not as much as my mom. He doesn’t stress it as much’cause my dad became a Christian through my mom. My mom was Christian first,then, my dad became Christian. When I was younger, he was really into church, butthen we changed pastors. He didn’t like the way this one taught so he wasn’t into it asmuch, so he kind of started to slowly turn from that. He’s still a Christian and he stillbelieves and everything they stand for, but he just, I guess, he doesn’t attend church asmuch as he used to. But he would say it once in a while but not stress it as much as mymom. (Interview, November 2000)




48


103

At home, David witnessed his father’s religious participation change over time, and inlight of this inconsistency he concludes that his father’s influence is present “sometimes,but not as much as my mom.” In some cases, we found that fathers were quite active eitherat home (reading Bible stories or leading the family rosary prayer) or at a local religiouscommunity (as pastors, elders, deacons, general helpers). And in other cases, they wereseen as reticent (“dad was not very religious”) or only indirectly encouraging. Cynthia, aVietnamese-American Catholic from Houston, explained that while her father was notCatholic, he still encouraged her to attend Mass:

[M]y mother is Catholic and my father is not. My father is nondenominational. Heunderstood that it was important to my mother for me to learn Catholicism and forme to be Catholic. With all of my siblings, it’s that way. So even though he didn’t nec-essarily have a faith, he would push us in that direction and he would say, “You shoulddo this” and “You should study this” and beyond going to church, they would teach usat home. (Interview, October 2000)

In recent decades, American Christianity has seen an explosion of nondenominationalchurches (Miller 1997; Sargeant 2000), organizations that are typically evangelical Prot-estant but eschew any traditional ties to a specific denomination, such as Baptist or Pres-byterian. Given this reality, we asked Cynthia to clarify whether her nondenominationalfather was Protestant or simply nonreligious. She replied:

He doesn’t go to church. He’s never stated his religious beliefs to me but he’s not Cath-olic, I know that. But still, to this day, I do not know what my father is. So, I am goingto assume him to be Christian, or at least he tells me he’s Christian. He just doesn’t tellme exactly what he is. (Interview, October 2000)

Similarly, when asked if his parents were Buddhist, Takatoshi, a Japanese-AmericanBuddhist, explained:

My parents are—my dad is not religious at all. My mom . . . it’s like my dad tells mymom to take, used to tell her to take me and my brothers to church just because it waslike a good thing to do, not because he saw any divine purpose in it. (Interview,November 2000)

From Takatoshi’s perspective, his father sees the local Buddhist organization as a place formoral socialization. His father’s presence is felt only indirectly as the one who encourageshis mother to take the children to religious services and organizations. Fathers played avariety of roles but were often described by respondents as distinct from mothers in termsof emotional distance. While not every respondent described her father in this way, this“distance” dynamic was present more often in respondents’ discussions about theirfathers when compared to their mothers.

Expanding Family Influences: Siblings and Relatives

Without question, parents played a critical role in the religious socialization of most ofour respondents. For these Asian-American children of immigrants, however, otherfamily members sometimes contributed to, or even superseded, the influence of parents.While not technically extended kin, siblings were mentioned often enough that theystood out as a significant nonparental family influences in respondents’ religious

104


48




socialization. Many of our respondents also explained the importance of extended kin,some of whom lived in the same household. For some, these relatives were important fig-ures who lived nearby rather than in the home and, for others still, nonparental relativesprovided an influence when respondents visited these extended kin in the native lands oftheir parents. The significance of these added family influences in the lives of second-generation Asian Americans rests not only in their mere presence but also in the specificrole they play as reinforcers of, substitutes for, or contrasts to the influence of parents.

“I Think If [My Brother] Didn’t Become Christian . . .”: Siblings as Socializing Agents

In a number of instances, we found respondents mentioning the important contributionsof brothers and sisters in forming their personal faith.

8

Previous research has overlookedthe role of siblings when discussing the place of “family” in religious transmission. Wefound that these interviewees were often challenged and inspired by older brothers andsisters as siblings paved the way in taking hold of the faith of their parents. Cynthia, whowe met earlier, recalled the unique practices of one of her sisters:

My sister went off and did some Bible study type things, and I did a lot at home and Ihad an active participation in the other church, the Vietnamese Catholic church,which my sister didn’t. So, it was kind of like my parents said, “Okay, well, we’re notgoing to say you have to do this, but it is a good idea that you learn to do these kind ofthings.” And so, I studied at home and studied at both the churches, things like that.(Interview, October 2000)

Cynthia interpreted the difference in the forms of religion she and her sister practiced asstemming from a semiflexible religious model conveyed by her parents; being Catholic isimportant and religious organizational participation is important—but the configura-tion of participation ought to be a decision of the children. Clearly, her parents were theimportant influences, but the alternate path she observed in her sister was also instructivein interpreting the implied messages of her parents. Siblings often served in this capacityas a measuring stick of the respondent’s own religious trajectory.

Jim, a Korean-American Protestant, illustrated this pattern in his description of theinfluence of his family:

My parents and my oldest sister are [very religious]. I have four older sisters. My par-ents and my oldest sister are very religious, but my three other sisters and I aren’t.(Interview, September 2000)

Jim clearly placed his own religiosity in the midst of that of his sisters and situated his feltlack of religious observance as similar to that of some, but not all, of his siblings. Theirpresence in his life and their religiosity helped create a peer-level barometer within thefamily for estimating his faith commitment. He could readily evaluate “real religiosity”because one of his sisters reflected strong commitment, a comparison that helped con-firm for Jim the significance of his parents’ influence in his religious socialization, even ifat this point in time he wasn’t very religious himself.

Most often, when respondents talked about the place of their siblings in developingtheir own religiosity, they mentioned such a role in very positive ways. That is, the effectthat they saw in their siblings (usually an older one) altered their own attitude toward




48


105

religion, sometimes serving as catalysts to initiating a religious journey. Andrew, a Thai-Chinese Protestant from New York, described the change he saw when his brother“became a Christian”:

I think the biggest one would probably be my brother. . . . He had become Christian,maybe about four or five years ago and at that time I was still in high school. I can stillvividly remember how much my brother was anti-Christian but hearing him say,“Yeah, I’m a Christian” really hit my heart for some reason because my brother’s a verystubborn person and for him to change so drastically was like, “Hmm. I wonderwhat’s this all about.” I think if he didn’t become a Christian and I didn’t see the trans-formation or the change of personality, I don’t think I would have been so open tolooking into Christianity. And, I think, once I let myself be open, to actually look intothings, after a while things really [made] sense. (Interview, December 2000)

Andrew later told us that his parents are Buddhists. From his perspective, his brother’spositive change in behavior occurred as a result of converting to Christianity, and it wasthis “transformation,” as he described it, that led him to embrace Christianity as well.

9

Wesaw this dynamic several times, especially in the descriptions of the role that other rela-tives had on some of the respondents. In a number of cases, siblings were often substitutesor contrasting examples to the religious commitment (or lack thereof) of parents. Onereason for this important role of siblings in developing personal religiosity may be that,because of a lack of human capital in the first generation (language skills, education, etc.)older siblings may take on a more parental role than found in other American sibling rela-tionships, consequently leading to the greater influence of siblings in the religious social-ization process for this group.

“Why Are We Going to Celebrate Easter at Grandma’s House When She’s Buddhist?”: Extended Kin as Substitute Socializing Agents

While brothers and sisters were significant influences, respondents also mentionedbroader networks of extended kin, including aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, ashaving important roles in religiosity. Such additional individual-level influences wereoften part of the taken-for-granted meaning behind “family” for young Asian Americans.“Family” included this wide array of individuals spanning vertically across generationsand horizontally across peer-age cousins. When Peter, a Korean Protestant from Chicago,was asked to explain how his faith became such an important feature in his life, he illus-trated the complex web of family influences that included his parents but reached acrossseveral generations. He mentioned that his extended family experienced a good deal ofhardship including the loss of family members, which caused him to explore his faith:

My family is relatively young. My mom is 39. She had me when she was 21. My grand-mother is the age of some of my friends’ mothers. They are in pretty good health, butthen kind of toward high school, I had some relatives pass away. One of my grand-mothers on my father’s side had acute leukemia. My great grandmother passed awayduring high school and I was really close to her because she lived with us all of my life.When they passed away, I kind of asked myself, “If they were Christians and theybelieved in God and they never did any bad things, what could cause them to get ill?”

106


48




I was kind of confused; it made me think of my religion and stuff. If God is such a goodGod, why does he let evil things happen to good people? My parents tried their best toexplain it to me. And that kind of questioning sparked my curiosity and that is one ofthe reasons I looked into Christianity more and tried to understand it better. I knewthat religion was not a simple thing. The more you learn the more questions you have.(Interview, September 2000)

Similar to many who hold deep religious sensibilities, Peter’s understanding of the impor-tance of religion in his life is related to major events of loss, particularly family loss. Butunlike many examples of white American religious socialization, “family” referred to ahost of relatives including parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. Theseextended kin members were not merely symbolic characters in Peter’s parents’ retelling ofthe family’s religious history; they were integral people in his personal life while growingup in the same household. He noted the shared faith tradition of his relatives, which deep-ened his spiritual seeking and questioning since their deaths could not be reconciled withhis understanding of a good God. His parents too, according to Peter, tried to counselhim. But as his tone suggested, their efforts had a negligible impact. We learned later inthe interview that a church youth minister helped him to reconcile his faith and tragic lifeevents.

In some instances, the influence of relatives was felt even though they did not sharethe same roof as the respondent. Joseph describes himself as a Hapa (half Japanese, halfwhite). He is a Buddhist, from Irvine, and grew up in a mixed religious household. Hismother was a Christian (although he could not remember “exactly which kind”), and hisfather was nominally religious but originally came from a Buddhist family heritage.Joseph’s family experience was patrilocal since most of his mother’s side of the family wasin Ohio and Pennsylvania. When asked about the influences on his own religious com-mitment Joseph notes not his father, but his father’s side of the family, particularly hispaternal grandmother:

Yeah. It’s mainly my family, probably my grandma, my grandpa. My dad wasn’t tooinvolved in the church but every year I go help out at their food bazaar. I always talk tomy grandma about it to try and find out more. She’s probably the biggest influencetowards that aspect of my life. (Interview, November 2000)

Interestingly, Joseph mentioned further that he was uncomfortable with attending theBuddhist temple near his grandparents’ home, which suggested a curious problem:Joseph claimed that his grandparents were the strongest influences in his Buddhist adher-ence and yet they did not act as a link to the local religious institution. In what way thenwere his grandparents an influence? One way is suggested in a story from his childhood:

All of these years, I used to go to my grandma’s house for Easter, and when I was 14 or15, I started thinking to myself: Why are we going to celebrate Easter at grandma’shouse when she’s Buddhist? Then, when I was 17, when we were eating she said, “Yeah,it’s sort of funny, everybody celebrates Easter around this time.” And she goes, “Andit’s just pure coincidence that Hanamatsu,” which is a Buddhist holiday, like therebirth of Buddha, falls around the same time too.” She referred to my mom and said,“You can celebrate Easter” and since she doesn’t really know how me and my brother




48


107

align ourselves, she said, “Yeah, you guys can celebrate Easter, or whatever holiday youwant to celebrate, and then I can celebrate the dinner for Hanamatsu.” I think that’sthe pronunciation of it. But, yeah, it just answered one of those questions that I justbrought in my mind about two or three years prior to that, and I just didn’t want toask her. So I felt uncomfortable asking her about stuff like that. But then, as I got intocollege, I realized that she probably would have enjoyed talking to me about stuff likethat. So . . . now if I have a question for her I probably just ask. (Interview, November2000)

Joseph’s grandmother does not come across as a dynamic and inspiring teacher in thisexample. But she was enough of a presence in Joseph’s life to leave an imprint of her iden-tity as a Buddhist. Viewed from another angle, the fact that he saw his grandparents asvery influential meant they acted as substitutes for his parents in the socialization process.We note, too, that this experience occurred outside of the temple, and inside the familialsettings of his extended family. We repeatedly found religious socialization as an organicproject, where different figures and institutions operated in a variety of configurationswith only a few common characteristics.

Relatives from Far Away: International Family Ties and Religious Socialization

In a number of cases, the influence of extended kin was experienced through visits to theoriginal homelands of the respondents’ parents or through transnational ties. The influ-ence of transnational ties on personal religiosity was mentioned specifically among ourHindu respondents more so than others. Perhaps more so than any other world religion,Hinduism is associated with one nation, India, a fact that may explain the importance oftransnational ties for the Hindu respondents.

10

Neha, who lived in Chicago, explainedthat her understanding of Hindu values was based, in part, on interactions with hercousins in India:

There are certain things that I have learned, maybe from talking to cousins in India. Ido not drink and I do not smoke, and that is really important to me and that is thestuff that my parents have passed on. I guess just respecting who I am and respectingothers. (Interview, December 2000)

We learn later in the discussion with Neha that these cousins in India were part of herextended family network, and despite the distance even by bloodline, she maintained thatthey are a significant influence:

We have a lot of relatives that are in India, relatives in a very loose term. Not firstcousins or immediate relatives, but second or third cousins that you learn a lotfrom. (Interview, December 2000)

As with parents and local relatives, visits to relatives in distant countries linked childrenand young adults to indigenous expressions of religion, as Neha explained:

I think the influences definitely come from my dad’s side of the family. Even thingslike going back to visit India, a lot of the trip there is visiting temples and visiting holyplaces, so that is a big influence. (Interview, December 2000)

For some Asian Americans, the transnational influence of relatives is historical. We heardseveral Protestant and Catholic respondents state that their religious heritage can be

108


48




traced back several generations typically beginning with a pivotal experience of a grand-father or grandmother in the country of origin. Consider Kevin, a Korean-AmericanProtestant from Irvine, who explained that his grandmother was the first Christian in hisfamily lineage. He explained:

Her [my grandmother’s] daughters, my mother, and my aunts, they all went to churchand when my father and mother wanted to get married, there was a condition that hehad to attend church in order to marry her, and that was all of the conditions. Whenthey got married, he started going to church. (Interview, November 2000)

Rachel, a Sri Lankan Catholic living in Houston, shared a similar story about her grand-father who converted from Hinduism to Catholicism years ago and still lives in Sri Lanka:

My mother has had a big role. Actually, my mother and her father, my grandfather,because he . . . converted from Hinduism into Catholicism and he was . . . Catholic.And going to church is a very important part because in Sri Lanka it’s only like 6 per-cent Catholic in that country. So he was a very strong influence. And my mother, Iguess, she got that from him and she was the one, that . . . we didn’t just go to church.We did the rosary at home and every night she would say prayers on her own. And Iadmired her and I looked up to her and she . . . my father was always kind of . . . hewould go but never was really involved. She had a big influence and my grandfathertoo. (Interview, October 2000)

Several earlier themes are also evident here. Rachel’s mother played a central role in lead-ing her religious practice both at home and at church; her father was present but “neverwas really involved”; and her grandfather began the chain of Catholic faith in the familywhile in Sri Lanka—all of which served to enable Rachel’s religious faith.

Divergent Roles of Family Members in Religious Socialization: Cumulative and Contrast Models

As discussed, family influences in religious transmission for second-generation AsianAmericans include parents, siblings, and other relatives. Through these influential fig-ures, religious identity was socialized both via the relationship between the individualand the family member as well as the family links to the institutions and organizationsthat further contributed to the process of forming a religious identity.

Family members, however, often played different roles according to their strength ofreligious commitment and their specific religious affiliations. In each of the explanationsabout family influences, different actors were significant because of contrasting degreesof religiosity (e.g., mom was super-religious but dad was not) and/or contrasting reli-gious affiliations (e.g., my uncles and aunts are Protestant but my parents are Catholic).We stress these as independent factors because we found instances of different combina-tions of factors as illustrated in Table 1, which uses several of the above-mentioned casesas examples.

As depicted in the table, for Neha and Catherine, all of the family members who con-tributed to their respective religious upbringings shared either the Hindu faith (in thecase of Neha) or the Protestant faith (in the case of Catherine), and all members were seenas observant. In the example of David and Kevin, all of the influential family figures were




48


109

described as sharing the same religious tradition, but at least one of the noted individuals(a mother, a father, or another relative) was described as being less observant relative tothe standard that these respondents felt warranted “true faith.” When listening to Josephand Cynthia, we hear examples of varying religious faiths and varying degrees of that faithin practice as perceived by the respondent. For example, Joseph’s father was not particu-larly observant in the Buddhist tradition while his mother was at least moderately obser-vant (at least enough to bring her child to church) in a Protestant denomination. Cynthiahad a mother who was a devout Catholic but her father was a Protestant and not particu-larly observant. The more questionable category in this matrix refers to a family religiousstructure where religious heterogeneity is occurring and respondents view family mem-bers as consistent in their degree of observance. To some extent, this might be evident inAndrew’s case, where he recalls his Buddhist family’s criticism of his acceptance of Prot-estantism while his brother served as a model for his own choice of adherence to a faithtradition that Andrew saw as at odds with the family’s tradition. Implicit here is the sharedobservance level of the various factions in his family, even though they adhere to differentpractices.

While this sample is not representative of all second-generation Asian Americans, wenoted too that, with the exception of Joseph, nearly all examples of family religious heter-ogeneity were among the Catholics and Protestants, and typically, the pattern includedsome exit from either Buddhism or Hinduism. Some of these religious switches reflectedthe religious conversion experiences among immigrants or the children of immigrants,but in a few cases, the change occurred in the sending country at an earlier generation.Both of these patterns suggest the significance of evangelistic and missionary efforts in theUnited States among immigrant communities (Yang 1998; Espiritu 2004) and in theAsian sending nations. Among our Hindu and other non-Christian respondents, wefound no examples of individuals who started out as Protestant or Catholic and switchedto being Muslim or Hindu.

11

And among those who practiced the non-Christian reli-gions, we found no examples of respondents mentioning religious heterogeneity in theirfamily religious composition. For them, the patterns consisted of religious homogeneitywith varying degrees of strength of religious observance.

While gender has often been associated with different patterns of religiosity, we foundno discernible pattern of effects apart from some minor gendered relationships. As notedearlier, same-sex older siblings were sometimes instrumental in encouraging religiousadherence, and, with respect to parents of mixed religion, most of the time the same-sex

TABLE 1.

Typology of Asian-American Religious Households of Origin

Degree of Religious Commitment in

the Household

Religious Composition of Household

Homogeneous

Religious Affiliation

Heterogeneous

Religious Affiliation

Homogeneous Religious Commitment Catherine, Neha Andrew

Heterogeneous Religious Commitment Kevin, David Joseph, Cynthia

110 The Sociological Quarterly 48 (2007) 93–118 © 2007 Midwest Sociological Society

Family and Religious Socialization for Asian Americans Jerry Z. Park and Elaine Howard Ecklund

parental religion was transmitted to the respondents. The religion of the mother, how-ever, tended to transfer to the next generation more often than the religion of the father,regardless of the gender of the respondent, a finding that stands in contrast to previousresearch. Furthermore, this pattern was more evident among the Catholic than the Prot-estant respondents.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

We presented here several key facets of family life that second-generation Asian Ameri-cans of various religious traditions cite as important influences on their own religiousidentities. This study expands the literature on family religious transmission by drawingtogether the link between family religious socialization and congregational religioussocialization. We expand the cast of influential family members in Asian America toinclude siblings and extended relatives. Based on these results, we proposed a theoreticaldynamic in religious socialization that accounts for diversity in both commitment andaffiliation among Asian Americans.

Like previous research, the family was mentioned as one of the key influences, if notthe central influence, in religious socialization. We also noted that families were animportant link to receive socializing influences in the ethnic church, a connection whichhas not been stressed in previous research on immigrant religious organizations. Parentsnot only provided the means by which children received religious training, simply bytransporting them to a local religious center, they also provided a symbolic resource forstrength of religious commitment by their roles as leaders in religious communities.Interestingly, such links were not necessarily for the express purpose of religious social-ization but more for moral socialization, a distinction that was clearly important to somerespondents in understanding their own religious trajectory. Similar to previous researchamong white Christian samples, we found that mothers played a specific role as the reli-gious model that second-generation Asian Americans recall as being particularly centralin their own religious development. Fathers, too, played a role but, in a number of cases,were mentioned as an indirect or distant influence.

In addition, siblings often had an important place as exemplars or partners in under-standing a parental faith tradition. Extended family, such as aunts, uncles, grandparents,and cousins, were also significant influences. These extended kin sometimes worked assupporting influences in concert with parents in reinforcing respondents’ religioussocialization, and, at other times, worked as substitutes for a felt absence in their parents’influence. Analyses also revealed that extended kin provide influences that appear withinthe bonds of family but across locales, whether nearby or exerting transnational influ-ence, maintained through significant visits to a parental homeland. Last, our theoreticalmodel takes into account the multiple religious compositions present within AsianAmerica, both in terms of perceived observance and in terms of affiliations in the families.These patterns do not necessarily reflect a simple causal connection, but most likelyreflect the ways in which second-generation Asian Americans construct a satisfactorynarrative of their religious upbringing.12

Jerry Z. Park and Elaine Howard Ecklund Family and Religious Socialization for Asian Americans

The Sociological Quarterly 48 (2007) 93–118 © 2007 Midwest Sociological Society 111

Our results indicate that the perception of families in religious transmission may bedependent on the larger contexts of immigrant generation and the institutional locationof a particular religious tradition within broader American religion. For example, ourHindu respondents cited transnational ties as particularly important. This could reflectthe position of Hinduism as a world religion that is more regionally specific and thereforeencourages stronger ties with migrant communities in the United States. Such transna-tional ties could reduce the need for extensive organizational resources within the UnitedStates that are found among immigrant Christian religious communities and evenamong some non-Christian religious groups, such as American Muslims.

Furthermore, possibly particular to the immigrant location of these respondents,extended families were important in developing religious identities. This finding con-firms other research on Asian-American immigrants, which shows that many live withextended family members in addition to parents (Fong 2002). Such family configurationsmay be a product of cultural values embedded in Confucian and other traditional prac-tices and/or as a result of chain migration patterns, where immigrants bring members oftheir families from the nation of origin to live with them in the United States. Over time,however, it is not clear whether future generations of Asian Americans will also perceiveextended families to have such a prominent place in their religious socialization, particu-larly if transnational ties wane over generations. Although we did not ask respondentsspecifically if they were raised in an ethnic enclave setting, other research reveals thatwhen children of immigrants become part of the mainstream economy, many leaveethnic enclaves and, with this transition, also leave close proximity to extended families(Alba and Nee 2003). Because of this, extended families may not be as influential in reli-gious socialization for the third and fourth generations as they were for our respondents.Researchers who study religion and family among new groups of Americans will need tocontinue to explore the influence of extended families on the development of individualreligious identities.

Our finding that mothers were particularly significant in the lives of respondents notonly confirms what the broader religion and family literature shows, but also joins withresearch in the immigration and religion literature, which argues that women may fulfillimportant positions in immigrant religious communities, emphasizing the particularways women have used religion to gain status (Ebaugh and Chafetz 1999). By exploringreligion and immigration outside the walls of the congregation, the findings of this articlehave added a new dimension to the religion and immigration literature by demonstrat-ing that feminized religious leadership in the home may be a particular way that first-generation women gain status and power through the migration process as well asinfluence the second generation. Future researchers must ask if maternal influence onreligious socialization will continue into the third and fourth generations, particularly ifchild rearing becomes less gendered for members of later generations.

These findings point the way for several future research directions when consideringthe place of the family in religiosity for new ethnic groups and new religious traditions.This study used a sample of college-attending second-generation Asian Americans, mak-ing these findings primarily relevant to the experiences of young, highly-educated, Asian



Americans. As a consequence, we were not able to explore the class distinctions presentwithin Asian America. Because of segmented assimilation patterns, ethnic identitysalience may vary according to class position (Espiritu 2004). Future research shouldspecifically explore class differences and the experience of family influences on Asian-American religious identity.

In particular, qualitative studies ought to compare the differences in perceptions ofAsian-American family influence on religious choices and practices among members ofthe first generation when compared to members of the second generation in additionalcontexts besides the religious organization. Survey researchers might broaden their stud-ies to consider the differences in institutional resources available in the United States tomembers of Christian religions when compared to members of non-Christian religioustraditions and how such resources might influence the role of families in religious social-ization. Since the vast majority of scholarship on religious transmission has typically cen-tered on the white Christian experience, future research should consider comparativeanalyses of religious transmission across racial groups within American Christianity aswell as across various groups in America’s growing religious mosaic.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Wendy Cadge, Kristen Schultz Lee, Peter Kivisto, andanonymous TSQ reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.Portions of this project were funded by the Fichter Grant of the Association for the Soci-ology of Religion and the Constant H. Jacquet Award of the Religious Research Associa-tion. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2004 annual meeting of theSociety for the Scientific Study of Religion and the 2005 annual meeting of the AmericanSociological Association.

NOTES

1Studies on religious transmission have explored various ways to define and interpret the “religious

factor” (Lenski 1961) and typically center on dimensions of affiliation and commitment. Given

the inductive nature of this study, it was a deliberate research strategy to allow individual respon-

dents to provide their own definitions of religion and explanations of how religious meaning was

shaped by or not shaped by family experiences. As we will show, however, respondents of nearly

all affiliations used either or both of the concepts of affiliation and commitment in their under-

standings of their own religious socialization.2The only exception appears in Arnett and Jensen’s (2002) study of “emerging adults” where they

found little relationship between religious socialization and current religiosity.3The only exception to this appears in Gunnoe and Moore’s (2002) study, who compared multiple

influences of teen religiosity and found that mothers’ influence took second place to peer

influence.4In a handful of studies on religious intermarriage, religious transmission among white Protestants

and Catholics follows the mother’s trajectory except when the father has more traditional reli-

gious beliefs than the mother (Nelsen 1990; Davidson et al. 1997).



5Unique in this regard is the work by Prema Kurien and Jean Bacon. Kurien’s research on gender

dynamics in Hindu associations (and Indian Christian congregations) has emphasized the spe-

cific role of women in religious communities (Kurien 1999, 2002). Kurien’s work shows that

Hindu women in the United States are often the central articulators of the Hindu religion to

the children. They do so in their leadership capacity as teachers in the temple bala vihars as well

as at home (home influence is mentioned only briefly). Bacon’s (1996) study of an Indian

Hindu and an Indian Christian community shows that religious identity can sometimes act as a

“third identity,” where it functions as a bridge between Indian ethnic values and mainstream

American values. From this research, we gather that women also play an important role in

religious socialization, but that this role exists simultaneously at home and in the ethnic

congregation.6Variations of the following questions were asked and responses to these were used in this analysis:

How would you describe your religious preference?

Is that an important part of your life, to be [religious label]?

What sort of influences in your life helped you to understand what it means to be [religious label]?7In some instances, as we will see in more depth later, mothers’ influence was highlighted in con-

trast to fathers’ lack of, or weaker, influence. Nikhil, an Indian-American Hindu, provides a good

example of this dynamic:

My dad? He’s religious but I wouldn’t say he’s as religious as my mom. My mom and I would go

to temple and my dad wouldn’t go. Not that he actually said he wouldn’t go, but he’d have work

to do. My mom would make time for temple. My dad, when he had time to go to the temple,

that sort of thing, so he’s not quite as religious. My mom stopped what she was doing and

scheduled her day around it. My dad would like go out and do and maybe he’ll go next week.8We did not find any mention of the role that siblings played among the Buddhist and Muslim

respondents but this may be due to low sample sizes.9In these examples, we noticed a same-gender interplay, where the positive example of an older sib-

ling was usually the same sex as the respondent. However, we cannot ascertain if this was a regular

enough occurrence to warrant further exploration.10We appreciate the comments of an anonymous reviewer who pushed our thinking in this

direction.11In one particularly anomalous case, one respondent, a Filipina Catholic, described that her

Catholic mother had no influence in her religious upbringing since her divorce to her father, a

Buddhist, with whom the respondent lived in her precollege years. This was the only example we

found of such a claim.12Some studies (e.g., Suh 2004) suggest that there are differences in explanations of religious social-

ization in faith traditions where some groups are more committed (e.g., Protestants and Muslims)

among Asian immigrant families than others (e.g., Catholics, Hindus, and Buddhists). Based on

this research, we might expect that Buddhist Asian Americans would describe their parents as

encouraging flexibility and agency when choosing a tradition. Ellison and Sherkat (1993) show,

however, that while conservative Protestant parents prize obedience in their children, they do not

devalue autonomy. This suggests that agency is also present in some Christian traditions. We were

unable to find a clear distinction across religions in this particular sample of religious Asian

Americans. In this respect, our analysis corroborates with Cadge and Davidman’s (2006) recent

articulation that ascription and agency in understanding religious identities often appear simul-

taneously in the narratives of individuals.



REFERENCES

Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa. 1998. “Structural Adaptations in an Immigrant Muslim Congregation

in New York.” Pp. 235–64 in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immi-

gration, edited by R. S. Warner and J. Wittner. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Acock, Alan C. and Vern L. Bengtson. 1978. “On the Relative Influence of Mothers and Fathers: A

Covariance Analysis of Political and Religious Socialization.” Journal of Marriage and the Family

40:519–30.

Alba, Richard and Victor Nee. 2003. Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contem-

porary Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen and Lene Arnett Jensen. 2002. “A Congregation of One: Individualized Reli-

gious Beliefs among Emerging Adults.” Journal of Adolescent Research 17:451–67.

Bacon, Jean. 1996. Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation among Asian Indian Immigrants.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Bankston, Carl L. and Min Zhou. 1995. “Religious Participation, Ethnic Identification, and Adap-

tation of Vietnamese Adolescents in an Immigrant Community.” The Sociological Quarterly

36:523–34.

Bao, Wan Ning, Les B. Whitebeck, Danny R. Hoyt, and Rand D. Conger. 1999. “Perceived Parental

Acceptance as a Moderator of Religious Transmission among Adolescent Boys and Girls.” Jour-

nal of Marriage and the Family 61:362–74.

Bartkowski, John P. and Xiaohe Xu. 2000. “Distant Patriarchs or Expressive Dads? The Discourse

and Practice of Fathering in Conservative Protestant Families.” The Sociological Quarterly

41:465–86.

Boyatzis, Chris J. 2003. “Religious and Spiritual Development: An Introduction.” Review of Reli-

gious Research 44:213–19.

Cadge, Wendy and Lynn Davidman. 2006. “Ascription, Choice, and the Construction of Religious

Identities in the Contemporary United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45:23–

38.

Carnes, Tony and Fenggang Yang, eds. 2004. Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking

of Borders and Boundaries. New York: New York University Press.

Cha, Peter T. 2001. “Ethnic Identity Formation and Participation in Immigrant Churches: Second-

Generation Korean American Experiences.” Pp. 141–56 in Korean Americans and Their

Religions: Pilgrims and Missionaries from a Different Shore, edited by H.-Y. Kwon, K. C. Kim, and

R. S. Warner. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Chai, Karen J. 2001. “Beyond ‘Strictness’ to Distinctiveness: Generational Transition in Korean

Protestant Churches.” Pp. 157–80 in Korean Americans and Their Religions: Pilgrims and Mis-

sionaries from a Different Shore, edited by H.-Y. Kwon, K. C. Kim, and R. S. Warner. University

Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Chen, Carolyn. 2002. “The Religious Varieties of Ethnic Presence.” Sociology of Religion 63:215–

38.

Chinitz, Joshua G. and Robert A. Brown. 2001. “Religious Homogamy, Marital Conflict, and Stabil-

ity in Same-Faith and Interfaith Jewish Marriages.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

40:723–33.

Chong, Kelly. 1998. “What It Means to Be Christian: The Role of Religion in the Construction of

Ethnic Identity and Boundary among Second-Generation Koreans.” Sociology of Religion

59:259–86.



Clark, Cynthia A., Everett Worthington Jr., and Donald B. Danser. 1988. “The Transmission of

Religious Beliefs and Practices from Parents to Firstborn Early Adolescent Sons.” Journal of

Marriage and the Family 50:463–72.

D’Antonio, William V. 1985. “The American Catholic Family: Signs of Cohesion and Polarization.”

Journal of Marriage and the Family 47:395–405.

Davidson, James D., Andrea S. Williams, Richard A. Lamanna, Jan Stenftenagel, Kathleen Maas

Weigert, William J. Whalen, and Patricia Wittberg. 1997. The Search for Common Ground: What

Unites and Divides Catholic Americans. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor.

Dhingra, Pawan. 2003. “The Second Generation in ‘Big D’: Korean American and Indian American

Organizations in Dallas, Texas.” Sociological Spectrum 23:247–78.

Dudley, Roger L. and Margaret G. Dudley. 1986. “Transmission of Religious Values from Parents to

Adolescents.” Review of Religious Research 28:3–15.

Ebaugh, Helen Rose and Janet Saltzman Chafetz. 1999. “Agents for Cultural Reproduction and

Structural Change: The Ironic Role of Women in Immigrant Religious Institutions.” Social

Forces 78:585–613.

——. 2000. Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congrega-

tions. New York: AltaMira Press.

——. 2002. Religion across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks. Walnut Creek, CA:

AltaMira Press.

Edgell, Penny. 2005. Religion and Family: Understanding the Transformation of Linked Institutions.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Ellison, Christopher and Darren Sherkat. 1993. “Obedience and Autonomy: Religion and Parental

Values Reconsidered.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32:313–29.

Espiritu, Yen Le. 2004. “Asian American Panethnicity: Contemporary National and Transnational

Possibilities.” Pp. 217–34 in Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

on Immigration, Race, Ethnicity in the United States, edited by N. Foner and G. M. Fredrickson.

New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Fields, Jason. 2003. “Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002.” Pp. 1–20 in

Current Population Reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Fong, Timothy P. 2002. The Contemporary Asian American Experience: Beyond the Model Minority.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

George, Sheba. 1998. “Caroling with the Keralites: The Negotiation of Gendered Space in an Indian

Immigrant Church.” Pp. 265–94 in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New

Immigration, edited by R. S. Warner and J. Wittner. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Gunnoe, Marjorie Lindner and Kristin A. Moore. 2002. “Predictors of Religiosity among Youth

Aged 17–22: A Longitudinal Study of the National Survey of Children.” Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion 41:613–22.

Hayes, Bernadette C. and Yvonne Pittelkow. 1993. “Religious Belief, Transmission, and the Family:

An Australian Study.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 55:755–66.

Heaton, Tim B. and Kristen L. Goodman. 1985. “Religion and Family Formation.” Review of Reli-

gious Research 26:343–59.

Herzbrun, Michael B. 1993. “Father–Adolescent Religious Consensus in the Jewish Community: A

Preliminary Report.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32:163–68.

Hong, Joann and Pyong Gap Min. 1999. “Ethnic Attachment among Second Generation Korean

Adolescents.” Amerasia Journal 25:165–80.



Jasso, Guillermina, Douglas S. Massey, Mark R. Rosenzweig, and James P. Smith. 2003. “Exploring

the Religious Preferences of Recent Immigrants to the United States: Evidence from the New

Immigrant Survey Pilot.” Pp. 217–53 in Religion and Immigration: Christian, Jewish, and

Muslim Experiences in the United States, edited by Y. Y. Haddad, J. I. Smith, and J. L. Esposito.

Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Jeung, Russell. 2005. Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches. New Brunswick,

NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Keeley, Benjamin J. 1976. “Generations in Tension: Intergenerational Differences and Continuities

in Religion and Religion-Related Behavior.” Review of Religious Research 17:221–31.

Kibria, Nazli. 2002. Becoming Asian American: Second-Generation Chinese and Korean American

Identities. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kieren, Dianne K. and Brenda Munro. 1987. “Following the Leaders: Parents’ Influence on Adoles-

cent Religious Activity.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26:249–55.

Killian, Caitlin and Karen A. Hegtvedt. 2003. “The Role of Parents in the Maintenance of Second

Generation Vietnamese Cultural Behaviors.” Sociological Spectrum 23:213–45.

Kim, Henry H. and Ralph E. Pyle. 2004. “An Exception to the Exception: Second-Generation

Korean American Church Participation.” Social Compass 51:321–33.

Kim, Kwang Chung and Shin Kim. 2001. “The Ethnic Roles of Korean Immigrant Churches in the

United States.” Pp. 71–94 in Korean Americans and Their Religions: Pilgrims and Missionaries

from a Different Shore, edited by H.-Y. Kwon, K. C. Kim, R. S. Warner. University Park: Pennsyl-

vania State University Press.

Kurien, Prema. 1999. “Gendered Ethnicity: Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States.”

American Behavioral Scientist 42:648–70.

——. 2002. “ ‘We Are Better Hindus Here’: Religion and Ethnicity among Indian Americans.” Pp.

99–120 in Religions Asian America: Building Faith Communities, edited by P. G. Min and J. H.

Kim. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Kwon, Ho-Youn, Kwang Chung Kim, and R. Stephen Warner, ed. 2001. Korean Americans and Their

Religions: Pilgrims and Missionaries from a Different Shore. University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press.

Lee, Jennifer and Min Zhou, eds. 2004. Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity. New

York: Routledge.

Lenski, Gerhard. 1961. The Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion’s Impact on Politics,

Economics, and Family Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Lien, Pei-Te and Tony Carnes. 2004. “The Religious Demography of Asian American Boundary

Crossing.” Pp. 38–51 in Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking of Borders and

Boundaries, edited by T. Carnes and F. Yang. New York: New York University Press.

Mahoney, Annette, Kenneth I. Pargament, Aaron Murray-Swank, and Nichole Murray-Swank.

2003. “Religion and the Sanctification of Family Relationships.” Review of Religious Research

44:220–36.

Miller, Donald E. 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium.

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Min, Pyong Gap. 1992. “The Structure and Social Functions of Korean Immigrant Churches in the

United States.” International Migration Review 26:1370–94.

Min, Pyong Gap and Jung Ha Kim, eds. 2002. Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communi-

ties. New York: AltaMira Press.



Min, Pyong Gap and Rose Kim, eds. 1999. Struggle for Ethnic Identity: Narratives by Asian American

Professionals. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Myers, Scott M. 1996. “An Interactive Model of Religiosity Inheritance: The Importance of Family

Context.” American Sociological Review 61:858–66.

Nelsen, Hart M. 1980. “Religious Transmission versus Religious Formation: Preadolescent–Parent

Interaction.” The Sociological Quarterly 21:207–18.

——. 1990. “The Religious Identification of Children of Interfaith Marriages.” Review of Religious

Research 32:122–34.

Nelsen, Hart M. and Arshad Rizvi. 1984. “Gender and Religious Socialization: Comparisons from

Pakistan and the United States.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 15:281–90.

Ng, Kwai Hang. 2002. “Seeking the Christian Tutelage: Agency and Culture in Chinese Immigrants’

Conversion to Christianity.” Sociology of Religion 63:195–214.

Oyserman, Daphna and Izumi Sakamoto. 1997. “Being Asian American: Identity, Cultural

Constructs, and Stereotype Perception.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 33:435–

53.

Pyke, Karen. 2000. “The ‘Normal American Family’ as an Interpretive Structure of Family Life

among Grown Children of Korean and Vietnamese Immigrants.” Journal of Marriage and the

Family 62:240–55.

Sargeant, Kimon Howland. 2000. Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontradi-

tional Way. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Sherkat, Darren. 2003. “Religious Intermarriage in the United States: Trends, Patterns, and Predic-

tors.” Social Science Research 33:606–25.

Smith, Tom W. and Seokho Kim. 2005. “The Vanishing Protestant Majority.” Journal for the Scien-

tific Study of Religion 44:211–23.

Strauss, Anselm and Juliet Corbin. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures

and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Suh, Sharon A. 2004. Being Buddhist in a Christian World: Gender and Community in a Korean

American Temple. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Thai, Hung C. 1999. “ ‘Splitting Things in Half Is So White!’ Conceptions of Family Life and Friend-

ship and the Formation of Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Vietnamese Americans.”

Amerasia Journal 25:53–88.

Thomas, Darwin L. and Gwendolyn C. Henry. 1985. “The Religion and Family Connection:

Increasing Dialogue in the Social Sciences.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 47(May):369–

79.

Thornton, Arland. 1985. “Reciprocal Influences of Family and Religion in a Changing World.” Jour-

nal of Marriage and the Family 47:381–94.

——. 1989. “Changing Attitudes toward Family Issues in the United States.” Journal of Marriage and

the Family 51:873–93.

Warner, R. Stephen. 2000. “Religion and New (Post–1965) Immigrants: Some Principles Drawn

from Field Research.” American Studies 41:267–86.

Warner, R. Stephen and Judith G. Wittner, ed. 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities

and the New Immigration. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Weilhouwer, Peter W. 2004. “The Impact of Church Activities and Socialization on African-

American Religious Commitment.” Social Science Quarterly 85:767–92.

Wilcox, W. Bradford. 2002. “Religion, Convention, and Paternal Involvement.” Journal of Marriage

and the Family 64:780–92.



Wilson, John and Sharon Sandomirsky. 1991. “Religious Affiliation and the Family.” Sociological

Forum 6:289–309.

Wuthnow, Robert. 1999a. Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith.

Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

——. 1999b. “Civic Engagement.” “Mobilizing Civic Engagement: The Changing Impact of Reli-

gious Involvement.” Pp. 331–63 in American Democracy, edited by T. Skocpol and M. P. Fiorina.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.

Xie, Yu and Kimberly A. Goyette. 2004. A Demographic Portrait of Asian Americans. Washington,

DC: Russell Sage Foundation/Population Reference Bureau.

Yang, Fenggang. 1998. “Chinese Conversion to Evangelical Christianity: The Importance of Social

and Cultural Contexts.” Sociology of Religion 59:237–57.

——. 1999a. “ABC and XYZ: Religious, Ethnic, and Racial Identities of the New Second Generation

Chinese in Christian Churches.” Amerasia Journal 25:89–114.

——. 1999b. Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities.

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Zhou, Min. 1997. “Growing Up American: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children and

Children of Immigrants.” Annual Review of Sociology 23:63–95.

Zhou, Min and Carl L. Bankston. 1998. Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to

Life in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.