"Margarita Mooney's path-breaking book, Faith Makes us Live, is the first-ever comparative study of how religious faith and practice affect immigrant adaptation and assimilation. Her imaginative analysis of Haitian immigrants in Miami, Montreal, and Paris shows how religious faith serves to mediate culturally between immigrants and their host societies, but also reveals that by itself faith is not enough to achieve successful integration. Host societies must also be receptive to the religious institutions that serve immigrants if integration is to be achieved. Her book is essential reading for students of both religion and immigration."—Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University "Margarita Mooney's research on Haitian Catholic immigrants in three settings is elegant in design, assiduous in execution, and compelling in presentation. Mooney's immigrants bring a deep piety with them across the ocean, but the different contexts of reception they encounter in Miami, Montreal, and Paris significantly influence their differential adaptation to their new homes in the U.S., Canada, and France. Faith Makes Us Live is an essential contribution to the growing body of literature on religion and immigration."—R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago "Faith Makes Us Live is one of those rare books that succeeds in making a valuable contribution on at least three fronts: it extends the literature on religion and immigration by showing how religious organizations serve as mediating structures between immigrants and their host communities, it demonstrates to scholars interested in faith-based service organizations that the larger relationships between church and state must be considered carefully through a comparative framework, and it provides students of religion with a compelling, up-close-and-personal account of how faith matters in the daily lives of Haitian immigrants."—Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University "What excites me most about Faith Makes Us Live is that it analyzes the role played by the Catholic Church in immigrant incorporation while taking into consideration the distinctive challenges met by Haitians in three societies that treat the poor, immigrants and people of color quite differently. The comparison between Miami, Paris, and Montreal is particularly felicitous given differences in the position and influence of the Church, the characteristics of the Haitian populations, and the public resources available to immigrants across these three contexts. By showing how religion sustains resilience and empowerment for a particularly vulnerable group of individuals, Mooney demonstrates the crucial role of meaning-making matters for immigrant incorporation."—Michele Lamont, Harvard University. "This book teaches us an important lesson: When immigrants are religious—and so many are—pragmatic cooperation between church and state can hasten their acculturation and improve their well-being. Faith Makes Us Live is essential reading for those who want to better understand the role of religion and religious institutions in immigrants' lives."—Mark Chaves, Duke University "An examplar of theory-driven ethnographic research. Professor Mooney provides an ambitious, comparative study at once rich in detail and grand in scope. By systematically comparing three countries on two continents, this book uncovers crucial patterns of relationships among church, state, and civil society and how they affect immigrants on the ground. This is what ethnography should be: rooted in the lived experience of everyday life and yet motivated by the need to understand human social processes in general."—Andy Perrin, University of North Carolina "Thoroughly sociological in design and analysis, this study opens new vistas for the field of religion and immigration. Leaving behind celebratory or critical accounts of the role of religious beliefs in the adaptation of immigrant minorities, Mooney makes clear that processes and outcomes depend on the interaction between religious institutions and the broader socio-political context. An original contribution, made even more valuable by its focus on one of the most downtrodden groups in the migrant world."—Alejandro Portes, Princeton University

In addition to being a religious countryùover ninety percent of Americans believe in God--the United States is also home to more immigrants than ever before. Churches and Charity in the Immigrant City focuses on the intersection of religion and civic engagement among Miami's immigrant and minority groups. The contributors examine the role of religious organizations in developing social relationships and how these relationships affect the broader civic world. Essays, for example, consider the role of leadership in the promotion and creation of "civic social capital" in a Haitian Catholic church, transnational ties between Cuban Catholics in Miami and Havana, and several African American congregations that serve as key comparisons of civic engagement among minorities. This book is important not only for its theoretical contributions to the sociology of religion, but also because it gives us a unique glimpse into immigrants' civic and religious lives in urban America.

Exploring the subject through many different theoretical frameworks and epistemological traditions, this book confronts the history of Haiti's three major practicing religious faiths: Vodou, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant Evangelicalism. Scholars, researchers, and faith practitioners have often depicted relations between these traditions as antagonistic, conflicting, unproductive, and lacking in mutual understanding. With the aim of exploring the possibility of nation building in Haiti and the benefits of interreligious collaboration, contributors to this book consider topics such as the obstacles to interfaith dialogue, religious conflict, interreligious dialogue in schools, race and identity, and religious pluralism. This book will be beneficial to scholars, practitioners, historians, and sociologists of religion, as well as the religious communities themselves in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora.

Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, significant numbers of Haitian immigrants began to arrive and settle in Miami. Overcoming some of the most foreboding obstacles ever to face immigrants in America, they have diversified socioeconomically. Together, they have made South Florida home to the largest population of native-born Haitians and diasporic Haitians outside of the Caribbean and one of the most significant Caribbean immigrant communities in the world. Religion has played a central role in making all of this happen. Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith is a historical and ethnographic study of Haitian religion in immigrant communities, based on fieldwork in both Miami and Haiti, as well as extensive archival research. Where many studies of Haitian religion limit themselves to one faith, Rey and Stepick explore Catholicism, Protestantism, and Vodou in conversation with one another, suggesting that despite the differences between these practices, the three faiths ultimately create a sense of unity, fulfillment, and self-worth in Haitian communities. This meticulously researched and vibrantly written book contributes to the growing body of literature on religion among new immigrants. Terry Rey is Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University. He is the coeditor (with Alex Stepick and Sarah Mahler) of Churches and Charity in the Immigrant City: Religion, Immigration, and Civic Engagement in Miami. Alex Stepick is Professor of Sociology at Portland State University and Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. He is coauthor (with Alejandro Portes) of City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. In the North American Religions series

The colonial history of the Caribbean created a context in which many religions, from indigenous to African-based to Christian, intermingled with one another, creating a rich diversity of religious life. Caribbean Religious History offers the first comprehensive religious history of the region. Ennis B. Edmonds and Michelle A. Gonzalez begin their exploration with the religious traditions of the Amerindians who flourished prior to contact with European colonizers, then detail the transplantation of Catholic and Protestant Christianity and their centuries of struggles to become integral to the Caribbean’s religious ethos, and trace the twentieth century penetration of American Evangelical Christianity, particularly in its Pentecostal and Holiness iterations. Caribbean Religious History also illuminates the influence of Africans and their descendants on the shaping of such religious traditions as Vodou, Santeria, Revival Zion, Spiritual Baptists, and Rastafari, and the success of Indian indentured laborers and their descendants in reconstituting Hindu and Islamic practices in their new environment. Paying careful attention to the region’s social and political history, Edmonds and Gonzalez present a one-volume panoramic introduction to this religiously vibrant part of the world.