God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York's Evolving Immigrant Community

Religion, Race, and Ethnicity Series

by Kenneth J. Guest

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.

Genres: Religion

225 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have some issues with Guest's writing - I don't find it to be as engaging as some other ethnographies I have read in the past. However, he is engaging as a public speaker, and I found his stories to come to life when he was lecturing rather than when I was reading them on paper.

I think he makes several good points about the displacement of communities between China and New York, as well as the necessity of social networking as means of survival for new immigrants. I think his points are well articulated, but to be honest ... the book itself is a little boring at times. Overall, however, I do think this book could be vital in studying community and immigration.

[Dream · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is an important book to understand the recent Fujianese immigration to the U.S. The first 2-3 chapters did a great job describing Fujian geography and why immigrants left their home to seek better life in U.S. However, the author spent several chapters describing religions in Fujian and New York City. After a while, the reading became dry.