Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Jan E. Stets
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Personal Note ◽  
To Come ◽  
American Society ◽  
First Offers

Abstract: The chapter provides an overview of this book on religious non-affiliation in American society. It first offers some social science background on the non-affiliated in the United States, so that readers will have some general knowledge before they embark on the book. Then it provides a brief overview of each chapter, so that readers will be familiar with what is to come. The chapter’s author is an identity scholar, so there follows a discussion of how we might understand the changing nature of the religious identity in American society. The chapter ends on a personal note with the author’s own experience and a brief evaluation of religious non-affiliation.

Health and Health Systems in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parin Dossa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Beliefs ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Muslims ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
American Society ◽  
Health Beliefs And Practices

The long history of Islam in the United States is not well understood. The first Muslims to come to this country were African slaves followed by Muslims from the Ottoman Empire. As time went by, other Muslims from different parts of the world followed suit. Today, Muslims form part of the sociocultural and religious diversity of US society. A unique feature of this community is its diversity, a function of different schools of thought as well as different migration trajectories in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, class, and countries of origin. Its diversity has generated a rich body of knowledge on health care that can enrich the American biomedical model. Yet, this knowledge has been subjugated and remains unrecognized owing to structural exclusion of Muslims exacerbated by 9/11. The aim of this article is to highlight health beliefs and practices of American Muslims with the view to recognizing their contribution to American society, leading to greater acceptance of this community. In sum, beyond addressing systemic exclusion, it is important to recognize that American Muslims have a long history and richness in understanding health in diverse sociocultural milieus in Islam that can and should be recognized in clinical care.

Americanization and the Immigrant Church in the 1920s

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Immigrant Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
American Society ◽  
Political Divide ◽  
Greek Immigrants

This chapter recounts the ways the archdiocese tried to overcome the political divide that affected Greek Orthodox life. It highlights how the archdiocese attempted to devise a strategy that would confront the pressures in order to assimilate and “Americanize” what the Greek immigrants faced in the 1920s. It also explores the prospect of a long-term presence in the United States that became a reality. This chapter addresses the question on how best to become part of American society and maintain ties with the homeland in order to preserve Greek ethnic and religious identity. It looks into several strategies that evolved within the Greek community, which ranges from the advocacy of so-called 100 percent Americanism to a more cautious stance that acknowledged the need for the Greeks to demonstrate loyalty and acquire US citizenship.

Looking Out for Something Better to Come: Interview with Director Hanna Polak

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Masha Shpolberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hair Color ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Garbage Dump ◽  
To Come

Hanna Polak was in the United States in December 2015 for a screening of Something Better to Come (2014) and The Children of Leningradsky (2004) at Yale University, where the interview was conducted. Polak's devastating documentary Something Better to Come swept through the festival circuit with force, winning a Special Jury Award at IDFA along with awards at over twenty other festivals. Shot illegally on a garbage dump just outside Moscow over the course of fourteen years, the film follows a girl named Yula from age 10 to 24, as she grows up doing the things that teenagers everywhere do—experimenting with her hair color and makeup, with cigarettes and alcohol—all while living in the most difficult of conditions.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
American Society ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

The persistence of racial inequality in the United States raises deep and complex questions of racial justice. Some observers argue that public policy must be “color-blind,” while others argue that policies that take race into account should be defended on grounds of diversity or integration. This chapter begins to sketch an alternative to both of these, one that supports strong efforts to address racial inequality but that focuses on the conditions necessary for the liberty and equality of all. It argues that while race is a social construction, it remains deeply embedded in American society. A conception of racial justice is needed, one that is grounded on the premises provided by liberal political theory.

Millennial Missionaries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Dugan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Gender Essentialism ◽  
Craft Beer ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
Religious Landscape

This book is an ethnography of millennial-generation Catholic missionaries. The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) began hiring young adults to evangelize students on college campuses in 1998. Since then, FOCUS missionaries have developed a style of Catholic evangelization that navigates between strict and savvy interpretations of Catholic teaching in contemporary US youth culture. The Catholicism that FOCUS missionaries embrace and promote grew up with them and amid their middle-class American norms—missionaries own iPhones, drink craft beer, and create March Madness brackets. Born in the 1990s, millennial missionaries in their skinny jeans and devotional tattoos, large-framed glasses and scapulars embody an attractive style of Catholicism. They love saints and have memorized the “Tantum Ergo,” are fluent in college-student slang, but reject hook-up culture in favor of gender essentialism dictated by papal teachings. Missionaries rely on their social capital to make Catholicism cool. Many of their peers have been characterized as defectors from religious institutions. Yet, underneath the rise of “nones” is a story of increased religious piety. This book studies religion in the United States from the perspective of proud Catholic millennials. As they navigate their Catholic and US identities, these missionaries propose Catholicism as uniquely able to overcome perceived threats of secularism, relativism, and modernity. How, why, and with what implications is this Catholicism enacted? These questions, which point to power struggles between US culture and religious identity, drive this book. Through their prayers and evangelization efforts, missionaries are reshaping Catholic identity and shifting the religious landscape of the United States.

Migration for Mission

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Johnson ◽  
Patricia Wittberg ◽  
Mary Gautier ◽  
Thu Do
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Study ◽  
Catholic Sisters ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Catholic Organizations ◽  
To Come ◽  
Washington University ◽  
The Trinity

This book presents quantitative and qualitative data from the first-ever national study of international Catholic sisters in the United States, the Trinity Washington University/CARA Study. International sisters are defined as those born outside the United States and currently ministering, studying, or in residence in this country. The book begins with a chapter that locates current international sisters in the long line of sisters who have come to this country since the eighteenth century. The book identifies the sisters of today, describes the pathways they used to come here, their levels of satisfaction, their concerns and contributions, the issue of immigration status, the challenges of sister students, and the role and mission of Catholic organizations assisting immigrants in general, and international sisters in particular. The book ends with implications of the research and recommendations regarding resources, ministries, and structures of support for international sisters.

Japanese Reinvention of Self through Hawai‘i’s Japanese Americans

2012 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujin Yaguchi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Asian American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese History ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Postwar Reconstruction ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
Modern Japanese History ◽  
American Society

This article investigates the relationship between Asian American and modern Japanese history by analyzing the image of Japanese Americans in postwar Japan. Based on a book of photographs featuring Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i published in 1956, it analyzes how their image was appropriated and redefined in Japan to promote as well as reinforce the nation’s political and cultural alliance with the United States. The photographs showed the successful acculturation of Japanese in Hawai‘i to the larger American society and urged the Japanese audience to see that their nation’s postwar reconstruction would come through the power and protection of the United States. Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i served as a lens through which the Japanese in Japan could imagine their position under American hegemony in the age of Cold War.

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