A resource ideal for students as well as general readers, this two-volume encyclopedia examines the diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander spiritual experience. Despite constituting a fairly small proportion of the U.S. population—roughly 5 percent—Asian Americans are a widely diverse group with equally heterogeneous religious beliefs and traditions. This encyclopedia provides a single source for authoritative information on the Asian American and Pacific Islander religious experience, addressing South Asian Americans, such as Indian Americans and Pakistani Americans; East Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans; and Southeast Asian Americans, whose ethnicities include Filipino Americans, Thai Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. Pacific Islanders include Hawaiians, Samoans, Marshallese, Tongan, and Chamorro. The coverage includes not only traditional eastern belief systems and traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism as well as Micronesian and Polynesian religious traditions in the United States, but also the culture and religious rituals of Asian American Christians.

Despite constituting a fairly small proportion of the U.S. population - roughly 5 percent - Asian Americans are a widely diverse group with equally heterogeneous religious beliefs and traditions. This encyclopedia provides a single source for authoritative information on the Asian American and Pacific Islander religious experience, addressing South Asian Americans, such as Indian Americans and Pakistani Americans; East Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans; and Southeast Asian Americans, whose ethnicities include Filipino Americans, Thai Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. Pacific Islanders include Hawaiians, Samoans, Marshallese, Tongan, and Chamorro. The coverage includes not only traditional eastern belief systems and traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism as well as Micronesian and Polynesian religious traditions in the United States, but also the culture and religious rituals of Asian American Christians.

This comprehensive compilation of entries documents the origins, transmissions, and transformations of Asian American folklore and folklife. Equally instructive and intriguing, the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife provides an illuminating overview of Asian American folklore as a way of life. Surveying the histories, peoples, and cultures of numerous Asian American ethnic and cultural groups, the work covers everything from ancient Asian folklore, folktales, and folk practices that have been transmitted and transformed in America to new expressions of Asian American folklore and folktales unique to the Asian American historical and contemporary experiences. The encyclopedia's three comprehensive volumes cover an extraordinarily wide range of Asian American cultural and ethnic groups, as well as mixed-race and mixed-heritage Asian Americans. Each group section is introduced by a historical overview essay followed by short entries on topics such as ghosts and spirits, clothes and jewelry, arts and crafts, home decorations, family and community, religious practices, rituals, holidays, music, foodways, literature, traditional healing and medicine, and much, much more. Topics and theories are examined from crosscultural and interdisciplinary perspectives to add to the value of the work.

In Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans, David K. Yoo and Khyati Y. Joshi assemble a wide-ranging and important collection of essays documenting the intersections of race and religion and Asian American communities—a combination so often missing both in the scholarly literature and in public discourse. Issues of religion and race/ethnicity undergird current national debates around immigration, racial profiling, and democratic freedoms, but these issues, as the contributors document, are longstanding ones in the United States. The essays feature dimensions of traditions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, as well as how religion engages with topics that include religious affiliation (or lack thereof), the legacy of the Vietnam War, and popular culture. The contributors also address the role of survey data, pedagogy, methodology, and literature that is richly complementary and necessary for understanding the scope and range of the subject of Asian American religions. These essays attest to the vibrancy and diversity of Asian American religions, while at the same time situating these conversations in a scholarly lineage and discourse. This collection will certainly serve as an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and general readers with interests in Asian American religions, ethnic and Asian American studies, religious studies, American studies, and related fields that focus on immigration and race.

Asian American Religions brings together some of the most current research on Asian American religions from a social science perspective. The volume focuses on religion in Asian American communities in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and the Silicon Valley/Bay Area, and it includes a current demographic overview of the various Asian populations across the United States. It also provides information on current trends, such as that Filipino and Korean Americans are the most religiously observant people in America, that over 60 percent of Asian Americans who have a religious identification are Christian, and that one-third of Muslims in the United States are Asian Americans. Rather than organizing the book around particular ethnic groups or religions, Asian American Religions centers on thematic issues, like symbols and rituals, political boundaries, and generation gaps, in order to highlight the role of Asian American religions in negotiating, accepting, redefining, changing, and creating boundaries in the communities' social life.

"Providing comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms, including folk tradition, literature, religion, education, politics, sports, and popular culture, this two-volume work is an ideal resource for students and general readers that reveals the historical, regional, and ethnic diversity within specific traditions. -- Provides readers with a broad understanding of the variety and commonalities in Asian American culture, enabling a fuller comprehension of Asian American history, experience, and cultural expressions -- Offers comprehensive, in-depth, and accessibly written coverage that addresses a wide variety of Asian American cultural forms such as folk tradition, literature, religion, education, politics, sports, and popular culture -- Highlights differences among Asian American cultures and identifies important achievements through biographies of key figures as well as spotlights on historical events, legal cases, and significant artifacts in sidebars -- Presents sources for more information on the subjects discussed with Further Readings for each entry "--